Hi Adam,
Re: BoMag's Outsider Problem. I couldn’t agree with more with you.
Indeed, I had my own negative experience with this sassy and once-relevant magazine. In the mid-1980s and early 1990s, I was a contributing editor to the magazine, basically functioning as its media critic.
In addition to my day job as TV critic for The Patriot Ledger, I thoroughly enjoyed my association with the magazine. Kenny Hartnett, David Rosenbaum and John Strahanich were the savvy editors I was privileged to work with; and these guys really knew this town inside out.
But with the magazine perpetually in turmoil, the powers-that be eventually hired a new editor—Mike So-and So—from Cleveland. [I honestly can’t remember his name.] Despite my five-year track record, Mike sat on a newsworthy piece I had just written about John Hart, the brilliant, enigmatic anchor of "World Monitor," the national newscast out of Boston that ran on the Discovery Channel, but was owned by the Christian Science Church here in Boston.
Angered by his concern that the Church was intruding into his newscast, in violation of its own written policy, Hart was giving serious thought to resigning.
It was the kind of meaty story that journalists like myself thrived on. Hart had been a distinguished correspondent for “The CBS Evening News” and the “NBC’s Nightly News." And the fact that the Church may have interfered with World Monitor’s news coverage of the infamous Twitchell case made this a potentially big news story.
David and Ginger Twitchell were the Christian Science couple from Massachusetts who relied on prayer rather than on doctors as their young son died of a bowel obstruction. The court case drew national attention when the two were convicted of involuntary manslaughter.
Unfortunately, Mike from Cleveland was new to the city, was unfamiliar with my work and, for all I knew, may not even have been aware that the Christian Science Church was located next to the offices of Boston Magazine. And so, the editor simply sat on the story.
Several months went by. Knowing that John Hart was close to resigning and that the story would not hold much longer, I finally approached the Globe Magazine editor Ande Zellman and told her about my dilemma. Ande gave the article a quick read while I was in her office, then looked up and said simpy “I want it.”
I immediately withdrew the piece from Boston Magazine, and the piece ran shortly thereafter in The Globe Magazine. John Hart resigned the same week; and the Globe Magazine story not only made news in the Boston, but was also picked up by The Washington Post, USA Today and other papers around the country.
I never did another piece for Boston Magazine, and within a year or two Mike from Cleveland was gone—presumably headed back to Cleveland.
Terry Ann Knopf teaches courses in Arts Criticism and Media Criticism in Boston University’s Journalism Department.
