Boston Herald: Your Zumba Hooker Headquarters (II)

February 22, 2013

While the Boston Globe resolutely neglects the Zumba Hooker trial in Kennebunk, Maine (this ran on the Web but not in print), our feisty local tabloid is on it like Brown on Williamson. Today’s installment:

012413zumba16‘Moaning, groaning’ in Zumba testimony

The bizarre twists and turns in the trial of the alleged owners of a Zumba dance studio-based brothel in posh Kennebunk, Maine, continued yesterday as a next-door pizza parlor manager told of being flashed by the woman accused of providing sex for money, and her landlord told of “moaning and groaning” with men coming and going every 30 to 60 minutes as early as 
5 a.m.

The titillating testimony came in the trial of Mark Strong Sr., accused of 
13 counts of promoting prostitution. Strong is the business partner of Alexis Wright, 30, who is accused of engaging in prostitution at the dance studio, at an office across the street and at her own home. Authorities have said she videotaped clients without their knowledge. She will be tried later.

“She fussed around with her wallet and off goes the towel. I felt awkward,” said Dan Racaniello, the pizza shop manager.

 

That’s it? Awkward? Obviously not a prospective client.

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Boston Globe Herald Hostage, Day Two

February 22, 2013

The Schadenfreude Gazette is at it again today:

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Obligatory two-page spread:

Picture 2

 

Helpful chart:

Picture 4

 

Oh, yes – don’t forget Jerry Holbert’s editorial cartoon:
holberts 02-22 cartoon

 

Highlight of the Herald’s coverage: Jessica Heslam’s interview with the reptilian Michael Wolff about News Corp. Dark Knight Rupert Murdoch as a potential buyer:

“Rupert would be terrifically interested in the Boston Globe,” said Vanity Fair contributing editor Michael Wolff, author of “The Man Who Owns the News: Inside the Secret World of Rupert Murdoch.” “Rupert is now in the process of shopping for American newspapers but doing that in the context of that this is the bottom of the market.”

So what would be the right price for Murdoch?

“Practically free,” Wolff told me. “Assuming that there is cash flow, he would buy it on a heavily, heavily, heavily, heavily discounted basis. Rupert, at this point, is an economic buyer.”

 

But an unlikely one, says old friend Mark Jurkowitz, associate director of the Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism. “The prospect of Rupert going head-to-head with the Boston Herald seems somehow un-American. That’s his baby. … That would surprise me.”

Crosstown at the stately local broadsheet meanwhile, Globe columnist Kevin Cullen has a message for the Heraldniks:

The change that is coming is about business, not journalism. As for the delight fully delusional people who see a change of ownership as a death sentence, the natural consequence of the Globe being part of the vast left-wing conspiracy, please, sit back, crack another cold one and adjust your tinfoil hats. Ask Sal DiMasi, John Tierney, and Mike McLaughlin, just recent examples, if they think the Globe goes easy on Democrats.

The Globe isn’t going anywhere. It’s changing owners.

 

Message: Stick that in your pipe, Howie.

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Boston Globe on the Block (Take Two in the Local Dailies)

February 21, 2013

Today’s Boston Globe tucks the news of its imminent sale discreetly below the fold on Page One:

Picture 4

 

The Schadenfreude Gazette, on the other hand, goes a bit bolder.

Picture 2

 

Note the “employees get word by press release.”  Don’t forget to tweest, eh?

Inside, more of the same:

Picture 3

 

This is manna from heaven for the Herald. Don’t expect them to stop shoveling it in for quite a while.

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Boston Globe on the Block (Take One in the Local Dailies)

February 21, 2013

The hardreading staff usually restricts itself to the print editions of the local dailies, but we just can’t wait till morning for the bakeoff over the New York Times Co. plan to sell the Boston Globe.

So . . . from their respective websites.

Boston Globe:

Times Co. hires firm to find buyer for The Boston Globe

The New York Times Co. said Wednesday that it plans to sell the New England Media Group, including The Boston Globe and its related online properties, and has hired an investment banker to find a buyer.

The Times Co. has hired Evercore Group, a New York-based firm that has been involved in other newspaper transactions, to help solicit bids from potential buyers.

“Our plan to sell the New England Media Group demonstrates our commitment to concentrate our strategic focus and investment on The New York Times brand and its journalism,” said Mark Thompson, chief executive of the Times Co., in a statement.

 

And etc., including this: “The Times Co. last tried to sell the Globe in 2009, after first threatening to shut the newspaper down because it was losing money. After receiving wage cuts and other cost-saving concessions from Globe employees, the Times Co. decided not to sell at that time, saying it had received bids lower than it had hoped from two different business groups.”

Who – what – want to pony up more now?

(As best the hardremembering staff recalls, they were offering $35 million for what the Times Co. paid $1.2 billion to buy.)

Expanded Globe story here.

Cut to the Boston Herald:

Boston GlobeStaff braces again as Globe on block

The worst kept secret in town — that The Boston Globe is up for sale — 
became official yesterday when the paper’s New York owners publicly put it back on the block in a move that set off wild speculation about who will buy the beleaguered broadsheet and what’s in store for its staff.

The proposed sale — announced in a press release by its owner, The New York Times Co., that caught the Globe’s staff off guard — marks the second time the paper has been on the market since 2009. It also comes as key managers have jumped ship in recent months, among them editor Marty Baron and boston.com general manager Lisa DeSisto.

Industry experts predict it could be a tough sell for the Times, unless it takes on the tens of millions in Globe pension obligations.

 

Kevin Kamen, a newspaper broker from New York, estimates the Globe’s worth at $63 million, according to the Herald report.

Of course, Herald columnist Howie Carr values it significantly lower.

Clueless fops wonder why they’re tanking

Who in his right mind would ever buy The Boston Globe?

Maybe the physical plant of the “newspaper” on Morrissey Boulevard, but the actual product? Let me put it another way: When was the last time you bought an actual copy of The Boston Globe? Why would you, it only encourages them.

Has ever a publication fallen so far, so fast?

It’s the Carnival Triumph of the newspaper business. It’s the Patriots in the second half against the 
Ravens. It’s Tim Murray in his jammies, flooring his state Crown Vic as the stone wall looms up ahead.

 

It’s also Howie trying way too hard.

Then again, what else is new?

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Boston Herald Is the Papal of Record

February 20, 2013

 

The Boston Globe has a nice Page One piece about the Great Mentioner throwing Sean O’Malley’s hood into the bakeoff for a new Pontiff, but our feisty local tabloid goes all Poparazzi over the prospect.

Page One:

Picture 1

 

Inside spreads:

Picture 2

 

Picture 3

Oh, yes – don’t forget the editorial:

A Boston pope — really

Here in the Hub of the Universe it goes without saying that the Roman Catholic archbishop of Boston would be a contender for pope — just as the Patriots always start the season as contenders for the Super Bowl and our best politicians inevitably are contenders for the White House.

There is a certain irony, however, in that Cardinal Sean O’Malley is being mentioned in Vatican circles as the most likely American contender in part because he is the antithesis of papal opulence. He’s Capuchin sandals, not Prada loafers.

 

Ouch. The Papal seat isn’t even cold and already they’re piling on God’s Rottweiler.

Sic transit gloria mundi and all that.

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That Dog Gone Tessa (Psychic Friend Edition)

February 20, 2013

When last the hardreading staff heard from estimable local author Dennis Lehane, he seemed to have come to his senses regarding the Lehane family’s Javertesque search for its lost dog, Tessa. Via the Boston Herald (the go-to site for Tessanalia) last month:

2b852b_lehaneLehane says he’ll take down missing dog fliers

Crime scribe Dennis Lehane says he’ll take down the fliers volunteers have posted around Brookline in the quest to find his missing dog after the town said they violated town bylaws.

“I can see the town of Brookline’s point. And there’s no reason we should expect preferential or selective treatment because of my last name,” Lehane said today in the statement.

The town yesterday told Lehane that the hundreds of fliers put up all over town had to be taken down by Monday.

 

Cut to the We Hear section of yesterday’ Inside Track:

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The item:

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Seriously? An elderly couple in Lynn?

Only in the Herald.

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Hark! The Herald! (Welfare Housecleaning Edition)

February 18, 2013

The Boston Herald does the full Whitman again, celebrating itself and singing itself over the latest Department of Transitional Assistance, well, transition.

Picture 1

 

The chronology of the feisty local tabloid’s coverage:

Picture 3

The Herald’s reflexive back-patting is smart on two fronts: 1) It reminds readers why the buy the paper in the first place; and 2) It saves money by outsourcing marketing efforts to the newsroom.

Meanwhile, back at the actual news report, it kicks off with some classic bureaucratic doublespeak:

Another top welfare official — who was on the job when the beleaguered agency discovered thousands of EBT recipients were unaccounted for — is on the way out amid a major department shake-up, the Herald has learned.

Stephanie Everett, the chief of staff at the Department of Transitional Assistance, told the Herald yesterday she’s leaving her $77,250 a year post and has no plans yet for another job.

“It’s just a new administration,” Everett told the Herald on the steps of her Mattapan home, referring to new Health and Human Services Secretary John Polanowicz. “I don’t know if it’s cleaning house. They’re doing what they need to do to make sure that taxpayers’ money is spent the way it should have.”

 

Not cleaning house, yeah? Just a light dusting.

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Boston Globe on a Page One Headline Tear

February 18, 2013

First there was this shoutout from Jim Romenesko for Saturday’s Boston Globe front-page headline:

BOSTON GLOBE HEADLINE ‘HAS TO BE ONE OF THE YEAR’S BEST’

“Admittedly, I’m biased, as both a Thomas Pynchon idolator and Globe staffer(though I had nothing to do this hed and don’t know who did),” writes Mark Feeney. “But this hed for our two p. 1 stories today on the Russian meteorite has to be one of the year’s best. ‘A screaming comes across the sky’ is great in and of itself, being both accurate and vivid — and as any Pynchon fan can tell you it’s also the first sentence of his masterpiece, ‘Gravity’s Rainbow.’”

- Boston Globe, Feb. 16

– Boston Globe, Feb. 16

-- First lines of Thomas Pynchon's "Gravity's Rainbow"

— First lines of Thomas Pynchon’s “Gravity’s Rainbow”

 

 

Then came this Boston Sunday Globe Page One headline:

Picture 1

 

Not to mention the four – count ’em, four – full pages that followed:

Picture 2

 

Picture 3

 

Per Mark Feeney, regardless of who’s responsible for these headlines, someone at the Globe – maybe new executive editor Brian McGrory – has the soul of a poet.

Good for them. And for us.

 

 

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Herald’s Carr Puts Ex-Chelsea Housing Thief – Er, Chief – in Jail

February 17, 2013

Boston Herald columnist Howie Carr really wants to see former Chelsea Housing Director Michael E. McLaughlin thrown in the sneezer.

From todays piece of work:

Pension pitch; drop the Mike!

Memo to the Chelsea Retirement Board: Don’t even think about it.

Don’t even consider giving the about-to-plead-guilty-to-felonies Mike McLaughlin a pension. He shouldn’t get even a “reduced” one of $128,000 or so that he would have been eligible for if he’d played by the rules, as impossible as that would be for the lifelong payroll patriot.

This may seem like a scenario not even worth discussing. But we are, after all, talking about Chelsea, Damascus on the Mystic. This is a city where McLaughlin, as head of the Chelsea Housing Authority, was for years able to pay himself an annual salary as high as $360,000 while telling his board that he was actually making $164,000.

 

Right. And McLaughlin’s been nailed pretty good for it by US Attorney Carmen Ortiz. So, Carr concludes:

Poor Mike McLaughlin. He tried to out-Bulger Bulger, and instead he ends up another John Buonomo, a guy he regarded with contempt, except McLaughlin is going to Club Fed instead of the Billerica House of Correction.

 

Which makes you wonder whether Carr reads the local dailies, even his own. Because both of them reported yesterday that it’s more than likely McLaughlin will cooperate with federal authorities in other prosecutions and thus avoid jail time.

Boston Globe’s Page One story:

16nomedfordaEx-Chelsea housing chief will plead guilty, assist probe

Former Chelsea Housing Authority chief Michael E. McLaughlin has agreed to cooperate with federal investigators, according to documents filed in federal court Friday, potentially allowing him to avoid jail time for four alleged felonies if the information he provides implicates others.

In a plea agreement made public Friday, McLaughlin agreed to help authorities inves tigate and prosecute others, though it did not identify any potential targets.

 

From Hillary Chabot’s piece in the Herald:

Ortiz doesn’t specifically detail a sentence recommendation, leaving it up to the judge, but suggests that McLaughlin’s sentence be lowered from the maximum penalty of 20 years in prison, and a possible $250,000 fine. McLaughlin should be imprisoned, “at the low end of the Sentencing Guideline range,” Ortiz wrote, adding prosecutors would agree to a $4,000 fee as well as 24 months of supervised release.

 

Somebody get Howie a home subscription, eh?

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Local Editorials: Carnival Cruise Damage Control No Triumph

February 17, 2013

Saturday’s local dailies both editorialized about the Carnival Cruise to Nightmare, but they had very – wait for it – different criticisms about the cruise line’s response.

Boston Globe editorial:

2013-02-13T041707Z_01_ABI113_RTRMDNP_3_NBACruise ship owner: Facing the Heat

While passengers on the Carnival Triumph were enduring tropical weather without any toilets or air conditioning, and sleeping on deck in improved tents made out of laundry, Carnival CEO Micky Arison was also paying attention to the heat — the Miami Heat, at whose basketball game he was spotted courtside on Tuesday. Arison is no stranger to the Heat — he owns the team — but he’s likely to face some for failing to make a show of concern for the 3,200 passengers stranded for five days at sea . . .

 

From the Boston Herald editorial:

Carnival’s response has been infuriating. Why was the ship towed to Mobile, Ala., which took four days, when other ports appeared closer? In Mobile, passengers were offered bus rides back to Galveston — an eight-hour bus trip after the shipboard ordeal is an insulting offer — or two hours on a bus to New Orleans and an overnight stay before flights home. Mobile’s mayor said he was puzzled, since there are two airports close to the city’s docks. He’s not the only one.

 

Score one for the feisty local tabloid.

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