It’s time once again to review the Great Boston MediaWatch Dogfight, especially the rumpus over the Boston Globe’s Spotlight report, Driven to the Edge.
Start as usual with the underdog Boston Herald, which has been hounding its crosstown rival all week over the Globe’s three-part taxidermy of the Boston cab industry.
The Herald’s Press Party segment is here.
Highlights.
The set-up piece accused the Globe of deception and essentially declared reporters should never go undercover, a position host Joe Battenfeld persistently pursued.
And a position Suffolk University’s Bob Rosenthal seconded, asserting that the Globe did a good job but committed an ethical violation because the paper could have gotten the story otherwise – which is nonsense.
Boston City Councilor Tito Jackson and State Rep. Shaunna O’Connell, to their credit, countered that the Globe could not have gotten the story without going undercover.
Over at the Big Dog, WGBH’s Beat the Press (hosted by Emily Rooney), the conversation went this way:
Host Emily Rooney said sometimes the end justifies the means.
The panelists generally praised the Globe story, asserted that you need to cross your T’s and dot your I’s in these situations, and said the Herald was just being the Herald.
Who’s Top Dog?
You tell us.
Originally posted at Campaign Outsider.
It's Good to Live in a Two-Daily Town 
Isn’t there something deceptive in the way Joe Battenfield pretends to be doing “media criticism” when he’s actually pushing the company line?
Yeah. Maybe they could have Hillary Chabot “Truth Squad” him.
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Unless there is a nice snarky segment by John Carroll, it’s not worth watching.
…Beat the Press has the same problem.
You’re missed, John.
Thanks, Mudge. I miss you too.
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