Boston Globe / Living / Arts / As GM, her job is to pump up sports talk and hard rock

[tony schinella]

I interviewed Clea about her book on cats, I think
it was called "Feline Mystique" or something, it
is slipping me at the moment. However, we talked a
short bit about her radio pieces and I nicely told
her that she was often inaccurate and off-base.
She explained to me exactly what Donna has written
below - that she writes on an occasional,
freelance basis and not full-time. This is no
excuse for inaccuracy but it might give some
people some understanding as to why she may miss
call letters or something. I believe that I did
suggest that she subscribe to the list so she
would know what was going on but I don't think she
did. Being a newspaper editor, it is very
important to be accurate - whether you know the
topic discussed or not - but she does try and is a
good writer otherwise. After the interview, she
touched base with me to thank me for the story,
and then pointed out that I made a small mistake
about some feline mystical figure. :-) Of course,
not knowing a damn thing about cat figures from
the B.C. era ... She also does book reviews, which
is her bread and butter, and I only found that out
when she was interviewed on "The Exchange" on NHPR
about her fave books of the year. When Drugless
Douglas from WMFO left the station in the fall
after 15 years of doing air there, she did a great
story on it. I didn't even think to call her to
let her know that I was leaving the station after
10 years at the beginning of the summer but I am
sure she would have written a story about it had I
let her know.

Best,
Tony Schinella
radiotony@comcast.net
http://politizine.blogspot.com
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Donna Halper" <dlh@donnahalper.com>
To: <boston-radio-interest@bostonradio.org>
Sent: Friday, January 23, 2004 3:40 AM
Subject: Boston Globe / Living / Arts / As GM, her
job is to pump up sports talk and hard rock


>
> >it was said--
> >Maybe someone should invite Clea to become a
member of this list!
> >
> >She could learn a lot about her beat!  ;-)
>
> In fairness to Clea, I know her and she's a very
sweet person, but radio
> was never her beat until Susan B got moved over
to covering women's
> sports.   I am not trying to make excuses for
Clea, but her problem has
> more to do with the Globe than with not caring
about or not knowing about
> her beat.  Clea is only a part-time writer for
the Globe and while in years
> past the media columnists were all full-time, to
save money, the Globe cut
> back on radio columns and cut back on the person
who writes them.  Since
> she is only asked to write these columns on a
sporadic basis, and since
> there isn't a lot of commitment from the Globe
to make it a regular beat,
> she has difficulty keeping up with it.  On the
other hand, why not drop
> Clea a note and make your corrections-- she
won't mind, I assure you.  I
> think that Dean Johnson, who is a full-time
reporter at the Herald, has a
> much easier time keeping up with the latest
radio news-- it's tough to be
> plugged into the local scene when you are doing
occasional articles from
> home and are usually restricted to 800 words...
>
>