Newsroom note….

When reporter Somsavath Phanthady last week was working on the Boston Common re-planting story, he discovered that Common project Director Robert Mulcahy of the Boston Parks and Recreation Dept. would not talk to him until he had a clearance from Emerson’s VP for government and community relations Peggy Ings. Apparently BPRD gets a lot of requests from Emerson students (journalism, film, etc.) and this is a measure aimed at guaranteeing the legitimacy of the request. This was a first in the 12-year-old life of JSONS, but we went along. We called Ings, Ings called Mulcahy, Mulcahy called Phanthady and the interview was done, albeit several days late…..

-mp