The hardreading staff was captivated – as no doubt you splendid readers were – by the latest Gardner-Museum-Chasing-Its-Ghosts tale that played out in the local dailies yesterday.
Let’s start with the redoubtable Shelley Murphy’s Page One piece in the Boston Globe.
Investigators suspect a link between the Gardner Museum heist and an execution-style murder in Lynn
On a February night in 1991, James Marks had just returned from Maine and was unlocking the door to his Lynn home when a gunman crept up behind him and opened fire, killing him with two blasts from a shotgun, according to police.
The killer fled on foot, leaving a few footprints, but the case remains unsolved, although a mob associate who died years ago has been implicated.
Some authorities now say they suspect there may be a link between the execution-style murder of Marks — a hustler and convicted bank robber — and one of Boston’s most famous unsolved crimes: the 1990 theft of masterpieces valued at more than $500 million from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum.
(That’s “Anthony Amore, the security director of the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum . . . reflected in the empty frame that held the painting ‘The Concert’ by Vermeer,” for those of you keeping score at home.)
Crosstown at the Boston Herald – actually it’s no longer crosstown since the Globe barely occupies its stately State Street headquarters and the Herald newsroom is couch-surfing at the Lowell Sun – the new Gardner revelation was also a big story.
Except check out the byline.
That comes as no surprise given this post we published a few months ago.
Boston Herald Publisher Moonlights at Hartford Daily
Kevin Corrado is the publisher of the Boston Herald, as the feisty local tabloid duly – and daily – notes on its masthead.
But now Corrado, who in his spare time is also Regional Publisher at MediaNews Group:Northeast Cluster: Massachusetts & New York, is expanding that expansive portfolio to include the Nutmeg State.
According to Stephen Singer’s piece in the Hartford Courant, its publisher and editor-in-chief Andrew Julien – a 30-year veteran of the paper – is switching teams to become executive editor of Tribune Publishing’s New York Daily News.
Meanwhile . . .
MediaNews Group Regional Publisher Kevin Corrado will take over business operations at the Courant on an interim basis and begin the search for a new editor in Hartford.
“Andrew has been a wonderful steward for the Courant, and while we’re sorry to see him go, our loss is New York’s gain,” Corrado said.
To call that eyewash is an insult to saline solution everywhere . . .
Meanwhile, the flimsy local tabloid’s Incredible Shrinking Newsroom is bidding adieu to Erin Tiernan, who has blissfully decamped to MassLive.
Here’s guessing the filching local tabloid will feature plenty more out-of-town bylines in the days and weeks ahead.
It's Good to Live in a Two-Daily Town 