April 13, 2016
Telecommunications giant Verizon is engaged in another tug-of-war with its unionized workers, about 40,000 of whom walked off the job today.
From Reuters:
The strike was called by the Communications Workers of America (CWA) and the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers that jointly represent employees with such jobs as customer services representatives and network technicians in Verizon Communications Inc’s (VZ.N) traditional wireline phone operations . . .
Verizon and the unions have been talking since last June over the company’s plans to cut healthcare and pension-related benefits over a three-year period.
The workers have been without a contract since its agreement expired in August. Issues include healthcare, offshoring call center jobs, temporary job relocations and pensions.
Verizon, of course, knew this was coming, so for the past two days the company has run this full-page ad in the Boston Globe.
But the telecom has yet to run any ads in the Boston Herald, perhaps thinking the audience there would be insufficiently sympathetic to the Verizon pitch.
A strike of about 45,000 Verizon workers lasted two weeks in 2011. See here for the ad battle back then, in which virtually all the Verizon numbers were disputed.
On the other side, the unions were pretty aggressive in their advertising five years ago, even playing the 9/11 card.
Let’s see what’s up their sleeve this time around.
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Uncategorized | Tagged: 9/11, Communications Workers of America, CWA, International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, Reuters, strike, Verizon, Verizon Communications Inc. | 
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Posted by Campaign Outsider
April 13, 2016
As the hardreading staff noted several days ago, the Boston Globe broke the story of Alan (Claus von Bugle) Dershowitz’s settlement of allegations that he had sex with a minor.
Sex allegations against Dershowitz called mistake
Two plaintiffs’ lawyers admitted Friday that they made “a mistake” when they accused famed attorney Alan 
Dershowitz of having sex with their client when she was a minor.
The admission came in a joint statement released by the lawyers, Paul G. Cassell and Bradley J. Edwards, and Dershowitz to settle defamation suits the two sides filed against one another in state court in Florida.
“Edwards and Cassell acknowledge that it was a mistake to have filed sexual misconduct accusations against Dershowitz,” the statement said. “[A]nd the sexual misconduct accusations made in all public filings … are hereby withdrawn. Dershowitz also withdraws his accusations that Edwards and Cassell acted unethically.”
Now comes yesterday’s New York Times piece about the same.
Dershowitz and Two Other Lawyers Settle Legal Fight
The noted defense lawyer Alan M. Dershowitz and two lawyers who had sued him claiming defamation have dropped court actions against each side, ending a prominent dispute that included accusations of sexual misconduct against Mr. Dershowitz.
The settlement, announced on Friday, included a financial arrangement. But a lawyer involved in the case would not say who had paid.
And the Times piece would not say who had the story first.
Hey, Timesniks: We know you got shortchanged when you sold the Globe. But bad form to short them back.
Leave a Comment » | Uncategorized | Tagged: Alan Dershowitz, Boston Globe, Boston Herald, Bradley J. Edwards, Claus von Bugle, Judge Judy, New York Times, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Paul G. Cassell, Sarah Palin, Star Bucks Barrister, Timesniks | Permalink
Posted by Campaign Outsider
April 11, 2016
As the hardreading staff has noted, the Boston Herald has been alarmingly lax lately about holding its crosstown rival to task, both regarding the Boston Globe’s recent home delivery meltdown and last week’s Let’s remake the paper! We can use John Henry’s garage! memo from editor Brian McGrory.
But the feisty local tabloid is back on the job today, spurred on by yesterday’s front-page faux pas in the Globe’s Ideas section.
To (half)wit:
Well today’s Herald is on that like Brown on Williamson, giving it classic jump-the-gutter treatment (Inexplicable Little Green Number sold separately).
We’ll leave it to you splendid readers to decide whether you want to sample the goods: there’s a media reax piece and a thumbsucker from Jack Encarnacao, while Howie Carr mails in another shopworn litany of Globe mortal sins.
At least we know they’re awake on Fargo Street. Finally.
Leave a Comment » | Uncategorized | Tagged: Boston Globe, Boston Herald, Brian McGrory, FDonald Trump, front page, home delivery meltdown, Howie Carr, Ideas, Jack Encarnacao | Permalink
Posted by Campaign Outsider
April 10, 2016
Well tomorrow is the Red Sox home opener and, say, there’s rejoicing throughout the land – including in today’s Boston Globe Sports section, which features this full-page ad.
You know what comes next: The ad did not run in today’s Boston Herald, sports section or otherwise.
Well, you might say, that’s because the flimsy local tabloid has managed the improbable feat of having a circulation that’s smaller on Sunday than on weekdays. The Herald claims 96,403 daily and 75,405 Sunday circulation, but here’s what the Herald published last fall:
Note the Total Paid Distribution: 60,212. And that was on a Friday.
So let’s use the Herald’s own ratio and estimate Sunday circulation around 50,000. That should make a Sunday ad in the Herald less expensive, not less likely.
But apparently NESN has all the viewers it needs.
So nothing for the thirsty local tabloid.
That’s just sad, with a capital A-D.
Leave a Comment » | Uncategorized | Tagged: Boston Globe, Boston Herald, Boston Red Sox, flimsy local tabloid, Home Opener, NESN, Sunday circulation, thirsty local tabloid, weekday circulation | Permalink
Posted by Campaign Outsider
April 10, 2016
What’s with the Boston Herald?
As the hardreading staff noted last month, the Herald resolutely refused to cover the Boston Globe’s Chernobylesque home delivery meltdown earlier this year. The Globe itself labeled it a “delivery debacle,” which we wrote “should be mother’s milk to the thirsty local tabloid but . . . nothing.”
Now comes the juicy memo from Globe editor Brian McGrory (first reported on Thursday in the redoubtable Dan Kennedy’s Media Nation) announcing a “no-sacred-cows analysis of our newsroom and what the Globe should look like in the future.”
McGrory framed it this way: “If a wealthy individual [who, presumably, is not John Henry] was to give us funding to launch a news organization designed to take on The Boston Globe, what would it look like?”
Regardless, don’t you want to hear the flamey local tabloid’s answer to that question? But over the past few days the Heraldniks have given us . . . bupkis.
Some speculate that the Herald has been laying off the Globe because the Globe prints the Herald. But that deal’s been in effect for three years and didn’t keep Herald columnist Howie Carr from lambasting the Globe for its Tsarnaev brothers coverage.
So why is the feisty local tabloid AWOL now?
All suggestions gladly accepted.
Leave a Comment » | Uncategorized | Tagged: Boston Globe, Boston Herald, Brian McGrory, Chernobylesque, Dan Kennedy, feisty local tabloid, flamey local tabloid, Heraldniks, home delivery meltdown, John Henry, Media Nation | Permalink
Posted by Campaign Outsider
April 9, 2016
When we last saw Alan (Claus von Bugle) Dershowitz in the local press, he was passing judgment on a judicial nomination.
Alan Dershowitz rules in favor of Sarah Palin as TV judge
There’s been some guffawing about Sarah Palin’s prospective job as a TV judge — the former Republican vice presidential candidate has a production deal to preside over a courtroom a la “Judge Judy” — but Alan Dershowitz, for one, thinks it’s a great idea.
“There are judges all over the country who make Sarah Palin look like Oliver Wendell Holmes,” the Harvard Law professor emeritus told us last week. “The point is we have an elevated — and false — impression of how judges behave in the courtroom. So many of them scream and yell and are abusive.
Not Dersh’s most judicious opinion, eh? But the Star Bucks Barrister is faring better in today’s Boston Globe.
Sex allegations against Dershowitz called mistake
Two plaintiffs’ lawyers admitted Friday that they made “a mistake” when they accused famed attorney Alan Dershowitz of having sex with their client when she was a minor.
The admission came in a joint statement released by the lawyers, Paul G. Cassell and Bradley J. Edwards, and 
Dershowitz to settle defamation suits the two sides filed against one another in state court in Florida.
“Edwards and Cassell acknowledge that it was a mistake to have filed sexual misconduct accusations against Dershowitz,” the statement said. “[A]nd the sexual misconduct accusations made in all public filings … are hereby withdrawn. Dershowitz also withdraws his accusations that Edwards and Cassell acted unethically.”
Glad we got that sorted. Crosstown, however, the Boston Herald reported nothing of the sort.
Hey, Dersh – so sue them, yeah?
Leave a Comment » | Uncategorized | Tagged: Alan Dershowitz, Boston Globe, Boston Herald, Bradley J. Edwards, Claus von Bugle, Judge Judy, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Paul G. Cassell, Sarah Palin, Star Bucks Barrister | Permalink
Posted by Campaign Outsider
April 7, 2016
Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Ain’t Sayin’) is unquestionably a political force on the national scene. But now she’s a comic book “Force” as well, although that means very different things in today’s Boston dailies.
Boston Globe:
Nice little promo for the book and the senior senator.
Crosstown at the Boston Herald, columnist Howe Carrtoon mails in – predictably – a very different take, which you can read if you like, although we don’t recommend it.
Liz and let Liz, eh?
Leave a Comment » | Uncategorized | Tagged: Boston Globe, Boston Herald, Carrie Fisher, Cher, Condoleeza Rice, Elizabeth Warren, Female Force, Gabrielle Giffords, Howie Carr, Howie Carr(toon), Storm Entertainment | Permalink
Posted by Campaign Outsider
April 7, 2016
As the hardreading staff has previously noted, the BostonGlobe.com search box is the ultimate digital black hole.
Exhibit Umpteen: Yesterday the Missus said, “Hey – remember that self-portrait of Ellen Day Hale we saw at the MFA the other day? Sebastian Smee wrote about it today in the Boston Globe.”
So we scurried over to BostonGlobe.com to check it out. And got this from a search for “Sebastian Smee.”
Seriously?
So we hied ourselves to Google News and got this.
Hale’s magnetic, mesmerizing ‘Self-Portrait’
There’s blood in that pale, sinewy hand. Blood and resolve. Idle for now, it won’t stay that way for long. It’s poised for action.
The hand belonged to Ellen Day Hale, who painted it herself in 1885.
It’s part of a self-portrait, one of the best in the Museum of Fine Arts, where it hangs in the Art of the Americas Wing, in a gallery devoted to the so-called Boston School.
It is, as we’ve come to expect from Sebastian Smee, a thoroughly smart and insightful piece. It’s also a piece you’ll never find via the Globe’s online search engine.
Are we the only ones who think that’s a travesty?
Not to mention an actionable case of media malpractice.
Hey, Sebastian Smee – you feelin’ this?
Leave a Comment » | Uncategorized | Tagged: 'Self-Portrait', Boston Globe, Boston School, Ellen Day Hale, Museum of Fine Arts Boston, search engine, Sebastian Smee, the Missus | Permalink
Posted by Campaign Outsider
April 5, 2016
The ride-hailing service Uber isn’t exactly getting great press these days, even in Boston, where an Uber driver struck a pedestrian in the Fenway area last night.
That’s good news for local cab drivers, who take to the front page of today’s Boston Herald to flag Uber’s problems.
Interestingly, there’s no indication of who paid for the ad.
Travis Bickle, maybe?
Leave a Comment » | Uncategorized | Tagged: "Taxi Driver", Boston Herald, Boston taxi drivers, Martin Scorcese, Robert DeNiro, Travis Bickle, Uber | Permalink
Posted by Campaign Outsider
April 4, 2016
From our Local Dailies DisADvantage desk
The much-heralded arrival of GE headquarters in Boston has been all about the money, and today’s headlines are no different. From the Boston Business Journal:
GE to donate tens of millions to Boston schools, health care centers
General Electric committed Monday to donating $50 million over the next five years to Boston public schools, workforce training programs and local health care centers, ahead of an event this afternoon with politicians and business leaders welcoming the global conglomerate to the city. 
The company’s foundation (NYSE: GE) will give $25 million to Boston Public Schools for computer science courses, classes to prepare students to enter college and the workforce, and the creation of a program called GE Brilliant Career Labs that gives students access to manufacturing technology and software.
Another $15 million will go toward training workers at 22 community health centers around Greater Boston in the areas of technology, leadership and specialty care, while GE will reserve $10 million for programs for “diverse students,” including training and externships for students in Lynn, Fall River and other cities and towns outside of the Boston metro area.
Not to mention tens of thousands of dollars for this full-page ad in today’s edition of the Boston Globe.
The small type: “GE and Boston are the perfect combination to usher in a new digital industrial revolution. We’re proud to call the city that never stops making history our new home.”
But, apparently, not proud enough to run its ad in the Boston Herald.
Hey, GEniks: You’re moving to a two-daily town. Show the thirsty local tabloid some love, eh?
1 Comment | Uncategorized | Tagged: Boston Business Journal, Boston Globe, Boston headquarters, Boston Herald, Boston Public Schools, GE, GE Brilliant Career Labs, General Electric, Local Dailies DisADvantage, tax breaks, thirsty local tabloid | Permalink
Posted by Campaign Outsider
It's Good to Live in a Two-Daily Town 