Today’s edition of the selfie local tabloid once again demonstrates its Heraldcentric theory of the universe, as it reports that the trial of alleged Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev is all about, well, the Boston Herald.
Lawyers blast feds over Herald column
Boston Marathon bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev’s lawyers have again asked a judge to postpone his trial, challenging prosecutors’ claims about their preparation process and slamming a Herald column that criticized the defense’s repeated efforts to seek delays.
In the motion filed yesterday, Tsarnaev’s legal team disputes the government claim that they have refused to stipulate to any evidence — an acknowledgement that would preclude bringing in officials to testify about how it was acquired and handled.
According to today’s report, “[t]he defense motion cites Herald reporter Bob McGovern’s Dec. 26 Full Court Press column, which referred to the defense’s ‘foot-dragging’ and ‘stall tactics’ as an example.”
Jackpot!
As you might expect, crosstown at the Boston Globe there’s nary a word about foot-dragging or stalling or stipulating . . . or the Herald.
Tsarnaev defense renews pitch to delay trial
Says prosecutors sent thousands of documents late
Attorneys for Boston Marathon bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev renewed their push Monday to delay his death penalty trial, set to start in one week, until the fall.
In papers filed in US District Court, the attorneys for the 21-year-old, who is accused of detonating two bombs at the 2013 Marathon finish line along with his late brother, Tamerlan, said the government has handed over thousands of documents to them at the last moment.
As a result, the attorneys wrote, there is no way they can be ready to defend Tsarnaev both during the trial, and if he is convicted, during the penalty phase, where jurors will be asked to decide whether the former Cambridge resident deserves the death penalty.
Local shoemaker New Balance yesterday saluted “each and every police officer, firefighter, first responder and service man & woman” in this full-page ad that ran in both – say it again, both – Boston dailies.
Truth to tell, the ad also ran in the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal.
But as the Heraldnix might say, why get technical about it.
The coup de grâce came, fittingly, on Page One of today’s Boston Globe.
State senator’s partner to leave his PR job
Blames Globe for departure
In a sudden shift from an announcement over the weekend, the domestic partner of presumptive Senate president Stanley C. Rosenberg abruptly resigned Monday from his position at a politically connected Boston communications firm.
Bryon Hefner, in an e-mailed statement to the Globe, blamed the newspaper for driving him out of his job working as a public relations staff member for Regan Communications.
Late Saturday the Regan firm, which offers potential clients Beacon Hill connections and help with lobbying, had said it was reassigning Hefner from its Boston headquarters to its Florida office.
Hefner, who has been absolutely sandblasted by the stately local broadsheet for the past three weeks, wrote in his email to the paper, “The Boston Globe has rejected my transfer to Florida, identifying it as ‘not being far enough away’ if I am still in a relationship with my partner of over six years . . . The Boston Globe has forced me, just days before Christmas, to choose between my personal and professional life.’’
Globe reporter Frank Phillips, who (along with Jim O’Sullivan) has played Javert to Hefner’s Jean Valjean, wrote this in response:
It was not immediately clear what Hefner was referring to when he wrote that the newspaper had “rejected” the Florida move. Neither Hefner nor Rosenberg responded to requests for comment.
Not immediately clear? Probably never gonna be clear – because it’s most likely some crybaby concoction from a kid who got too big for his britches, as my old man used to say. (Here’s the Globe story on Regan’s dispatching of Hefner to Florida. No hint of it “not being far enough away,” so it’s still not clear where Hefner’s quotation marks came from. Unless the Globe is holding out on us.)
Regardless: Bryon, we hardly knew ye. But that was more than enough for most.
U.S. Rep. Joseph P. Kennedy III said yesterday that “companies clearly create jobs,” putting distance between himself and potential presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, whose controversial comments on the subject are expected to be fodder for Republicans this upcoming election cycle.
One of the Bay State’s rising political stars, Kennedy said in a Herald interview yesterday that Congress needs to embrace policies geared toward economic equality as it prepares to return next month under Republican control. But he said helping businesses, big and small, to “flourish” needs to remain part of that, as Democrats — increasingly galvanized by the populist bullhorn wielded by U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren — try to beat back criticism that they’re anti-business.
We-think-she’s-nuts graf:
Republicans once galvanized by President Obama’s “You didn’t build that” comment in 2012 were re-energized in late October when Clinton sent shock waves through the Twittersphere when she told Democrats in Boston, “Don’t let anybody tell you it’s corporations and businesses that create jobs.”
(Columnist Joe Battenfeld piles on with this piece, in which he speculates that Joe K 3.0 “may help derail Clinton’s White House path by endorsing her potential 2016 opponent, U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren, much the same way the late U.S. Sen. Ted Kennedy backed Barack Obama in 2008.”)
The problem with this Hill-steria on the Herald’s part is that it conveniently overlooks this:
Yeah – that was Elizabeth Warren two years ago, not two months ago like Clinton. So you could say Warren was the Granny of that particular sentiment.
But the Herald wouldn’t say that. Doesn’t fit their storyline, does it?
As we’ve previously noted, the Boston Globe has been rather – how shall we put it? – ad-aptable lately with UMass, from a special supplement masquerading as editorial content to, most notably, the pimping out of the Globe banner last month.
A splendid reader now sends this to the tsktsking staff:
[H]ave you noticed recently the UMass-Branded Business section in the Globe? I know they’re doing a lot (a lot!) of advertising in the Globe, but the UMass logo placement next to the “Business” banner on the front page of the new section makes it seem almost like a paid advertising section. I saw it there yesterday, and again today. I believe 2-3 times more in the last 10 days.
Here’s the one from today:
The splendid reader is correct: The bug also appeared in yesterday’s edition, as well as last Wednesday through Friday. Oddly, on none of those days did UMass run an actual, old-fashioned ad.
And the splendid reader is likewise correct that the bug makes the Globe’s Business section look like a partly owned subsidiary of the Massachusetts higher ed system.
In fairness, though, the Boston Herald looks like a totally owned subsidiary of Suffolk University. So maybe this is just Business as usual.
The Yes Boston Olympics group (not its real name) made its 2024 Summer Games pitch to the US Olympic Committee yesterday and got very different receptions in the local dailies.
US panel votes to submit bid for Summer Games, will select from field of four cities next month
The US Olympic Committee’s board of directors voted unanimously Tuesday to submit a bid for the 2024 Summer Games and next month will choose one candidate from among Boston, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Washington, D.C., to join what is expected to be a crowded international field.
The committee gave no indication of a favorite among the four cities. USOC chief executive Scott Blackmun said the contenders were in “a four-way tie.’’
Boston mayor Marty Walsh added that “it shows you that this puts Boston on a stage. Whether or not we get the Olympics, to be able to be in the same conversation with other cities around I think says an awful lot about the strength of the city of Boston.”
Or its business community anyway.
Crosstown at the Boston Herald, the bid got significantly less play. Like page 21 play.
Can we made Dirt Digging an official Olympic event? That’ll jumpstart the fizzy local tabloid, eh?
U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Present Tense) has routinely refused to rule out a 2016 presidential run, saying only “I am not running for president.” Here’s a typical exchange, from yesterday’s interview with NPR’s Steve Inskeep, who brought up all the people urging Warren to run.
Would you tell these independent groups, “Give it up!” You’re just never going to run.
I told them, “I’m not running for president.” You’re putting that in the present tense, though. Are you never going to run?
I am not running for president. You’re not putting a “never” on that.
I am not running for president. You want me to put an exclamation point at the end?
Fabulously non-responsive, no?
But in today’s edition the Boston Globe’s Noah Bierman came up with a clever way to shift Warren to the future tense.
Warren has answered the question more definitively before. Last year, the Globe asked her at a news conference in Boston whether she would make a a more ironclad pledge to serve out her Senate term, which ends in January 2019.
“I pledge to serve out my term,” she said at the time.
On Monday, Warren’s spokeswoman, Lacey Rose, was asked by the Globe in an e-mail whether the senator stood by that pledge.
“Yep, nothing has changed,” Rose replied.
Of course, everything is different in the Boston Herald. Top of Page One:
Inside, there’s Hillary Chabot’s piece (with Matthew Stout) about Warren’s local political posse.
Bay State heavyweights eye Warren bandwagon
U.S. Rep. Joseph P. Kennedy III — whose late uncle Edward M. Kennedy famously snubbed Hillary Clinton in the 2008 presidential contest — kept the door open yesterday to another game-changing Kennedy endorsement should U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren enter the 2016 race.
“He has no doubt she will continue to be a tremendously effective leader wherever her career takes her,” Kennedy spokeswoman Emily Brown said yesterday when asked of the congressman’s thoughts about Warren as president.
The comment comes after U.S. Rep. Michael E. Capuano (D-Somerville) offered his support to Warren if she jumps into the presidential contest, despite the likelihood that former Secretary of State Clinton will enter the field.
As the hardreading staff has previously noted, the local dailies have differed on whether Mark Wahlberg’s racist-fueled 1988 assault on two local Vietnamese men resulted in his blinding one of them in one eye.
The Boston Herald said Wahlberg “reportedly left one of the victims blind in one eye,” while the Boston Globe has never mentioned that particular fact.
For the past 26 years Hollywood superstar Mark Wahlberg has believed he left a Vietnamese man blind in one eye after brutally assaulting him during his wayward teenage years.
He spent 45 days in jail for the attack but has now made a plea for the crime to be pardoned having turned his life around to become one of the most famous actors in the world.
His victim has never spoken about the vicious assault in 1988 but has broken a more than two decade long silence to reveal that the actor did not actually cause him any serious harm – and that until he was told by MailOnline, he had no idea his assailant had become a famous actor.
In his first ever interview since the attack Johnny Trinh revealed to Mail Online he was already blind in one eye after being injured while fighting the Communists in the Vietnam War.
So, to recap:
Mark Wahlberg racially assaulted two Vietnamese men in 1988 but blinded neither of them in either eye.
Crosstown at the Boston Globe, the story – not surprisingly – gets buried at the bottom of today’s Names column.
But it’s not just story placement that distinguished the two papers. It’s the language they use that really sets them apart. Just a few examples (feisty tabloid on left, stately broadsheet on right):
The feisty local tabloid has been something of a Wahlflower in the past week’s Marky Mark rumpus, but today’s edition jumps into the pool with this column from Jessica Heslam.
Clean slate requires coming clean
Wahlberg’s records still sealed
Mark Wahlberg wants the commonwealth of Massachusetts to wipe his violent, racially fueled criminal record clean — but the state won’t let you see what’s in his court files.
The Dorchester thug turned Hollywood star’s criminal and civil files in Boston courthouses have been sealed shut as the former rapper known as Marky Mark seeks a pardon.
It’s not surprising. His crimes are disturbing.
To detail just how disturbing those crimes were, Heslam draws on court papers posted on The Smoking Gun website in 1997. But we’re not like to see any more, Heslam reports.
The Probation Department couldn’t say when or why Wahlberg’s cases were sealed, citing privacy laws. The Parole Board said his criminal records are protected by the state’s Criminal Offender Record Information law.
Crosstown at the Boston Globe, those zany Namesniks add yet another wrinkle to the Ballad of Marked Mark.
Huh. Life imitates art, eh? Or at least melodrama.
prosecutors’ claims about their preparation process and slamming a Herald column that criticized the defense’s repeated efforts to seek delays.
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