phoenix – RI Future

March 29, 2015March 30, 2015

Philip Terzian is still tweeting on Phoenix’s grave

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Philip Terzian has been a Pulitzer Prize juror, a speechwriter for a former U.S. Secretary of State, and a contributor to the Wall Street Journal, Harper’s, and the American Spectator. According to his bio, he has “reported from a dozen foreign countries,” written a book called Architects of Power: Roosevelt, Eisenhower, and the American Century, and held positions at a number of news organizations, including Reuters, the Los Angeles Times, the New Republic, and the Providence Journal, where he served as editorial pages editor.

It’s this sparkling resume that makes it so striking that Terzian would relish the closing of a community newspaper. He wasn’t just some anonymous Twitter troll chirping about how “amusing” and “deeply satistyfing” he found news of the Providence Phoenix‘s farewell, back in October. He’s the literary editor of the Weekly Standard.

Not just amusing, but deeply satisfying as well | #ProvidencePhoenix to publish last issue next week http://t.co/55PKUNxb96 via @wpri12

— Philip Terzian (@PhilipTerzian) October 9, 2014

Five months later, he’s apparently still giddy about Rhode Island losing its second most widely-circulated newspaper. This past Thursday, he tweeted:

Steady, comforting sound of crickets @provphoenix!

— PhilipTerzian (@PhilipTerzian) March 26, 2015

Now, longtime readers of the Phoenix‘s Philippe and Jorge will remember that Terzian occasionally appeared in the column. In an item titled “Faux Phil’s Glass House” from 2002, for example, P&J wrote:

Your superior correspondents got a big kick out of perpetually arrogant “Faux Phil” Terzian’s regular editorial column of Wednesday, December 11. He excoriates the New York Times and executive editor Howell Raines, in particular, for the recent and (we agree) unseemly spiking of a couple of (subsequently published) sports page commentary columns about the exclusion of women members from the Augusta National Golf Club in Georgia.

Phil blows hard about the “wall of separation” between the editorial and news divisions of newspapers. His charge that Raines seemed to be breaching that wall of separation by exercising far too much influence in the editorial department (that he ran until last year) certainly has merit. But Phil’s condemnation of theTimes and its “act of stunning, self-defeating arrogance” loses a bit of its bite considering how the Urinal indulges in the same sort of behavior when supposedly independent writers at the O.P. stray from the views of the Big Boys upstairs.

Does Terzian’s #Twittersadism stem from a long-simmering grudge over one of these jabs? We can only speculate.

Back in October, I asked Terzian, via Twitter, why he was celebrating the fact that 14 people – including me, the Phoenix‘s final news editor – had just lost their job. He never responded, and blocked me from following him.

When I saw his most recent tweet, I tried to send him an email via his website, but I received an error message.

So, if anyone knows Mr. Terzian (who doesn’t seem to have a publicly available email address), please pass along the following note. I remain eager to hear his response.

Hi Philip,

I didn’t understand why you tweeted about how “amusing” and “deeply satisfying” you found the closing of the Providence Phoenix, back in October. And I don’t understand why you would still be publicly giddy about the paper’s death, with a tweet from earlier this week that reads, “Steady, comforting sound of crickets @provphoenix!”

Would you care to offer an explanation for either tweet, for a blog post I’m writing about them? To ask the question another way: why do you – a former Pulitzer juror, published author, and experienced journalist and editor – publicly celebrate the demise of a newspaper?

To be clear, I’m asking these questions with utter sincerity, and I’m happy to include any response you have in my post about your strange and upsetting tweets.

-Phil

Freelance Writer, Editor, and Teacher

Former News Editor, Providence Phoenix

https://www.facebook.com/phileilwriter

By the way, Terzian still contributes to the Providence Journal. As recently as December, the paper ran this op-ed about journalistic ethics.

October 10, 2014

Ashes at the Phoenix

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My first paying job as a journalist was at the Providence Phoenix. It was the NewPaper at the time, and I happened to walk into their offices a few days after they’d been bought out by the Boston Phoenix. My first newspaper lesson: timing is crucial.

I’d been living in Providence for about a year and one of my first big assignments was to cover the 1990 governor’s race. Was I qualified, knowledgeable in the history and back rooms of Rhode Island’s politics? Nope. But I did the work, went to the press conferences, interviewed folks, and wrote my story. Then, Sunday morning, Charlie Bakst came out with the exact same story in the Providence Journal. Not word for word, of course, but the essential conclusions were the same. I spent the next 24 hours rewriting my story so that it said something completely different. Lesson 2: Journalism can dance very close to fiction; you pick your topic and your goal and write your story.

My favorite gig at the NewPaper was writing the “Urban Eye” column. Every week I wandered Rhode Island, looked for quirky things and wrote about them. I talked with Chris Morris at Antonelli’s Poultry, and Brandt Heckert at Pastiche. I talked with Bill Scambato about Yacht Club Soda, whose water comes from a mineral spring. Their factory store is conveniently located on Mineral Spring Ave. I met one of my best friends, Nora Forbes, who was the first person in Rhode Island to serve a frittata panini.

Decades later, I was walking around WaterPlace Park, when the woman I was seeing told me that she’d loved my stories, that she remembered them, and she’d been a big fan. I married her.

When The Phoenix first bought the NewPaper, they promised that they’d turn it into a paid publication, but they never did. Free is difficult to change. After a few years, I asked for a pay bump. Instead, my columns got cut. I left the NewPaper, and began writing fiction for real.

Lesson 3: Don’t ask for more money unless you’ve got leverage.

For a long number of years The Providence Phoenix offered an “alternative” view, but it had grown long in the tooth. Decades later, many of the writers were the same. Hardly cutting edge and alternative. There were long articles that questioned the establishment, but you still had to grab them at the liquor store or coffee shop. And then… The InterWeb. You know the rest of the story.

With the loss of The Providence Phoenix, and the dwindling of The Providence Journal, Rhode Island is being rapidly stripped of its public faces.

Yes, journalism exists online. There’s awesome writing here on RI Future. But nobody knows you’re reading it. Conversations about digital news aren’t invisible, but they’re often siloed until they break out into the physical world.

With a Luciferian ex-mayor in danger of victory, with a state government led by a “representative” who was never elected by the general population, Rhode Island needs public tangible voices that will break through the walls of lies and deception and misinformation.

The Providence Phoenix was a voice that worked to expose injustice. It showcased local and national music and theater and film. It will be missed.

March 4, 2013March 4, 2013

Phoenix on Aaron’s Law

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I don’t want anyone to miss the recent piece in the Providence Phoenix on the positive organizing that has emerged out of the tragic loss of Aaron Swartz, particularly around the push to pass “Aaron’s Law” to amend the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act:

There are several critiques of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act. Courts have interpreted CFAA such that a violation of a product or service’s terms of service can trigger criminal penalties. The law also allows prosecution for the sort of small-bore technical workarounds — altering how a program is used for instance — that is standard fare for hackers. And it focuses too heavily on felony penalties, critics say, with little room for misdemeanors.

The story also deals with some of the emotional issues surrounding this campaign, including insights from David Segal, who is one of the people leading the charge on this issue.

Swartz “was chiefly friends with activists,” Segal says.” He dated an activist. Even his parents have an activist instinct. So I think there was immediately a sense that we had to do something — make something positive happen in light of what had befallen all of us.”

That speaks to me a great deal. Personally, I am pretty new to the internet freedom cause (it was always easy for me to say, “It’s the internet, it’ll always be there, what’re they gonna do?”), but the more I learn about it, the more critical it seems to me. And I have learned that Rhode Island’s usually progressive-champion Congressional delegation is actually not very good on this issue, and may not support Aaron’s Law. So the next time you happen to see a member of our delegation (as you probably will at some point in the next couple months, since this is Rhode Island), it might be worth mentioning this issue.

The death of Aaron Swartz hit me like a ton of bricks. I went to high school at the same K-12 school that Aaron grew up going to, and his younger brother is one of my best friends. As terrible as this loss is, however, I continue to be inspired by the positive activism and organizing that has emerged from dark situation. Let’s make sure something good comes out of this.

August 10, 2012

Marriage Equality Battle Now Squarely in Senate

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Politics is unlike baseball in that sometimes it makes sense to take your eye off the ball. That’s because sometimes the real action isn’t where the players are focusing. It was in that spirit that Phoenix editor David Scharfenberg wrote his excellent piece on the marriage equality debate at the State House.

“When same-sex marriage legislation died in the General Assembly last summer without so much as a vote, attention focused on openly gay Speaker of the House Gordon Fox. Had he done enough?,” he wrote. “But if that’s part of the story, it is only part. The truth is Rhode Island’s same-sex marriage fight is centered not in the House, but in the Senate.”

It’s true. State House sources tell me that the House already has the votes to pass marriage equality and electoral soothsayers expect that chamber will pick up even more votes. However, Scharfenberg reports that the Senate seems locked down the other way. But he breaks down the Senate races that could help swing the balance of power in that chamber:

There are some electoral battles concerning marriage equality on the Senate side too.

We’ve already highlighted Laura Pisaturo’s challenge to Sen. Michael McCaffrey. She’s a lawyer and a lesbian in a longtime committed relationship and he’s the chairman of the judiciary committee and one of the biggest road blocks to gay marriage on Smith Hill.

Scharfenberg did too and he also found some others:

Two-term Democratic Senator Michael Pinga of West Warwick, a gay marriage opponent who won a close primary fight in 2010, is facing energetic same-sex nuptials supporter Adam Satchell in the primary.

Republican Senator Bethany Moura, a same-sex marriage opponent who represents Cumberland and Lincoln, faces a likely rematch with Democrat Ryan Pearson, a gay nuptials proponent she edged by just 343 votes last time.

And freshman Senator Glenford Shibley, a Coventry Republican opposed to gay nuptials, will have to run his first re-election campaign during a presidential tilt sure to drive Democrats to the polls in large numbers.

Then he finished his piece by bringing the attention to the most critical player in Rhode Island’s debate over marriage equality: Senate President Teresa Paiva Weed.

The focus, until now, has been on Speaker Fox and the legacy he’d like to leave. But the real question is: what kind of legacy does Paiva Weed want to build?

Does she want to be remembered as the principled defender of traditional marriage or as a leader who stepped aside, despite her own reservations, to let history make its jagged march to progress?

April 13, 2012April 15, 2012

Local Hero: PVD Phoenix Recognizes Plain, RI Future

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bob state house phoenix — Photo courtesy of The Phoenix and Richard McCaffrey

The Providence Phoenix wrote a really nice article about me and RI Future this week for its annual “Local Heroes” feature, and I thought it was worth sharing with you all, our loyal readers.

Phoenix editor David Scharfenberg picked up on a really important point, I think, namely that, in RI Future is pretty much the only place one can find progressive news for and about Rhode Island. In fact, it’s a point I made in my post about taking over this site.

Rhode Island may be one of the bluest states in America. But pick up the editorial page of the Providence Journal or turn on news and talk radio station WPRO and you wouldn’t know it.

Indeed, with a few notable exceptions — Journal columnist Bob Kerr, Rhode Island Public Radio commentator Scott MacKay, and, from time to time, this pinko publication — the voice of Ocean State media alternates between an outraged conservatism and a bland centrism.

Enter Bob Plain, 38, the left’s newest happy warrior: floppy hair, easy grin, and no small amount of determination.

Here’s the link to the story (the vignette on me taking over RI Future starts on page 2). Enjoy!