After eating its crosstown rival’s dust for two weeks, the Boston Herald finally got more love on the tribute advertising front than the Globe. All the stately local broadsheet has today is this quarter-page ad from Boston Sports Clubs:
The feisty local tabloid, on the other hand, has this full-page ad from the Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce:
Chalk one up for the little guy, eh?
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In the two weeks since the tragic Boston Marathon bombings, we’ve seen a goodly number of tribute ads from the likes of Verizon, Bloomingdale’s, even the City of New York Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association. But today’s installments come from, well, out of nowhere.
In the Boston Globe:
In the Boston Herald:
Yeah, that’s what we said. Who are these people?
Turns out Flying Cross is “[t]he leading authority in uniform systems with over 170 years’ experience outfitting the best—and toughest—customers. Serving with Distinction since 1842.”
Okaaaay.
And The Produce Connection “[services] over 200 different food service venues throughout New England, many of them for over 20 years now. Many of our customers have become our close friends as we’ve successfully worked to meet their needs every day with the same commitment.”
Okaaaay.
We gotta ask: Are the Marathon bombings turning into just another marketing opportunity? (10% of our next two columns donated to The One Fund Boston!!)
It’s sure starting to feel that way.
3 Comments | Uncategorized | Tagged: Bloomingdale's, Boston Marathon bombings, City of New York Patrolmen's Benevolent Association, Flying Cross, One Fund Boston, The Produce Connection, Verizon | Permalink
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From our Compare & Contrast in Clear Idiomatic English desk
Some days – very often Sundays – the difference between the local dailies is starker than usual. Today is one such day.
The Boston Globe has published what, so far at least, is the definitive chronicle of the five days between the bombings at the Boston Marathon finish line and the apprehension of the surviving bomber, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev.
Page One:
What follows is an eight-page reconstruction of the week’s events “based on more than 100 interviews with police, government officials, and witnesses.”
The extensive timeline included in the special section features extensive infographics like this one (click to enlarge):
Meanwhile, the Boston Herald tossed off this (click to enlarge):
No one expects the feisty local tabloid can do the sort of flood-the-zone, Pulitzer-seeking coverage the Globe can. But you’d think it could certainly do better than “Rude awakening.”
Then again, maybe the hardreading staff needs to wake up itself, and lower the bar accordingly.
1 Comment | Uncategorized | Tagged: 102 Hours in Pursuit, Boston Globe, Boston Herald, Boston Marathon bombings, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, Rude awakening, Tamerlan Tsarnaev | Permalink
Posted by Campaign Outsider
The Boston Herald continues to criticize news organizations that erroneously reported an arrest two days after the Marathon bombings – without noting that the feisty local tabloid itself did exactly the same thing.
Exhibit A: The Herald’s Press Party webbcast on Friday, which the hardworking staff at Campaign Outsider previously chronicled.
Exhibit B : Today’s op-ed by retired Heraldnik Guy Darst.
Always a new(s) way to blunder
Let’s not be too hard on the unfortunate John King and CNN for erroneously reporting in the aftermath of the Boston Marathon bombing that a suspect had been arrested. The pressures of a 24/7 news cycle are nothing new to a special class of journalists who have worked under them for more than a century, reporters for the wire services. Some of their blunders are legendary — and instructive.
The leading wire service, the Associated Press, also reported an arrest just as King did.
Just as numerous news outlets – including the Herald – did. Handy referesher chart from the excellent Chart Girl:
The Herald should grow up and take its lumps for inaccurate reporting, instead of compounding it with even more.
5 Comments | Uncategorized | Tagged: AP, Associated Press, Boston Herad, Boston Marathon bombings, Chart Girl, CNN, Guy Darst, John King | Permalink
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From our Don’t Know What to Make of This desk
This is a headscratcher: Carbon-copy photos in the Boston Globe and the Boston Herald, attributed to different photographers.
From the Herald’s Inside Track:
Matt Damon: ‘It’s good to be home’
“(Bleeping) disgusting.”
Matt Damon may be a Harvard man, but when he heard Mark Wahlberg’s reaction to the Boston Marathon attacks, he thought it summed up pretty well what everyone from Boston was thinking.
“Being from Boston, that day is sacrosanct,” the Oscar winner said yesterday. “We’re all out of school … My brother, for the first time in 10 years he wasn’t standing at the finish line with my two nephews. Half the time, he ran it. It’s a very life-affirming day. And I’m sorry to say, but I saw a quote Mark Wahlberg had … and you know, being from this community, that’s the perfect description of what we felt.” Photo credit: Ted Fitzgerald.
From the Boston Globe’s Names column:
Matt Damon receives Arts Medal from Harvard
We’re guessing Harvard won’t make a habit of honoring dropouts, but the school made an exception Thursday for Matt Damon.
The actor, who has somehow managed to do all right without ever graduating from the World’s Greatest University — he attended from 1988-1992 — was presented with the 2013 Harvard Arts Medal during a ceremony at Sanders Theater. Photo credit: Bill Brett
Is it just us, or are those photos identical?
How does that happen?
Or is it just us.
5 Comments | Uncategorized | Tagged: Bill Brett, Boston Globe, Boston Herald, Harvard Arts Medal, Inside Track, John Lithgow, Matt Damon, Names, Ted Fitzgerald | Permalink
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From our Two Different Worlds desk
Luckily for us, our feisty local tabloid has dug deep and unearthed the real villains in the Boston Marathon bombings.
Deval Patrick and the Massachusetts welfare system.
The action gets started on Page One:
Then it really picks up steam on pages 4 and 5.
Here’s a close-up of the bureaucratic sweep:
So that’s five – count ’em, five – reporters on this story, plus his ‘n’ her bookend columns by Howie Carr and Margery Eagan.
Carr:
We deserve to know what our tax $ paid for
It’s time for all the bureaucrats, paper-shufflers and flak-catchers to come clean on the Tsarnaev clan, those chiseling Chechens who tried to kill us last week.
Open the damn books! If somebody tries to murder you, you have a right to know everything about them, privacy be damned. I want to know everything about them, and I want to know it now, right down to the quality of the weed Dzhokhar was peddling down at UMass Dartmouth.
Hacks covering own tracks in name of privacy
Here’s what we’re talking about: One accused mass murderer who’s practically confessed to killing three marathon bystanders, plus a police officer, and injuring 260 others. And his brother, killed after a gunfight in which yet another police officer nearly died.
Yet the state and federal government bureaucrats are telling you, me and every taxpayer who mailed their tax checks on the very day of the marathon bombings that Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev’s privacy matters more than our right to know how extensively our tax dollars may have contributed to their terrorist plot.
But wait – there’s more! This editorial:
Supporting a terrorist
The Tsarnaev brothers lived in America long enough to understand the generosity of her people. In fact they should have understood that generosity better than most given that they benefited from it personally — and in the form of actual taxpayer cash.
We learned this week that Tamerlan Tsarnaev, the apparent mastermind of the Boston Marathon bombing, was until recently supporting his family with the help of a government check.
And etc.
Crosstown at the Boston Globe, meanwhile, the welfare issue isn’t even on their radar screen.
The only question left: Which of the two is Bizarro World?
4 Comments | Uncategorized | Tagged: Bizarro World, Boston Globe, Boston Herald, Boston Marathon bombings, Cambridge Housing Authority, Deval Patrick, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, EIB cards, Howie Carr, Margery Eagan, Tamerlan Tsarnaev | Permalink
Posted by Campaign Outsider
Chalk up yet another homophobic tweet, this time from Boston Bruins player Tyler Seguin. As Track Gal Gayle Fee noted in today’s Boston Herald:
Seguin sorry for tweet
Bruins baby Tyler Seguin apologized yesterday for a tweet he sent out that some have called homophobic. Seguin, who appeared in a video with Boston rapper Slaine, sent out a missive about it saying, “Just listened to the song in my bed. Gave me goosebumps no homo…” The tweet came at an inopportune time, seeing as how theNHL just became the first professional league to partner with the gay rights organization You Can Play.
Seguin apparently realized he’d done something dumb almost immediately and deleted the tweet and apologized within minutes of sending it.
Of course, tweet-and-delete is sort of a flawed gameplan, as, say, Anthony Weiner could tell you.
But Seguin got lucky crosstown at the Boston Globe, where the Namesniks pre-deleted it for his convenience.
Tyler Seguin apologizes for tweeting homophobic slur
Bruins forward Tyler Seguin has apologized for using a homophobic slur in a tweet about a music video by Boston rapper Slaine. “Last night I made an insensitive comment which I sincerely regret,” @tylerseguin92 tweeted Tuesday. “It was my mistake and I want to apologize to those who were offended.” Monday night, the 21-year-old forward tweeted a link to the video, which apparently features a couple of Seguin’s friends. He quickly deleted the post and tweeted an apology: “You know when your half asleep and say or write something without thinking twice or realizing what you said. Apologies on last tweet. Gnight.”
The rest of the item contains a non-comment from the Bruins and a statement from You Can Play about how Tyler made a mistake but he’ll learn from it.
For now, though, the biggest lesson is that the Globe plays better defense than Seguin does.
3 Comments | Uncategorized | Tagged: Boston Bruins, Boston Globe, Boston Herald, Gayle Fee, homophobic slur, Inside Track, Slaine, Tyler Seguin, You Can Play | Permalink
Posted by Campaign Outsider
You’re Howie Carr and here’s what you wrote in today’s Boston Herald:
A hit to Deval Patrick’s welfare state
Is Gov. Deval Patrick serious? He doesn’t know the motivation of the terrorists?
On Sunday he went on “Face the Nation,” and host Bob Schieffer asked him if he had “any clearer idea” of why the “two young men” did it.
“Not yet, Bob,” Deval began, more than 48 hours after the shootout. “Uh, and it’s hard, it’s hard for me and for many to imagine what could motivate, uh, people to, uh, harm, uh, innocent men, women and children, uh, in the way that, uh, these two fellows did.”
Two fellows indeed. He’d rather tell a whopper on national TV than acknowledge the grim results of his beloved immigration and welfare policies.
That would be the same Herald that featured this front page today:
You’re Howie Carr and you have the usual ten minutes to write your next piece, so you grab the Boston Globe for some easy pickin’s. And on Page One, you strike gold:
Tsarnaev brothers appeared to have scant finances
The older brother liked to look like a man of means, once posing for a photo in front of a gleaming Mercedes sporting a long wool scarf and white leather slip-on shoes. But Tamerlan Tsarnaev, 26, was a stay-at-home dad, relying on his wife to work long hours as a home health care aide to support the family.
And the car? Tsarnaev most recently owned a 15-year-old Honda.
Tsarnaev’s younger brother never seemed strapped for cash, according to people who knew him at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth where he was a sophomore. But Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was a scholarship student who earned spending money by selling marijuana, say three people who bought drugs from the 19-year-old.
Scant finances? Thank you, Jesus.
Best of all, here’s what’s buried in the 18th graf:
Indeed, Tamerlan Tsarnaev and his family had so little income that they even qualified for state assistance until 2012, state health and human services spokesman Alec Loftus said Tuesday. Both brothers also received benefits through their parents when they were younger. The welfare benefits were first reported by the Boston Herald.
You’re Howie Carr and you’re thinking, it really doesn’t get much better than this.
1 Comment | Uncategorized | Tagged: Bob Schieffer, Boston Globe, Boston Herald, Deval Patrick, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, Face the Nation, Howie Carr, Tamerlan Tsarnaev, welfare | Permalink
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While most news organizations are still trying to find out what actually did happen last week in the wake of the Marathon bombings, the Boston Herald is busily reporting what will (or won’t) happen.
Today’s front page:
The story itself :
Lede:
Marathon bombing suspect Dzhokhar A. Tsarnaev is likely to avoid the death penalty, could entirely avoid a trial and in the hands of the right lawyer might win a modicum of mercy, argued top-ranked defense attorneys who have represented some of the nation’s most notorious terrorists and killers.
One lawyer says because law enforcement was late to Mirandize Tsarnaev, “He’s been denied the right to a fair trial.” Another “picked through the government’s indictment yesterday and deemed it ‘circumstantial.'”
But the feisty local tabloid saved the best for last:
Harvard Law professor Alan Dershowitz, a member of OJ Simpson’s “dream team,” said, “The case will go down one of two ways. Either plea bargain … or he’ll want to become a martyr and he’ll admit everything, boast about the crime, seek to justify it and demand the death penalty.”
Seriously? That’s it? No third way, Professor D?
Impressive.
Meanwhile, crosstown at the Boston Globe, this was all they had on the legal front:
Suspect charged with using weapon of mass destruction
The US Justice Department charged Boston Marathon bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev Monday with killing people with a weapon of mass destruction, in a prosecution that could put the accused terrorist in prison for life or send him to the death chamber.
Boring, eh?
2 Comments | Uncategorized | Tagged: Alan Dershowitz, Boston Globe, Boston Herald, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, Marathon bomber | Permalink
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Boston was on the mind of everyone who ran the London Marathon yesterday, as Page One of The Guardian attests (via the Newseum’s Today’s Front Pages).
And London was on the mind of the Boston dailies – especially the Globe, which sent sportswriter Shira Springer over there to cover the event.
Boston firmly in the thoughts of Londoners
LONDON — Moments after finishing the London Marathon, Harry Neynens struggled with his emotions. He started to describe crossing the finish line Sunday amid cheering crowds, then stopped. He needed a moment to collect his thoughts, to choke back tears. He started his story again. This time, the narrative began back on Boylston Street in Boston.
For Neynens, the 2013 London Marathon and 2013 Boston Marathon always will be linked. A week ago, Neynens, who lives in Enfield, Nova Scotia, waited on Boylston Street for his wife, Colleen, to finish Boston. Colleen spotted Harry in the crowd at the 26-mile mark, ran over, and kissed her husband. Then Harry walked down Boylston Street to catch up with Colleen once she crossed the line. She finished as 4 hours 7 minutes 12 seconds flashed on the race clock. He found himself 100 yards away from the bomb explosions and he saw some of the critically injured victims.
“I had a hard day out here,” said Neynens, who wore a 2013 Boston Marathon hat during his London run and finished in 2:48:09. “I was hurting, but obviously I was not hurting near as much as the injuries that I saw, people who lost their legs. I finished for all those people who were hurt and those people who couldn’t finish last Monday.
“There was a banner we passed around Mile 25 that said, ‘Run if you can. Walk if you must. But finish for Boston.’ That meant a lot to everybody. It was great to see the support of everybody out there for the runners and for Boston.”
It went beyond moral support, as this Associated Press report in the Boston Herald noted:
For a day, at least, Boston and London were One as well.
Leave a Comment » | Uncategorized | Tagged: Associated Press, Boston Globe, Boston Herald, Boston Marathon, London Marathon, The Guardian, The Newseum, The One Fund, Today's front Pages | Permalink
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It's Good to Live in a Two-Daily Town 