July 17, 2013
Now that the Bay State’s umpteenth U.S. Senate special election is done, the Boston news media can turn their attention to the first real mayoral race we’ve had here in Mayberry since 1993.
From Tuesday’s Boston Globe:
Conley set to launch television ads
Suffolk DA’s are 1st of Hub mayor’s race
Boston mayoral candidate Daniel F. Conley, leveraging his significant fund-raising advantage over 11 opponents, will launch the first television advertising campaign of the race Tuesday, part of a sustained blitz that will continue through the Sept. 24 preliminary election.
Conley’s campaign has paid for five ads, at least four of which will begin running Tuesday on local and cable television stations. The Conley campaign declined to say how much it is spending on the ad campaign, making it difficult to determine the frequency and prominence of the ads.
The Suffolk district attorney’s ads will be quickly followed Thursday by a commercial buy from Felix G. Arroyo. The first ad from the Latino city councilor will be in Spanish and will air only on Spanish-language media.
And then there’s this:
The ads were produced by Joe Slade White and Co., a media strategy firm that has worked on campaigns with other Democrats, including Joe Biden when he was running for reelection to the US Senate from Delaware. Conley’s campaign has paid the company $23,000 for its work, according to campaign expenditures filed with the Massachusetts Office of Campaign & Political Finance.
First of all, $23,000 for producing five ads? Those guys need management.
Second of all, Joe Slade White and Co. is carpetbagging in this race.
Home page:
That’s New York/Texas/DC in the lower bar for oldies like us.
Client list (click to expand):
Funny, Dan Conley doesn’t appear on this expanded client list either.
Then again, 23 grand doesn’t exactly put you on the radar screen.
Oddly enough, Tuesday’s Boston Herald reported this:
Conley, Arroyo plan TV ad blitz
The air war in the mayor’s race has officially begun as Suffolk District Attorney Daniel F. Conley launches a series of TV ads today and City Councilor Felix G.
Arroyo follows later this week with what may be the first Spanish-language-only ads in a Hub mayoral race.
Conley’s campaign is launching five new ads to begin airing on cable and local TV today. In one spot, created by a Portland, Ore., production company, he talks about “cracking down on illegal guns” and how he created a Suffolk County gun court that has a 90 percent conviction rate. Other ads focus on education and the city’s innovation economy.
(The web version of the piece calls it a “Buffalo, New York, production company” – no correction appended. The Herald doesn’t do corrections.)
Buffalo – Portland, Ore. (not even Maine?) – whatever. The ads were not produced in Boston.
Surprisingly, neither local daily made a big deal of it.
But the hardreading staff is.
3 Comments | 
Uncategorized | Tagged: Boston Globe, Boston Herald, Boston mayoral election, Buffalo, Dan Conley., DC, Felix Arroyo, Joe Slade White and Co., Massachusetts Office of Campaign & Political Finance, New York, Ore., Portland, Texas, U.S. Senate special election | 
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July 16, 2013
From our Walt Whitman desk
Stop the presses! The Boston Herald made The Newseum’s Top Ten Front Pages on Monday.
Here’s the text:
In the aftermath of George Zimmerman’s acquittal for the shooting death of Trayvon Martin 17 months ago, people took to the streets Sunday in cities across the country to protest the not-guilty verdict. The power of the story lies in the front-page images of people’s reactions and questions about where Zimmerman and the country go from here.
Also noteworthy but too small to read: the New York Daily News Page One.
Mediaite called it an effort to “irresponsibly gin up hatred and sell newspapers” in contrast to the “measured” editorial that ran in the same edition.
But back to our award-winning local tabloid. Here’s how it celebrated in today’s edition:
The hardreading staff is not on this earth long enough to spend time finding out if any other Top Tenners toss the confetti in their own papers, but we’re guessing they don’t. Just one more way the Herald is special.
1 Comment | Uncategorized | Tagged: Boston Herald, Emmett Till, George Zimmerman, Mediaite, New York Daily News, The Newseum, Top Ten Front Pages, Trayvon Martin, Walt Whitman | Permalink
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July 15, 2013
Former U.S. Senate hopeful Gabriel Gomez apparently learned at least one thing during his special-election campaign against Ed Markey: The broadsheet is mightier than the tabloid.
From today’s Boston Globe:
Gabriel Gomez could be up for another run
‘Nothing’s off the table,’ he says of federal or state campaign
COHASSET — Less than three weeks after losing a special US Senate election, Republican Gabriel E. Gomez said he is open to making another run for political office.
“If something does pop up and I’ve got the same passion that I had for this last race, then I would be interested in it,” he said.
In his first postelection interview, Gomez was reflective about his US Senate run, admitted to some missteps in his initial high-profile bid for elective office, but appeared to be at peace with the results.
So the Globe gets the at-home sit-down with Gomez while the Boston Herald gets . . . what?
Secondhand slop.
Gabriel Gomez prime for 2014 run
Election-battered GOP newcomer Gabriel E. Gomez is back, mulling a return to the political scene just weeks after losing his freshman U.S. Senate bid, with Republican sources saying he is eyeing a 2014 statewide race, and a top aide saying he’s open to any office — including the state’s top job.
“Gabriel Gomez has a strong future in Massachusetts should he decide to run, and no office is off the table,” his former campaign manager, Lenny Alcivar, said. While Alcivar added that Gomez is currently “focused on Little League games and spending time with his family,” other Republican sources said the Cohasset businessman is considering a 2014 run.
While most state Republicans said that Gomez likely would stay out of the gubernatorial showdown if Charlie Baker or Scott Brown decide to enter, political analysts agreed a quick Gomez comeback is feasible.
The Herald piece also mentions treasurer and attorney general as possible statewide slots for Gomez to seek. The Globe reports that “[l]ast week, US Representative Greg Walden, the Republican charged with keeping his party in control of the US House of Representative, hinted to a Capitol Hill newspaper that Gomez should consider a bid against Democrat William R. Keating, who represents the Ninth District.”
Right now, though, we’re betting the only thing Gomez is seeking is a fence-mending session with a Herald reporter.
1 Comment | Uncategorized | Tagged: Boston Globe, Boston Herald, Ed Markey, Gabriel Gomez, Greg Walden, House of Representatives, Lenny Alcivar, U.S. Senate, William Keating | Permalink
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July 13, 2013
Once again the Boston Herald is a day late, but it’s the dollar short that’s interesting.
Yesterday’s Boston Globe featured this update on the sale of the paper:
Field of bidders for Globe reportedly narrows
Groups with local ties – Taylor family Henry, equity group – remain in contention
At least three investor groups with local ties apparently remain in contention to buy The Boston Globe and its related businesses, according to people briefed on the matter.
The narrowed field of bidders includes members of the Taylor family that formerly owned the Globe; Boston Red Sox owner John Henry; and Robert Loring, a Massachusetts native who owns the Tampa Tribune, said people briefed on the process.
The owner of the U-T San Diego newspaper is a possible fourth finalist, but the status of the bid could not be confirmed Thursday.
And then the money quote: “The competing bids range from $65 million to $80 million, according to the people briefed on the matter.”
Here’s how that translates into Heraldese:
Bids in for Globe – and they’re low
With bids reportedly at a disappointing $65 million to
$80 million, The Boston Globe’s impending sale is shaping up as more of a real estate deal than a newspaper buy, experts said yesterday, even as one of the four purported finalists told the Herald they’ve lost interest in the broadsheet.
“The implication is kind of obvious that the Globe as a straight business venture is not very highly valued on the market right now because clearly that amount is probably — at least the majority of it, maybe more — is valued land and the building,” said Rick Edmonds, a media business analyst for the Poynter Institute.
Ouch. It’s true that estimates of the New York Times Co.’s local media group – the Globe, its websites boston.com and bostonglobe.com, and the Worcester Telegram & Gazette – were running between $70 million and $120 million, so the current bids aren’t good news. It just hurts twice as much coming from the Globe’s crosstown rival.
And the feisty local tabloid had even more bad news for the Globeniks: “U-T San Diego CEO John Lynch told the Herald they’re out of the running.”
And then there were three.
1 Comment | Uncategorized | Tagged: Boston Herald, boston.com, bostonglobe.com, Boton Globe, John Henry, New York Times Co., Poynter Institute, Rick Edmunds, Robert Loring, Taylor family, U-T San Diego, Worcester Telegram & Gazette | Permalink
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July 12, 2013
The hardreading staff has noted two instances lately of tribute ads that ran in the Boston Globe but not in the Boston Herald. And so it was with no little interest that we saw this in today’s stately local broadsheet:
Which sent us scurrying to the Herald to see if it had suffered its accustomed fate.
It had not.
The Celtics gave the feisty local tabloid equal time (and ad space).
But lest the folks at the Herald start feeling they’re on equal footing with the Globe, witness this from Eric Randall at the Boston Daily blog:
The Celtics took out a full-page ad in Friday’s Boston Globe to thank departing stars Kevin Garnett and Paul Pierce for “bleeding green” all those years. It’s a nice move that you don’t see teams pull out for just any departing players.
But then, nor is it any surprise that Pierce and Garnett would merit special attention . . .
Moral of the story: Someone’s always ignoring the Herald somewhere.
2 Comments | Uncategorized | Tagged: Boston Celtics, Boston Daily, Boston Globe, Boston Herald, Boston magazine, Eric Randall, Kevin Garnett, Paul Pierce | Permalink
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July 10, 2013
From our Walt Whitman desk
Boston Herald hack Howie Carr got another spotlight dance with himself out of yesterday’s James “Whitey” Bulger court proceedings.
Carr’s column today is largely about the exceedingly odd nature of Bulger’s defense.
Whitey defense team falling into a rat trap
Whitey Bulger is obviously acting as his own lawyer, and as the old saying goes, he has a fool for a client.
How else to explain his increasingly bizarre defense, which ended yesterday in a fitful flurry of F-bombs between him and his minion, Kevin “Two” Weeks?
Talk about ironic: Whitey’s gravedigger buried his old boss, and he did it under cross-examination, by Whitey’s own lawyer.
All Bulger cares about, Carr says, “is not going down in gangland history as a rat.” (Not to get technical about it, but Whitey also cares about not going down in gangland history as the killer of two young women, Deborah Hussey and Debra Davis.)
Regardless, as so often happens, it eventually becomes all about Howie:
Yesterday, Weeks outlined five murders, and afterward all Carney would ask him about was his informant status — that and his alleged plot to kill me. Two Weeks said he and Whitey both wanted to whack me.
“I even knew his address — 99 Concord Road.” No wonder I’m still alive. I lived at 91 Concord Road.
Just for the record: Today’s Boston Globe coverage doesn’t mention Carr.
1 Comment | Uncategorized | Tagged: Boston Globe, Boston Herald, Deborah Hussey, Debra Davis, Howie Carr, James "Whitey" Bulger, Jay Carney, Kevin Weeks | Permalink
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July 10, 2013
The Boston papers play Page One Derby today, with both trumpeting a trio of crime stories.
Boston Globe, front page above the fold:
Boston Herald Page One:
The WhiteyWorld nod goes to the Globe for its bleep you play-by-play. The Herald has a slight edge in the other two headline treatments, although neither is the feisty local tabloid’s best work.
But while the two dailies load up Page One with all things criminal, Herald graybeard Joe Fitzgerald issues a word of caution:
Horrific cases threaten to desensitize us
Move over, Whitey and Aaron, and make room for Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, the 19-year-old kid accused, with his late brother Tamerlan, of the Boston Marathon bombings and their aftermath that wantonly killed four and wounded 260.
Have we ever witnessed such a time when three barbaric cases, totally independent of one another, concurrently competed for our rapt attention?
But, Joe Fitz adds, “[r]evulsion gives way to obsession, and infamy grabs our attention as if it possessed a star power of its own.” He points to the Hernandez and Tsarnaev groupies on social media, along with Bulger’s longtime image as the Robbin’ Hood of South Boston.
Don’t expect The Big Rumpus to quiet down anytime soon. Page One Derby doesn’t allow for it.
1 Comment | Uncategorized | Tagged: Aaron Hernandez, Boston Globe, Boston Herald, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, James "Whitey" Bulger, Joe Fitzgerald, Page One Derby, Robbin' Hood | Permalink
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July 9, 2013
As the hardreading staff noted yesterday, the Boston Herald has been uncharacteristically shy about quoting former Boston Bruin Tyler Seguin’s latest homophobic Twitter puck-up.
Yesterday’s print edition of the feisty local tabloid didn’t even mention the incident, while this AP story on the Herald website remained entirely vague:
Stars’ Seguin: Twitter slur came from ‘hackers’
DALLAS — Recently acquired Dallas Stars forward Tyler Seguin says an anti-gay comment that showed up on his Twitter account came from “hackers.”
The Stars said in a statement Sunday that they had “addressed the issue directly” with Seguin. The tweet showed up on his account Saturday and was quickly removed.
From the AP story as well.
Today’s Herald piece is only slightly more forthcoming:
Tyler Seguin’s Twitter mess not a ringing endorsement
Ex-Bruin Tyler Seguin’s controversial homophobic tweet could cost him lucrative endorsement deals as he struggles to establish himself in a new market, and is just the latest example of the perils of social media for athletes, social media and sports marketing experts said.
Seguin’s tweet, referencing a profanity-laced “Full Metal Jacket” quote about Texas, drew immediate backlash despite the fact it was deleted almost instantly, but screenshots and retweets remain all over the Internet. The reaction prompted the new Dallas Star to delete his Twitter account, blaming “hackers.”
Hey, Heraldniks: Why so dainty all of a sudden?
Just for the record, here’s what Seguin actually said (via yesterday’s Boston Globe):
For a player who never liked to take a lot of hits on the ice, Seguin is sure absorbing them off it. The latest one came Saturday night when a tweet from his Twitter account said, “Only steers and queers in Texas, and I’m not a cow.”
This guy really needs to grow up.
1 Comment | Uncategorized | Tagged: AP, Boston Bruins, Boston Globe, Boston Herald, Dallas Stars, Full Metal Jacket, gay slur, homophobic tweet, steers and queers, Twitter, Tyler Seguin | Permalink
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July 8, 2013
Last time now-former Boston Bruin Tyler Seguin got all homophobic on his Twitter feed, the Boston Herald beat the Globe on the story. This time it’s the other way around.
From Christopher Gasper’s column today:
Bruins gave up on Tyler Seguin too soon
If Tyler Seguin is as good at shutting down his Twitter account as he was at getting shut out on the scoresheet in the playoffs then his days of 140-character missives are — like his days donning the Spoked-B — done.
Both the Bruins and Twitter being Seguin-free seem like good ideas right now, quick fixes to aggravating problems. But they might prove rash overreactions in the end. Professional athletes have to learn how to deal with the consequences of celebrity in the social media age and patience has to be shown with a potential franchise player whose talent level far exceeds his maturity level.
The Bruins gave up on Seguin too soon, trading him July 4 to the Dallas Stars and confining him to the dustbin of failed face-of-the-franchise forwards along with Joe Thornton and Phil Kessel after just three seasons . . .
And then, this: “For a player who never liked to take a lot of hits on the ice, Seguin is sure absorbing them off it. The latest one came Saturday night when a tweet from his Twitter account said, ‘Only steers and queers in Texas, and I’m not a cow.'”
The Stars, of course, immediately shifted into damage control while Seguin claimed his Twitter feed was hacked. Either way, he’s gone social-media silent.
As was today’s Herald on the topic. Stephen Harris looks at Seguin’s exit, but without the tweet heat.
Suffice to say, teams don’t quit on 21-year-old No. 2 overall draft choices with the brilliant skills of Seguin unless they have very good reasons. The team deserves some blame for not doing a better job of supervising Seguin. In times past, teenagers like Stephane Quintal, Joe Thornton and Patrice Bergeron were placed with area families who offered them the same sort of stability and control they used with their own children.
It sure sounds like the Seguin-Bruins story could have had a happier ending if that had been done with this kid when he first came to Boston at age 18. But it was not. So you get the reports of underage partying, the online photos of dancing on the bar, the fast cars, the messy apartment, etc., and you get a ticket on the next plane to Dallas.
The feisty local tabloid does have an AP story on its website now, but that only counts in horseshoes.
3 Comments | Uncategorized | Tagged: Boston Bruins, Boston Globe, Boston Herald, Christopher Gasper, Dallas Stars, steers and queers, Stephen Harris, Texas, Tyler Seguin | Permalink
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July 6, 2013
For two days now the Boston Herald has been on Nantucket John Kerry like Brown on Williamson over his paddling while Egypt burns.
Yesterday’s front page:
Today Kerry just got the top of Page One:
But the feisty local tabloid gave Long Jawn a good working-over on page two.
Experts: John Kerry’s credibility could sink with boat flap
John F. Kerry’s credibility took on more water on the second day of his Nantucket vacation flap, as the State Department backed off its initial denial the embattled secretary of state was yachting during the Egyptian military coup — and President Obama tweeted a photo of himself kayaking in a hat, sunglasses and polo shirt.
The Herald reported yesterday that Kerry spent the Fourth of July cavorting on his island getaway even as chaos from the military’s ouster of Islamist President Mohammed Morsi rocked Egypt.
The State Department also conceded that yes, Kerry “was ‘briefly’ aboard his $7 million luxury craft, the Isabel, on the day of the coup, after previously insisting the yacht sighting was ‘completely inaccurate.'”
Gotcha!
Crosstown at Boston Globe the only thing Kerry got was let off the hook. Page One:
Jump:
But here’s the best – and most lenient – part of the piece (note the choice of “on a yacht” vs. “on his yacht”):
Meanwhile, the Kerry camp was sidetracked by a self-inflicted wound after a State Department spokeswoman initially denied that Kerry had been on a yacht in Nantucket while Egypt was undergoing its latest revolution. The spokeswoman on Friday retracted her denial, which led to the image of Kerry on his yacht getting even more attention. The criticism came from predictably partisan quarters, but still it was a distraction at a critical time.
Hey, Heraldniks: You gonna take that lying down?
1 Comment | Uncategorized | Tagged: Boston Globe, Boston Herald, Egypt, John F. Kerry, Mohammed Morsi, Nantucket, Secretary of State, State Department, yacht Isabel | Permalink
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It's Good to Live in a Two-Daily Town 