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Boston, MA
Brandon Aiyuk reporting sparks a media fracas in Boston
I love a good media fight. Primarily when it doesn’t involve me.
Via Sports Business Daily, an interesting tussle emerged on Wednesday between long-time Patriots reporters Mike Reiss of ESPN.com and Mike Felger of WBZ-FM.
It happened when Felger suggested Reiss was pushing a “team-friendly” report on a possible trade of 49ers receiver Brandon Aiyuk to the Patriots. Said Felger: ““To me, I smell a rat with the reporting on the money. . . . He’s incredibly well-sourced within the Patriots. So I know where it’s coming from, and I know how [the Patriots] operate.”
That prompted Reiss — one of the genuinely nicest people in the entire industry — to call the show. He said on the air, “The insinuation that bothers me is that you think, Mike, that this information is coming from the team.”
Felger said that’s exactly what he thinks.
“You can feel that way,” Reiss said. “But the fact that you think I would go on SportsCenter, on that platform, and say that based on something from the team. . . . you’re creating a perception with listeners that that’s the way this works. That’s incredibly dangerous.”
Before I say anything further, I need to say this. Unequivocally. Mike Reiss is a great reporter. And he’s a great person.
But certain basic facts in this business are undeniable. When one reporter covers one team and that reporter reports on something involving that team, of course the information has come from, or has been corroborated by, the team. It would be stupid for a reporter to publish a report regarding the team the reporter covers without running it by a team source, even if only to say, “Tell me if I’m wrong.”
Reiss wouldn’t have been doing his job properly if he didn’t check with a team source. And, in situations like this, the information came from one of two sources: the team or the player’s agent.
Even if Reiss got it from Aiyuk’s agent, Reiss wouldn’t have used it without checking with the team. If he hadn’t, and if the team had taken issue with his reporting, he would have had to do damage control with the one and only team he covers.
In my opinion, this is ultimately about Felger committing what many in the media regard as a cardinal sin — speculating on reporters’ sources.
I’m in the distinct minority on this, but I think it’s fair game for people who know how the sausage is made to try to guess where the pork came from. It’s part of the process of helping the audience understand what’s really going on. Usually, reporters don’t publicly fight source-guessing when it happens.
By calling Felger’s show, Reiss made the issue into a thing that made its way into Sports Business Daily. And who knows? Maybe Reiss did it because he got a call from his Patriots source asking him to do it.
I’m kidding about the last part. But it wouldn’t surprise me at all if it actually happened that way.
President Trump holds up an executive order to limit mail-in voting as Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick looks on in the White House’s Oval Office in March.
Alex Wong/Getty Images
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Alex Wong/Getty Images
President Trump’s executive order to limit voting by mail has hit a legal hurdle.
On Thursday, a Boston-based judge blocked parts of the order that, at least so far, has not directly affected mail-in voting for this year’s midterm primary elections.
The legal fight, however, is likely to continue. The order pushes the boundaries of Trump’s authority under the Constitution, which gives state legislatures and Congress — not the U.S. president — the power to set the rules for federal elections.
The Trump administration is expected to appeal the new ruling by U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani, a nominee of former President Barack Obama, as a separate appeal of an earlier ruling by another federal judge moves forward in a similar set of lawsuits based in Washington, D.C.
Among other directives, Trump’s order from March calls for the Department of Homeland Security and the U.S. Postal Service to create lists of adult U.S. citizens or eligible voters in each state. It also calls for USPS, which is independent of a president’s administration, to deliver mail-in ballots only to people on those lists.
In response, USPS has proposed using information from state election officials to create voter lists. Postmaster General David Steiner told lawmakers Wednesday that under the proposal, the Postal Service would not deliver the mail ballots of any states that refuse to turn over their absentee voter lists to the federal government.
For the D.C.-based cases, the judge found in late May that it was too early for an emergency ruling that would block directives that the Trump administration has yet to carry out. Democrats are appealing that judge’s ruling to the U.S. Appeals Court for the District of Columbia.
Editor’s note: USPS is a financial supporter of NPR.
Edited by Benjamin Swasey
Local News
The boy was stabilized and flown to a Boston hospital, police said.
A 13-year-old boy was flown to a Boston hospital after he was found unresponsive in a swimming pool at a home in Beverly on Wednesday afternoon, police said.
Police and firefighters were called to a home on Parramatta Road after bystanders pulled the boy from the pool, the Beverly Police Department wrote in a press release.
Bystanders administered CPR until first responders arrived, according to police. First responders continued CPR and other “life saving measures,” police said.
An ambulance took the boy to Beverly Hospital where he was stabilized. He was then taken by medical helicopter to a Boston hospital, police said.
The incident is currently being investigated by Beverly police, the department said.
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Boston, MA
Federal judge in Boston bars Trump from implementing proof of citizenship requirement to vote – The Boston Globe
A federal judge on Wednesday permanently barred President Donald Trump’s administration from implementing most of his first executive order on elections, part of which sought to require people to show documentary proof of citizenship when they register to vote.
The ruling by U.S. District Court Judge Denise Casper in Boston effectively converts a preliminary injunction she issued a year ago, in which she temporarily blocked many of Trump’s efforts to overhaul elections, into a permanent ban.
Casper rejected the administration’s argument that the lawsuit to block the changes brought by Democratic state attorneys general was premature because the rules had yet to be implemented. Instead, she agreed that the Constitution gives states and Congress the authority to regulate elections, and that Trump’s requirements violated the separation of powers.
The Constitution “does not grant the President any specific powers over elections,” she wrote.
Among other proposed changes, Trump’s order would have required people to provide documentary proof of citizenship when registering to vote, prevented mail ballots from being counted if they arrive after Election Day, even if they were postmarked by then, and punished states that failed to comply by withholding certain federal money.
It was the latest in a string of rulings against the elections executive order Trump signed just months after taking office for his second term. He has since signed another executive order on elections, seeking to create a national voter list and limit mail balloting. That directive also faces multiple legal challenges.
Last fall, a federal judge in Washington, D.C., overseeing a separate challenge to the first election executive order by civil rights and Democratic Party-aligned groups blocked the government from taking steps to include the proof-of-citizenship requirement on the federal voter registration form. That judge later barred the Secretary of Defense from requiring documentary proof of citizenship when military personnel register to vote or request ballots.
In an apparent nod to the difficulty of implementing a proof-of-citizen requirement by executive order, Trump is pushing legislation in the Republican-controlled Congress to create such a mandate. The SAVE America Act has passed the House but has stalled in the Senate, leading Trump to advocate for eliminating the filibuster that is blocking the legislation.
On Wednesday, he abruptly cancelled the expected signing of a bipartisan housing bill, saying he won’t sign legislation until Congress passes his proof of citizenship requirement for voting.
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