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This Just In: Media

Jon Keller leaves the Herald

By Dan Kennedy

After more than a decade at the Tab, the Phoenix, the Globe, and, most recently, the Herald, WLVI-TV (Channel 56) political analyst Jon Keller is getting out of the newspaper business -- at least for now. Keller's column in last Friday's Herald was his last as a regular contributor. Having landed the rights to broadcast Red Sox games this year, Channel 56 is making plans to increase its local programming, which will mean more work for Keller. Since he also works as a freelance commentator for WBZ Radio (AM 1030) and as a political columnist for Boston magazine, Keller says something had to give.

"I'm exhausted and stretched too thin," Keller admits. "It's not like I'll never return to newspaper writing. But I just need a break."

Keller's sideline as a weekly contributor to the Globe's op-ed page came to an abrupt end last fall, when he was broomed by editorial-page editor David Greenway to make room for John Ellis, a former once-a-week freelancer who was coming on as a twice-weekly staffer. Keller took his column to One Herald Square, where editorial-page editor Shelly Cohen -- no fan of Ellis's -- was happy to accommodate him. "We definitely got the better end of that deal," she said, referring to the fact that Ellis himself had had conversations with the Herald about jumping ship just a few months earlier ("Don't Quote Me," News, January 29).

Now, with Keller leaving, Cohen says she has no immediate plans to replace him, explaining that her own column and Wayne Woodlief's cover much of the same subject area as Keller's -- local politics, with a heavy dose of public education. She also hopes Keller will still write for the Herald occasionally.

Keller's last column was on one of his favorite subjects: the state's politically volatile education-reform effort and the embattled, just-resigned chairman of the Board of Education, Boston University chancellor John Silber. Noting that even without the Herald he still has three forums in which to sound off, Keller quips: "I want to caution you, this does not represent significant relief for John Silber."