This week, every news outlet in town, including us, reported with straight faces the stink over a satanic ritual planned for Harvard Yard. Other things happened, too — this is the week as it looked from the WGBH Newsroom:
• Adam Reilly reported from Somerville, where Mayor Joe Curtatone wants to spruce up Union Square — and may have to seize property through eminent domain to do it.
• Speaking of eminent domain, Edgar B. Herwick III wrote about four entire towns that were seized and flooded in the 1920s and '30s to create the Quabbin Reservoir.
• On the 10th anniversary of the legalization of same-sex marriage in Massachusetts, Greater Boston talked to Hillary and Julie Goodridge two of the plaintiffs named in the suit that led to the historic Supreme Judicial Court decision.
• Trailblazing broadcaster Barbara Walters retired this week, prompting Callie Crossley to reflect on her significance .
• Meanwhile, The New York Times fired another pioneering female journalist this week, executive editor Jill Abramson, its first female newsroom leader. That complicated story led to another first , as the Gray Lady now has its first black editor, Dean Baquet. WGBH News contributor Dan Kennedy says the Times owes its readers an accounting of the reasons behind Abramson's firing.
• Author Michael Pollan dropped by Boston Public Radio to explain why we don't cook — and why we should. For a lengthier dose of Pollan, check out the Forum Network video of his talk at Harvard Book Store.
• And finally, the Harvard/devil thing: That ritual got rerouted to the Hong Kong — Harvard-educated historian Douglass Shand-Tucci recapped the weird week of news related to the Black Mass banned by Harvard.
That'll do it for this week — see you Monday.
