As the hardreading staff recently noted, the Boston Globe has been less than forthcoming in its coverage of the quest for giving landmark status to the renowned Citgo sign.
That’s because the Globe has not disclosed that the paper has profited nicely from Citgo’s campaign to save the Kenmore Square icon.
(Boston University – where the hardreading staff moonlights as a mass communication professor – is looking to sell the Commonwealth Avenue building the Citgo sign sits atop.)
To recap the $tately local broadsheet’s connection:
Citgo has spent tens of thousands of dollars over the past few months running ads such as these in the Globe.
But no Globe stories – including today’s report that “[a] city board voted to launch the process of making the iconic electric sign an official city landmark” – have mentioned the paper’s financial profit from Citgo’s ad campaign.
As we have said before:
Rough estimate: At least eight quarter-page ads costing maybe $20,000.
So you say – $20,000? That’s lunch money at the Boston Globe.
True. But it’s lunch money the Globe should mention whenever it covers the Citgo sign rumpus.
And so we say again.
It's Good to Live in a Two-Daily Town 
[…] The hardreading staff has chronicled many a money-making scheme at the Globe over the past several years, from double-dipping on the Prouty Garden dustup at Boston Children’s Hospital to Garden-variety promotion for Delaware North/Boston Properties real estate developments to the Globe’s Citgo sign conflict of interest. […]