Copyright © 1998 by the Boston Phoenix, Inc. All rights reserved.

This Just In: Media

The Globe cuts Jon Keller loose

By Dan Kennedy

Among the few bright spots on the Boston Globe's generally dreary op-ed pages are the contributions of freelancers John Ellis and Jon Keller. Ellis, a business consultant and nephew of George Bush, is a moderate-to-conservative political junkie with a sure command of the national (and, to a lesser extent, the state) electoral scene. Keller, who covers politics for WLVI-TV (Channel 56), is a centrist who writes authoritatively about such middle-class issues as the politics of education reform.

So naturally, when the Globe decided to bring Ellis on staff and have him write two columns a week instead of one, it dumped Keller to make room. On a paper loaded with superannuated staff columnists, it was the freelancer who had to go.

"I like his work and I like him," says editorial-page editor David Greenway of Keller. "I've got nothing but respect for his column."

Now, it's true that I worked with Keller when he wrote for the Phoenix, and that I like him. But personal relationships aside, nearly all of his Globe pieces were built on actual reporting -- something in desperately short supply on the op-ed page. And even the columnists who do report -- principally David Nyhan and Tom Oliphant -- are so tanked up to liberal Democrats that everything they write is subject to an automatic 10 percent discount (20 percent in Oliphant's case).

Perhaps Keller's omnipresence grated on Greenway. In addition to his work for Channel 56 and the Globe, Keller is a commentator on WBZ Radio (AM 1030) and a contributor to Boston magazine. But if his Globe editors ever believed they weren't getting his best work, or if they felt queasy about, say, his over-the-top attack piece on Marjorie Clapprood in Boston, Keller says he never heard about it.

"I'm grateful for the space they gave me over the past five years," Keller says. "I enjoyed it."

No doubt a lot of Globe readers did, too. But who cares what they think?