Boston Globe’s Big Wet Kiss to Tom Menino, Big Wet Raspberry to Boston Herald

January 6, 2014

Yesterday’s Boston Sunday Globe featured a five-page Stockholm Syndrome sendoff to hardexiting Boston Mayor Tom Menino.

Representative sample (graphic here):

 

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Don’t take our word for it: Check it out yourself and you’ll find up to zero percent negative information in the piece.

But you will find this slight:

Menino has had a complicated relationship with the spoken word. His first campaign, he warned he was no “fancy talker.” A tabloid dubbed him “Mumbles.”

 

A tabloid?

Might that be the Boston Herald?

The Menino Gazette will never say.


Globe: No Problem with Walsh’s Koh Dependency

January 5, 2014

According to today’s Boston Globe, Mayor-elect Marty Walsh has named a “relative political outsider” who is “relatively young” as his City Hall wingman – and that’s all good.

Walsh announces his chief of staff

Andover native, 29, has worked in politics, at Huffington Post

Boston Mayor-elect Martin J. Walsh on Saturday named Daniel Arrigg Koh, currently the general manager of Huffington Post Live, handout_koh_metas his chief of staff — the first major appointment in the administration that takes over control of the city on Monday.

“I’m excited to have Daniel joining our administration and bring a fresh, new energy to the mayor’s office,” Walsh said in a statement issued Saturday afternoon. “He has broad experience about City Hall and a deep understanding of managing a large, fast-paced organization. We have great talent joining us, and I know Daniel will help me transform the way we do things in Boston.”

 

And nary a discouraging word after that.

Not so fast, says crosstown rival Boston Herald on today’s front page.

 

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Inside, the feisty local tabloid elaborates.

Walsh names neophyte to key position

Some say mayor-elect taking a risk

Picking a 29-year-old political unknown as chief of staff is a bold, unexpected move and a sign that Mayor-elect Martin J. Walsh’s 010414Walshjm03administration is shaping up to take a new direction in City Hall — although the hire also is not without risks, experts said.

Daniel Arrigg Koh — an Andover native who last worked as general manager of HuffPost Live and a former adviser through Harvard’s Leadership Fellow Program for Mayor Thomas M. Menino — represents a young, intelligent hire with an impeccable resume, said John Nucci, Suffolk University vice president for government affairs.

 

Or maybe this . . .

Daniel Koh might be too young and too green to navigate the pitfalls of City Hall politics effectively, said Thomas J. Whalen, a Boston University social science professor. Walsh should have compensated for his own inexperience in City Hall by hiring someone well-versed in the political landscape, he said.

“This is a huge job. You think you would have someone who is older, more experienced and more connected,” Whalen said, adding that Koh will have to tangle with the city’s union leaders. “You’ll need a tough guy who can knock heads together. Will they respect someone 29 years old?”

 

Well, we know at least one person who doesn’t.

Leave it, as usual, to Herald graybeard Peter Gelzinis to provide some historical perspective in a piece headlined Koh may be right-hand man, but not clear he’ll be a heavyweight.

In his fifth and final go-round as mayor, Tom Menino looked across the river to Harvard and installed whiz-kid Mitch Weiss as his chief of staff. A beloved old pol craved new blood. And yet the man he trusted to handle the day-to-day life blood of politics was an up-from-the-streets-Southie native, Michael Kineavy.

It was a kind of schizophrenia that just about everyone in City Hall came to understand. “Kineavy was the get-it-done on the ground guy,” one longtime veteran said. “He was the guy that made government work in a way everyone understood.

 

The Herald covered a lot of bases on this story. Presumably, the Globe will play some catch-up tomorrow.


Did the Globe Give a Mulligan to Tom Menino on Boston Development?

January 5, 2014

Last Thursday, the Boston Globe ran this Page One piece by its highly respected architectural critic Robert Campbell.

For urban design, Menino era scores highs and lows

 

maeda_19MeninoBRA_biz1

 

In his 20-plus years in office, Mayor Thomas M. Menino began as the healer of Boston’s neighborhoods. Over time, he morphed into the commander of downtown development.

Of course I’m simplifying. But I think that’s the short story people will remember about this mayor and his impact on the architecture of the city . . .

The mayor was involved in virtually every decision about architecture and urban design during his tenure. He wasn’t a visionary thinker, nor was he strong on aesthetics. But he was a master of detail who always seemed to know everything that was happening. He won’t be remembered for any single grand urban gesture. Instead, he presided over a multiplicity of lesser projects that, taken together, have changed the face of the city.

 

For better and for worse, as Campbell’s piece makes clear.

Then yesterday, the stately local broadsheet ran this Page One piece (dead-tree edition headline).

Skyline bears his distinctive signature

Impact of Menino’s development calls still unfolding

When Mayor Thomas M. Menino took office in 1993, Boston’s downtown was in the grip of a recession. Construction had slowed to Screen Shot 2014-01-05 at 12.45.59 AMa crawl, retailers were struggling, and the elevated Central Artery still spewed exhaust onto a waterfront that was more gritty than glitzy.

Then, an improbable chain of events unfolded: The Big Dig, massive cost overruns and all, replaced the rusting steel of the artery with a series of parks; people and new stores began moving back into the city’s core; and developers created bold plans for North Station, Downtown Crossing, and the South Boston waterfront.

Today, those sparks of renewal are exploding in a historic spate of development, with more than 5,700 homes under construction and huge office, retail, and housing complexes rising from the South Boston Innovation District to Dudley Square. While he was not directly responsible for all of those projects, Menino played a central role in rebuilding a city that is now among the world’s top markets for real estate investment.

 

That’s a very different picture, yeah?

Yeah.


Scot Lehigh Nails Tom Menino

January 4, 2014

Praise the Lord and pass the ballots: Boston’s long Meninorama is about to end.

Tom Menino’s hagiographic sendoff has for the most part been toe-clenching, as a former colleague of ours might say. Sure, there have been the occasional whacks: Robert Campbell got in a few in his architectural digest of Boston development over the last 20 years, and Dig Boston got in more than a few digs in its valedictory.

But generally, Mistah Mayah has gotten the equivalent of a Duck Boat Parade from the local media.

So it was refreshing to read Scot Lehigh’s op-ed column about Menino in Saturday’s Boston Globe, especially these passages about “the counterproductive parts of his record.”

Topping that list is the way Boston’s public conversation suffered under a thin-skinned, insecure, often peevish mayor. City actors and observers quickly learned that Menino saw himself less as mayor than as sultan — and could be as petty and imperious as one when angry.

And he was nothing if not easily vexed.

Proposing a project, initiative, or idea that hadn’t first been cleared with the mayor was enough to put one crosswise with him. He was, meanwhile, hypersensitive about criticism and quick to take umbrage at those who differed on policy matters.

 

Truth is, Tom Menino may have been the smallest mayor in Boston’s history.

Twenty years or no.


Hark! The Herald! (Tomorrow’s Edition Today Edition)

January 3, 2014

From our Walt Whitman desk

The feisty local tabloid will be celebrating in its news pages tomorrow after winning yet another Today’s Top Ten Front Pages award from the Newseum.

The Deep Freeze

The weather outside is frightful, but front-page photos are so insightful. When temperatures plunge, winds gust and you’re slogging through snow and ice, the only way to dress up for the extreme weather is to cover up. For Page One, that’s the opportunity for a close-up.

 

And here they are:

 

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Boston Herald Victory Dance to follow soon.


What Can the Herald Do for (Ayla) Brown?

January 3, 2014

Well, announce her engagement for starters.

From Thursday’s Boston Herald Inside Track:

Ayla Brown ‘available’ no more

Former U.S. Sen. Scott Brown has no more “available” daughters. Ayla Brown’s BF, former minor league pitcher Keith Weiser, Boston Herald Mediadropped to his knee onstage at the Tuckerman Theatre during the country singer’s New Year’s Eve set and popped the question. And Ayla said, “Yes!”

“Thank you to Keith Weiser for making my dreams come true,” Ayla, a former “American Idol” contestant, wrote on her Facebook page yesterday. “I didn’t think 2013 could be any better until this happened at my show last night. I love you Keith and I can’t wait to spend the rest of my life with you!”

 

Proud Papa Scott told the Track that “Ayla’s future hubby had been planning his surprise for some time.”

It certainly came as a surprise to the Boson Globe, which had nothing on the happy couple.

Chalk one up for the Track, yeah?


Globe Runs MBTA Sellout Ad

January 1, 2014

Tip o’ the pixel to Nancy Goldner, who had this Letter to the Editor in Tuesday’s Boston Globe.

Where’s transparency on T’s naming sale?

IN THE wake of the failure of transparency and accountability that led to the loss of $25 million of MBTA pension money uncovered by the Globe, we need to restore the “public” to the quasi-public MBTA. (“Ex-T pension chief recommended $25m investment that went bust,” Dec. 20). Now there is another troubling disregard of the public dimension. The MBTA is turning our T stations and rail and bus lines into commodities for sale to private corporations that can come up with the $1 million price tag. In return, they will get naming rights, branding, advertising, and online and on-site promotion rights.

A small advertising notice announcing the Corporate Partnership Program appeared in the Globe Metro section on Dec. 26. Selling off the public spaces thousands of riders pass through everyday will subject us to relentless advertising pitches whenever we ride the T. Don’t riders deserve a say before the MBTA further commercializes our public spaces?

Nancy Goldner

 

That sent the hardscrambling staff to the 12/26 edition of the stately local broadsheet, and this ad:

 

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Half a million for the Tom (Not a Racist) Yawkey Station? One million for No.9 Park Street Station?

Cheap at half the price, as Soupy Sales would say.