Hark! The Herald! (Trusted? Better Verify Edition)

September 28, 2018

Latest in our endless series from the selfie local tabloid

As the hardreading staff was leafing through our New! Costlier! Boston Herald this morning, we came across this small house ad on page 9.

 

 

Who knew, right?

(To be sure graf goes here.)

To be sure, we have, on occasion, been wary of trusting the pluggy local tabloid regarding such matters, so we decided to check out that Brand Keys outfit, and here’s what we found.

A recent Brand Keys study measured “trust” among readers of their newspapers-of-choice.

Sure, ideology self-defines selection when it comes to subscribing to a newspaper (in print or digital), but “Trust” accounts for 41% of actual newspaper brand engagement.

The remaining 59% is accounted for by content and values addressing “entertainment listings and sports,” “an ability to educate and inform via news reporting, columnists, and editorial,” and providing insights into the “economy and local events and markets.”

 

The study asked 3800 readers – either print subscribers or regular digital readers (3+ times a week) – to evaluate their newspapers.

Drumroll, please.

 

 

Given its perhaps unlikely presence on the list, you can understand the chants of “We’re Number Twelve!” echoing around Fargo Street.

But when you think about it, 18% of regular Herald readers don’t trust the paper; of course, that’s also true of 14% of Boston Globe readers.

Maybe they should crisscross.


Hark! The Herald! (Useless Print Edition Edition)

March 22, 2018

Umpteenth in our never-ending series

On numerous occasions the hardreading staff has referred to a Boston Herald subscription as Biggest. Waste. Ever.

And now we’re back.

Page 3 of today’s selfie local tabloid is entirely devoted to this piece bylined “Herald Staff,” the designation routinely employed in passing off press releases as actual news.

Herald moves print production to Providence Journal

The Boston Herald is now being printed in Providence, which means our loyal customers can look forward to a more reader-friendly paper.

Beginning this week, the Herald is being printed at the The Providence Journal’s flexographic newspaper printing facility, which was North America’s first entirely flexographic printing facility when it opened in 1987. The Journal selected the flexo process because it creates a paper with vibrant color reproduction and uses an environmentally friendly, water-based ink that won’t have the paper rubbing off on your hands.

 

More reader-friendly?

Here’s what this reader got on today’s Scoreboard pages.

The redoubtable Dan Kennedy at Media Nation called this one several days ago: “I’m hearing reports from inside the Herald that the switch will require deadlines so early that evening sports stories may not make the print edition.”

Bingo.

(To be sure graf goes here)

To be sure, the Herald at times gave readers the same short shrift when the Boston Globe printed it.

(Two be sure graf goes here)

Also to be sure, the e-Edition of the spotty local tabloid did have yesterday’s results.

But we’re shelling out good money for the print edition while getting less news for the buck all the time.

So, Heraldniks, we say this as you celebrate your new printing setup: Not a providential beginning. Not by a long shot.


Hark! The Herald! (Both Sides No Edition)

November 6, 2017

As the hardreading staff has noted on numerous occasions, the Boston Herald has consistently failed to grasp the distinction between news and promotion.

Exhibit Umpteen: Today’s edition of the selfie local tabloid, which devotes half a page of its ever dwindling newshole to a talk Herald columnist Adriana Cohen gave yesterday at a Harvard student conference.

 

 

Just nuts graf:

“No one has a monopoly on smart,” Cohen said [at the event]. “There are good and smart people on both sides of the aisle and across demographics. When some people only want to hear one side of an argument, or one narrow set of ideas, they’re doing themselves a great disservice. We can all learn from one another.”

 

That’s rich, given that Cohen – a charter member of the Trumpettes – has demonstrably never met a knee she wouldn’t jerk.

Just as the Herald has never met a PR event it wouldn’t dress up as news.

(To be fair graf goes here)

To be fair, the Boston Globe has lately done its share of self-promotion as well. There was all the hubbub in the newshole last month over the paper’s HUBweek festival, and this wet kiss for “Globe Live” in the Names column last week.

 

 

Never say we don’t give you both sides.

Two-Daily Tune bonus track:

 

 


Hark! The Herald! (OneOrlando Fund Edition)

June 16, 2016

From our Walt Whitman desk

As the hardreading staff has chronicled in excruciating detail, the Boston Herald is a past master at promoting itself in its news pages.

But now comes the selfie local tabloid promoting itself in this half-page ad for the OneOrlando Fund.

 

Screen Shot 2016-06-16 at 12.37.13 AM

 

So you might reasonably be thinking:

1) This is a fund set up by the Boston Herald

2) The multiphobic Herald (immigrants, Muslims, GLBT, and etc.) has finally seen the light.

Except . . .

The OneOrlando Fund has nothing to do with the Herald. From its website:

 

Screen Shot 2016-06-16 at 12.51.49 AM

 

We’ll give the Herald the benefit of the doubt and assume this is just the milk of human kindness. But given the sketchy local tabloid’s track record, well, draw your own conclusions.


Hark! The Herald! (Cohen After WashPost Edition)

May 11, 2016

From our Walt Whitman desk

Call it the fisty local tabloid, ’cause the punches are flyin’ today.

It all started with this Callum Borchers piece in yesterday’s Washington Post.

Pundits achieve cable-news stardom after converting into Donald Trump supporters

Screen Shot 2016-05-11 at 12.38.41 PM

Last summer, shortly after Donald Trump launched his angry missile of a campaign with that memorable remark about Mexicans and rapists, Kayleigh McEnany sounded like pretty much every other talking head on cable news.

“I think he said something very unartful, very inappropriate,” she told Don Lemon during a June 29 segment on “CNN Tonight.”

“I’m here to tell you, he’s not going to be anywhere near the top five,” McEnany added. “He’s not a serious contender within the Republican Party. And I think he made that pretty clear when the most important thing he said in his speech was, ‘I am rich, I am rich,’ repeatedly.”

Today, McEnany sounds very different — both from her earlier self and from better-known conservative commentators such as Karl Rove and S.E. Cupp, who remain highly critical of the presumptive Republican presidential nominee. McEnany is now a staunch Trump supporter, a turnaround that has helped make the newly minted Harvard Law School graduate a rising star on CNN . . .

 

McEnany, Borchers writes, “is one of a small handful of commentators — including Jeffrey Lord, Scottie Nell Hughes, Adriana Cohen and Carl Higbie — who have made defending the real estate mogul their niche and in the process made themselves hot commodities.”

And hot under the collar, in Cohen’s case. The Boston Herald columnist fired back at Borchers in today’s edition.

D.C. hit job ignores facts

Post piece demeans female pundits who back Trump

If you want to see what the war on women looks like, you need look no further than The Washington Post.Screen Shot 2016-05-11 at 1.39.38 PM

To be more specific, the war on conservative women.

Because I have dared to write supportive opinion columns on Donald Trump, I was featured along with two other female commentators in a Post story that stated that I have “achieved cable-news stardom after converting” into a Donald Trump supporter, that I, along with the others, “have made defending the real estate mogul their niche and in the process made themselves hot commodities.”

 

Cohen says despite Borchers’ claim that she was an “occasional guest” on CNN, Fox News Channel, and Fox Business Network “before getting behind Trump,” she actually appeared on national TV and radio shows “at least 100 times over the past few years, long before writing columns backing Trump and his positions this February.”

Cohen does not, however, address this part of Borchers’ piece:

On March 25, during a live segment on CNN, [Cohen] brought up a National Enquirer story that alleged multiple extramarital affairs by Cruz — unsubstantiated rumors that the mainstream media had mostly ignored until then. As anchor Kate Bolduan shook her head, Cohen went a step further, asserting on live TV that fellow guest Amanda Carpenter, Cruz’s former communications director, had been identified as one of five mistresses.

 

Ouch.

One last point: As Cohen points out, some of the comments attached to Borchers’ piece are brutally misogynistic. But during this election season, that’s par for the course. Trump supporters or no.


Hark! The Herald! (Going to Ascot Edition)

February 28, 2016

This is rich.

We’ve long known that the writers at the Boston Globe are bow-tied bumkissers, thanks to relentless mocking by a certain Boston Herald columnist.

But check out Gayle Fee’s Inside Track item from today’s edition of the selfie local tabloid.

 

Screen Shot 2016-02-28 at 12.39.16 PM

 

That would be Herald managing editor/creative Gustavo Leon, if you’re keeping score at home.

So, what do we call the Heraldniks now? The ascotted asskickers?

Paging Howie Carr . . . paging Mr. Howie Carr.

P.S. Congrats to the Boston Herald photo staff, which “captured 13 awards in the Boston Press Photographers Association annual contest — led by Mark Garfinkel’s first place in the Spot News category.” The flashy local tabloid covers its awards here.


Hark! The Herald! (Radio Raves Edition)

October 19, 2015

From our Walt Whitman desk

The Boston Herald made its own page 2 today with this sort of newsish story.

Herald honored as ‘Innovator of the Year’

Screen Shot 2015-10-19 at 10.54.20 AM

PALO ALTO, Calif. — The Boston Herald was named “Innovator of the Year” yesterday after a vote of a joint conference of the Associated Press Media Editors and American Society of News Editors at Stanford University.
The coveted APME innovation award recognized the Herald for “its innovative platform called Boston Herald Radio that is fully integrated with its print, online and video divisions.”

“Innovator of the Year is a prestigious national award that speaks to a news organization’s innovative and creative approaches to reach their audience,” said Joe Hight, a member of APME’s executive committee and awards program chair. “The Boston Herald shows it is a leader in the country by winning this award. Boston Herald Radio is not only innovative but practical.

 

That’s six “innovations” if you’re keeping score at home.

Of course what’s most innovative about BHR, as we call it here at the Global Worldwide Headquarters, is the platform it provides for cross- and self-promotion. But why get technical about it on such a happy occasion?

Instead, hearty congratulations to the firsty local tabloid.

Really.


Hark! The Herald! (Pimp Our Pages Edition II)

July 7, 2015

From our Walt Whitman desk

As the hardreading staff noted last week, the Boston Herald is plumbing new depths of journalistic malpractice with its weekly Gretta Style column, in which fashion butterfly Gretta Monahan gets to plug her retail store and her hair salon.

Screen Shot 2015-07-02 at 11.35.29 PM

And as we promised, we contacted both the selfie local tabloid and Herself for comment. (We waited until yesterday because, really, how stupid is it to contact anyone on July 3rd?)

And . . . nothing.

Curious, because our email to Herald Lifestyle Editor Sandra Kent seems innocuous enough.

Dear Ms. Kent,

[We are] the author of the blog It’s Good to Live in a Two-Daily Town. [We’re] hoping you might give [us] some information about the weekly Gretta Style column in the Herald.

Are there guidelines for how often Gretta Monahan can feature her store and/or salon?

Is Gretta Monahan paid for producing the weekly column?

Thank you for your consideration.

Sincerely,

[The Hardreading Staff]

 

Likewise, we left a message for Ms. Monahan asking for an interview.

So far, no interview.

But, as always, we’ll keep you posted.


Hark! The Herald! (Pimp Our Pages Edition)

July 3, 2015

From our Walt Whitman desk

As the hardreading staff has relentlessly chronicled, the Boston Herald is excessively adept at promoting itself in the guise of news reporting. But the selfie local tabloid is blazing new trails in its weekly Gretta Style features.

Stylish logo:

 

Screen Shot 2015-07-02 at 11.35.29 PM

 

Yesterday’s edition:

 

Screen Shot 2015-07-02 at 11.34.17 PM

 

Soup to nuts graf:

As for what to wear, I’m all about Barbara Biu’s metallic slides ($340) paired with a Lemlem patio dress ($245), both of which you’ll find on shelves at Grettaluxe in Wellesley now . . .

And as an ode to the holiday, make sure to bring Chloe’s red, small Faye bag ($1,390, also at Grettaluxe), a perfect summer statement to match the fiery show.

 

Oh, yeah – don’t forget the photo caption:

 

Screen Shot 2015-07-02 at 11.35.10 PM

 

So, to recap: This particular Gretta Style feature is all about Gretta Monahan’s Grettaluxe store in Wellesley.

On the other hand, last week’s feature was all about Gretta Monahan’s Grettacole hair salon in Copley Square.

 

Screen Shot 2015-07-03 at 12.16.36 AM

 

Drive you nuts graf:

 

Screen Shot 2015-07-02 at 11.47.59 PM

 

So, to recap again: The Boston Herald is giving over its news pages to Gretta Monahan every week so she can promote her various enterprises.

Inevitable conclusions:

1) The Herald is paying Monahan to produce these features, which is a crime against common sense.

2) Monahan is paying the Herald to produce these features, which is a crime against journalistic ethics.

3) No money is changing hands, which is a crime against Herald readers.

The headscratching staff will make some phone calls today to sort out those options, but we don’t expect anyone will talk to us.

Regardless, as always, we’ll keep you posted.


Hark! The Herald! (Journalism Awards Edition)

June 29, 2015

From our Walt Whitman desk

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.

 

 

Screen Shot 2015-06-29 at 12.27.52 AM

 

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.

 

Screen Shot 2015-06-29 at 12.48.15 AM

 

Maybe it’s still TBA. If so, we’re sure the finalist local tabloid will let u know.

The SPJ Sigma Delta Chi medal, on the other hand, was already trumpeted by the Herald two months ago.

Not to get technical about it.

Regardless, sincere kudos to the Heraldniks.

The hardreading staff is, obviously, glad you’re here.