After 19 years as president and CEO of the Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce, Paul Guzzi is stepping down. As a sort of parting gift, he ran this full-page ad in today’s Boston Herald.
Crosstown at the Boston Globe – no ad. Then again, why pay for what the Globe will provide for free. Bottom of today’s Business front:
Top of C2:
Guzzi is moving on the become board chairman at the Citi Performing Arts Center, where he’ll undoubtedly run many more ads in the stately local broadsheet than the thirsty local tabloid.
The hardreading staff has a track record of being, well, hard on the selfie local tabloid. But we also believe in giving credit where credit’s due.
So, from Sunday’s Boston Herald, which is read by up to several people.
The Associated Press Media Editors announced its awards earlier this month. Oddly, the only category without a winner was the aforementioned Innovator of the Year.
Maybe it’s still TBA. If so, we’re sure the finalist local tabloid will let u know.
As you splendid readers might (or probably don’t) remember, the hardreading staff a couple of days ago (people everywhere: please note the of) detailed the advertising efforts of two front groups for energy concerns: one natural gas, the other nuclear power.
Diligent as always, we wrote to both mouthpieces for more information.
As the hardreading staff noted yesterday, the Boston Herald continues to be the wallflower at the local advertising dance.
Except today.
Lo and behold, occupying the entirety of page 9 was this ad, paid for by some outfit called the Coalition to Lower Energy Costs.
Curious as always, we hied ourselves to the group’s website, which says this about the coalition:
The Coalition to Lower Energy Costs is a non-profit Massachusetts association of individual consumers, labor unions, larger energy consumers and institutions concerned about the threat to New England’s families and economy from skyrocketing natural gas and electric prices. The coalition advocates for the new infrastructure we need to give all of us access to an adequate natural gas supply and lower our energy cost. This will require substantial new pipeline capacity, including one new pipeline from western Massachusetts to Dracut.
Huh. We kind of assumed some natural gas companies might be involved. They could, of course, be those “institutions concerned about the threat to New England’s families and economy from skyrocketing natural gas and electric prices” the website mentions. The About Us page doesn’t say.
But WMUR’s redoubtable John DiStaso doesin this piece.
Pro-gas pipeline group makes regional push with new TV ad
Coalition to Lower Energy cost has ties to Kinder Morgan energy firm
MANCHESTER, N.H. —A group with ties to the proponents of the Northeast Energy Direct pipeline, proposed by the Kinder Morgan energy company, has begun advertising on WMUR and other television stations in New England.
The Coalition to Lower Energy Costs has purchased time to air an ad 30 times over two weeks on the New Hampshire’s largest television station at a cost of more than $70,000.
Anthony Buxton, a Maine-based attorney who is a leader of the coalition and also represents Kinder Morgan in a Maine Public Utilities Commission proceeding, said plans call for the ad to air for a total of about three weeks on WMUR. He said it will also air on another New Hampshire television station, as well as two Maine stations and “several stations in Boston,” at a total cost of “several hundred thousand dollars.”
Here’s the spot:
So, mystery solved, yes? Well, no. Why run the print ad in the Herald but not the Boston Globe? Intrepid as ever, we’re sending an email to the coalition to ask.
Wanna know something else that’s strange? A different energy group – Nuclear Matters (you can read about them here) – ran this full-page ad 0n A11 in today’s Globe.
But that’s not the strange part. The strange part is the same ad ran on A13.
Huh? We’re sending them an email too.
P.S. The Nuclear Matters ad also ran in the Herald. Good day for the firsty local tabloid, eh?
Plainridge Park – the “first and only” (so far) casino in Massachusetts – opened yesterday in the aptly named town of Plainville. (And no, we didn’t know where Plainville is, either.)
But yes, the gambling hell (as Raymond Chandler would call it) did take out a full-page ad in yesterday’s Boston Globe to celebrate the big event.
But not, interestingly, in the Boston Herald.
Not to stereotype or anything, but if you’re trolling for slots parlor habitués, wouldn’t you bet on the free-spending readers of the thirsty local tabloid over the tight-fisted readers of the stingy local broadsheet?
Carmen spent $300G on ads to battle Baker’s MBTA reform
The powerful Boston Carmen’s Union, in a bid to derail Gov. Charlie Baker’s MBTA reforms, has spent $300,000 on radio ads, organized campaign-style phone banks and poured thousands into the political coffers of key lawmakers and politicians overseeing T policy, a Herald review found.
The review shows the 6,000-member-strong labor group’s mounting resistance as a top legislative committee has rebuffed Baker’s key reforms . . .
The Herald’s Erin Smith and Matt Stout write, “[t]he carmen have put out three radio spots, at a cost of $300,000, so far, with a fourth expected by the end of the week and the campaign isn’t over yet, according to longtime Democratic campaign operative Michael Goldman, who is coordinating the media strategy for Local 589.” (Listen to one here.)
There’s also a radio blitz on local airwaves from the Amalgamated Transit Union, which Goldman says he’s not associated with. Of the union’s “we’re here to help” ads Goldman says, “[our] thing has been positive commercials.”
Positive, maybe, but not all that reliable, as CommonWealth magazine pointed out last month.
One ad says, “Given the advanced age of current equipment and tracks, it’s a miracle that fully 95 percent of the million-plus trips made each year have been completed on time. But the T transit workers won’t be satisfied until that number reaches 100 percent.”
Yeah. Except the Carmen’s Union definition of “completed on time” is . . . “actually happened.” If you define completed on time as “arrived at destination on schedule,” that 95% drops to around 72% (67% this year so far) according to CommonWealth’s Steve Koczlea and Bruce Mohl.
So, once again we see that MBTA=Might Be Totally Accurate.
As the hardreading staff has repeatedly noted, the Boston Herald is pretty much the wallflower at the advertising dance in the local dailies. (This week too!) But today the Herald plays second fiddle on Beacon Hill as well.
Gov. Charlie Baker (R-Mulligan, Please) tried to get out in front of some ill-advised remarks on the radio yesterday by contacting the Boston Globe to take it all back.
Says Confederate symbol should not fly in capitols
Governor Charlie Baker apologized on Thursday for remarks he made earlier in the day defending the rights of state capitols to fly the Confederate flag, initially calling it a matter of “tradition.”
Baker said in an early-afternoon radio interview that states should be entitled to decide whether to fly the Confederate flag at their capitols, laying out a brief argument for local government. But he later backtracked and said he believed the controversial symbol should be removed.
In a telephone interview on Thursday evening, Baker said he had “heard from some friends of mine.” Their message, he said: “Basically: What were you thinking?”
Indeed. What Baker wasn’t thinking was to call the Boston Herald after the “Thursday evening call [to Globe reporter Jim O’Sullivan] arranged hastily by aides.”
One would think the fringey local tabloid would at least have played catch-up on its website today, but one would be wrong.
So, to recap:
By all appearances Charlie Baker came to his senses about whether the Confederate flag should fly in state capitols and wanted to walk back his comments from earlier in the day. So he contacted the Globe but not the Herald. Bad news for the Heraldniks.
(We just sent an email to Jim O’ Sullivan asking him if that’s an accurate summary. We will, as always, keep you posted.)
UPDATE: Jim O’Sullivan tells us that he offered to talk to Baker if the governor wanted to revise or amend his comments, then aides set up the phone call. So, to re-recap: Just sharper reporting at the Boston Globe. That is all.
Once again the Boston Herald is, as they say in the Midwest, sucking hind teat.
Exhibit Umpteen: This ad, which ran on page A3 of yesterday’s Boston Sunday Globe.
Nuts to fast food graf:
The same ad ran in yesterday’s New York Times (which published this Associated Press interview with Panera founder Ron Shaich last month about the chain’s No No List).
But, insult to (financial) injury, there was no ad whatsoever in the Boston Herald, whose readers arguably could use some healthier fare.
One more missed meal for the hungry local tabloid.
Sure, the feisty local tabloid has provided some basic coverage of the five-ring monte Olympic bid, but it’s not breaking news the way other local outlets have. The Herald these days is more about Deval Patrick’s financial shenanigans.
Former Gov. Deval Patrick’s administration secretly diverted nearly $27 million in public money to off-budget accounts that paid for a $1.35 million trade junket tab, bloated advertising contracts, and a deal with a federally subsidized tourism venture backed by U.S. Sen. Harry Reid, a Herald investigation has found.
The maneuver to fatten the hidden “trust” accounts with millions from state quasi-public agencies allowed Patrick to skirt the state Legislature and evade state budget cutbacks during the recession, the Herald found.
Elsewhere in the piece, the number seems to be over $37 million. Helpful chart:
See? Even the paper’s Olympic coverage is part of its Devalue Pak.
Meanwhile, the latest Boston NOlympics revelations include this in the BBJ, which suggests that those expecting the Massachusetts Bay Transit Authority to “save the Boston Olympics” Must Be Taking Acid. The Boston Globe contributes this front-page piece about Boston 2024 relocating the Widett Circle food wholesalers to the Seaport (one really smart person we know thinks the entire Boston 2024 effort is just a land grab to develop the New Boston Food Market site). The Globe also features this Metro piece about the full-court press on the Boston 2024 organizers to finally get down to specifics.
WBUR also has a couple of new reports today about bigger Olympic footprints, and WGBH tosses in this piece about new venues and public relations.
But the Boston Herald? Call it the shelfie local tabloid.
So how many times has the hardworking staff at our kissin’ cousin Campaign Outsider written about a Boston mayor calling for proposals to redesign City Hall Plaza? At least this many. And they’re sick of the topic over there.
So it falls to the hardreading staff to chronicle the latest chapter in this emptiest of exercises, compliments of today’s Boston Herald.
MARTY: REMAKE THIS PLACE
Calls to designers for new City Hall plan
Mayor Martin J. Walsh’s plans to reinvigorate Boston City Hall and City Hall Plaza took another step forward this week with a call for designers interested in creating a master plan and programming for the hulking concrete building and its vast, barren brick-and-concrete outdoor space.
The cost of the master plan is expected to run about $500,000. It follows the mayor’s informal request in March that went outside the design community and used a Twitter campaign to solicit the public’s suggestions for the redesign of the plaza and new potential uses.
And etc.
Last Saturday the Boston Globe showcased a sort of interim step – Adirondack-style chairs on the Plaza.
Regardless, it’s still a red-brick barbecue pit in the summer. Here’s hoping this time Walsh cooks up a plan he can actually serve.
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