Page One Pop Quiz:
Which of the local dailies has already made up its mind about this story?
Boston Globe:
Boston Herald:
Answer:
That’s right. The Herald.
Today’s Boston Herald, Page One.
Survivor rips ‘Meet the Press’
The gutsy dancer who lost part of her left leg in the marathon bombings accused “Meet the Press” late yesterday of being “dishonorable” for naming the accused terrorists during a local taping of the Sunday show after she was led to believe they wouldn’t.
Adrianne Haslet-Davis — one of the first survivors of the Boylston Street blasts to go public last year when she vowed “I’ll dance again”
in a front-page Herald story — said she was in tears when she walked out on the taping of tomorrow’s “Meet the Press” at the Hyatt Boston Harbor hotel.
“Your decision to back out on that promise you made and the horrific way you brought that decision to my attention just minutes prior to taping was not only a cowardice move but a dishonorable one as well,” Haslet-Davis posted on her website, adriannehaslet-davis.com about the names being used.
(Herald columnist Adriana Cohen was in high dudgeon as well, but that’s her default position.)
Here’s the letter:
More, clearly, to come.
Meanwhile, crosstown at the Boston Globe, here’s the play the story got (Metro p. 2):
Like we’ve said, parallel universes.
From our One Town, Two Different Worlds desk
There are currently two high-profile trials in the Boston area involving young people, but the local dailies only see one. Different ones.
The Boston Herald has gone all in on the involuntary manslaughter trial of Michelle Carter, who prosecutors say hounded New Bedford teen Conrad Roy into committing suicide last year.
Saturday’s Page One:
And page 5:
Today’s Herald gives Jessica Heslam’s piece all of page 3.
‘We’re doing horrible’
Grandmother: No ‘moving on’ from tragic death
Janice Roy stood in her Mattapoisett backyard looking out at beautiful Buzzards Bay as she recalled her oldest grandchild, who prosecutors say took his own life last summer under pressure from his girlfriend.
A few hours earlier yesterday, Janice had sat through a gut-wrenching hearing in New Bedford Juvenile Court, where the attorney for Michelle Carter — the Plainville teen charged with causing the death of her beloved grandson — argued to have the involuntary manslaughter charge against her thrown out.
In one of thousands of text message exchanges, Carter told 18-year-old Conrad Roy III that his family would “get over” his suicide and “move on.”
That couldn’t be further from the truth.
Crosstown, the Boston Globe has limited its coverage of the Michelle Carter trial to a B2 news brief today.
On the other hand, the stately local broadsheet is all over the case of Owen Labrie, the prep-school graduate accused of raping a 15-year old girl last year. We count seven pieces on the trial in the past week, with this one on Metro Page One today.
Labrie said he had sex with girl, peers testify
N.H. prep school classmates recall night of alleged rape
CONCORD, N.H. — In often crude language, four current and former students at St. Paul’s School testified Monday that Owen Labrie told them he had sex with a 15-year-old
girl who accuses him of rape, undercutting claims by Labrie’s defense team that the two did not have intercourse.
Andrew Thomson, who was Labrie’s roommate at the elite Concord prep school, testified that Labrie told him on the night of the alleged attack in May 2014 that he had taken the teenager’s virginity.
“He seemed a little taken aback, but overall happy” after the encounter, said Thomson, now a student at Brown University. “He seemed to be in a good mood.”
Not so much anymore, though.
The feisty local tabloid, meanwhile, has had nothing about the Labrie trial in its print edition, and just this Associated Press report on the web.
The hardreading staff isn’t sure there’s some deeper meaning in the split decision by the papers; we just know – say it with us – it’s good to live in a two-daily town.
From our One Town, Two Different Worlds desk
The Boston Herald has been making hay-hay-hay over the Bill Cosby rumpus in advance of his two performances this weekend at the Wilbur Theatre. Yesterday the not-so-funnyman got front-page treatment in the feisty local tabloid.
And today Cosby gets his say in Gayle Fee’s Page 2 piece:
Bill Cosby has defiant message for foes
Accused sexual predator Bill Cosby yesterday responded to Boston critics who plan to protest his shows at The Wilbur Theatre tomorrow, saying “Hey, Hey, Hey — I’m far from finished,” igniting even more anger from advocates calling for him to cancel the appearances.
“Dear Fans: GOD has Blessed me with a wonderful gift to share with all of you,” Cosby said in a statement released to the Herald. “For 53 years I have continued to master this gift, which heals the soul and warms hearts. Laughter! I thank you, the theatre staff (Wilbur Theatre), the event organizers and the Boston Community for your continued support and coming to experience family, fun entertainment. Hey, Hey, Hey — I’m Far From Finished.”
Oy Oy, Oy.
Beyond that, Herald scribe Joe Fitzgerald gives the protestors a bit of a dressing-down in his column today.
Angry mob wrong to try to go after easy target in Bill Cosby
While Bill Cosby is preparing for a couple of shows at The Wilbur Theatre tomorrow, a group of protesters is making its preparations, too, putting final touches on placards it intends to wave along busy, snow-packed Tremont Street.
They want us to know how very upset they are about violence toward women.
Please. Who isn’t? They’re not the only ones on that high road.
But they could have made more of a statement and been less of a nuisance just a few days earlier when a Superior Court judge, E. Susan Garsh, had the audacity to lecture a mother — “Maintain your emotions. You are not to cry!” — when the latter was about to view a photo of her murdered son’s lifeless body displayed on a table.
Fitzgerald’s bottom line:
He’s been accused of bad stuff, but never charged, much less convicted, which doesn’t seem to matter to those who’ll gather to pass judgment tomorrow . . .
Cos has a right to be on that stage tomorrow, and those who still find him amusing and admirable have a right to enjoy the show.
What is so complicated about that?
Don’t even know where to begin . . .
Crosstown at the Boston Globe, meanwhile, there has been zero coverage in the print edition over the past few days.
There is, however, this posted on the web:
Activists to protest Bill Cosby performance at Wilbur
Activists are gearing up for protests at the two Bill Cosby shows at The Wilbur Theater, hoping to call attention to allegations that Cosby sexually assaulted more than two dozen women throughout his career.
“We plan on protesting as long as the show is scheduled to continue,” said Brandie Skorker of Boston, who began organizing the demonstration in January and now has the backing of the Boston Area Rape Crisis Center.
Cosby is scheduled to perform two back-to-back shows at the Tremont Street venue, beginning at 5 p.m. Tickets are still on sale. Wilbur officials could not be reached for comment.
Huh – ’cause theater owner and promoter Bill Blumenreich had plenty to say to the Herald’s Fee yesterday. We’ll see which paper gets the last laugh after tomorrow’s shows.
From our One Town, Two Different Worlds desk
With Election Day just around the corner, we’ve officially arrived at Endorsement Season, when the local dailies weigh in with their voting recommendations. (The Boston Herald, for example, endorsed Scott Brown for U.S. Senate today.)
Last week the frisky local tabloid made its recommendations on the four ballot questions facing voters this fall, starting with Yes on Question 1, which would repeal the automatic gas tax hikes Massachusetts lawmakers enacted last year.
What Question 1 seeks to do is merely repeal the automatic nature of that tax hike. It does not roll back the tax. It does not take a penny of existing revenue out of state coffers. It would simply require that in the future if lawmakers want to hike the gasoline tax they would have to vote to do that — just as they did in 2013.
They would have to go on record and be counted. Is that so very difficult? It’s what they are elected to do.
A “yes” vote on Question 1 will do nothing more or less than making our legislators vote in the open the next time they want to hike the gas tax.
Crosstown at the Boston Globe, today’s edition featured an emphatic No on Question 1.
Proponents of the ballot question say they aren’t against gas taxes, but instead have what is basically a philosophical objection to indexing the gas tax, or any other tax, to inflation. Each of the automatic increases, they argue, represents a separate tax hike — a form of taxation without representation, because the Legislature won’t vote each time.
But this argument is disingenuous. Characterizing the increases as a hike ignores how inflation affects buying power. Raising the cents-per-gallon tax in sync with inflation ensures that the pinch will feel the same as time goes on, not that it’ll go up.
Who’s right? Pick ’em.
Ditto for expanding the state’s existing bottle deposit law. The Herald says No on Question 2.
The environmental argument has long since gone by the boards as community after community has moved to curbside recycling for homes and businesses and put separate recycling barrels in parks and other public spaces. Those recycling programs provide cities and towns with yet another source of income.
Yes, there is money in those empties, money that communities will miss out on if this ballot measure passes with its myriad rules and regulations about who would be required to accept those millions of new empties.
The Legislature for the past several years has been getting this one right. Expanding the bottle bill is more than just another inconvenience; it’s another tax. And one this state doesn’t need.
The Globe counters with Yes on Question 2.
Opponents of the measure, funded largely by the bottling and beverage industries, claim that curbside recycling is already deeply ingrained in the Commonwealth, making the expansion of the current law a nuisance. But Question 2 opponents have been using questionable data to make their case, including claiming in an ad that 90 percent of Massachusetts residents had access to curbside recycling; in fact, the correct number is 67 percent. Regardless, promoting the recycling of beverage containers isn’t the only goal of the bottle bill; the availability of curbside recycling doesn’t particularly discourage litter.
There will be a cost to consumers, but only if they choose not to recycle. (It should be noted, unclaimed nickels would go to a dedicated fund to support environmental programs that would pay for parks cleaning and improve recycling.) And there are municipal savings: A 2009 study commissioned by the state Department of Environmental Protection estimated that savings due to reduced collection and disposal costs to cities and towns would be between $4 million and $7 million per year.
Okay then. Two down, two to go. Catch you on the flip-flop.
The local dailies occupy parallel universes today in their coverage of the ongoing violence/protest in Ferguson, Mo.
Yes, both have editorial cartoons mirroring the unrest in the wake of the Michael Brown shooting.
Boston Globe’s Dan Wasserman:
Boston Herald’s Jerry Holbert.
But beyond that, the papers couldn’t be more different in their opinion pieces.
Former homeland security official/gubernatorial candidate Juliette Kayyem’s op-ed in the Globe about the failures of the law enforcement community:
Globe columnist Derrick Jackson’s piece on the failure of white Americans to, well, get it:
Crosstown at the Herald, though, the failure all belongs to the media.
Call the roll.
One town, two different worlds, eh?
From our One Town, Two Different Worlds desk
The Boston Globe is shooting blanks on the Steve Wynn/Massachusetts Gaming Commission rumpus, which involves a lawsuit over documents that the disgraced casino mogul says are covered by attorney-client privilege.
Here’s how the stately local broadsheet handled the story in today’s edition.
It’s not until the 13th graf that the piece even mentions this fact: “The meeting minutes included substantial redactions, something [commission chairwoman Cathy] Judd-Stein said was necessary because the sessions included ‘a significant amount of attorney-client privileged communications.’”
No longer crosstown at the Boston Herald, Page One says it all.
Inside, the story gets the deluxe double-truck treatment.
Hey, Globeniks, you taking notes?
(To be fair graf goes here)
To be fair, the web version of the Globe piece does have a visual component.
(To be clear graf goes here)
To be clear, though, it’s a photo of the almost-finished Encore casino, not any of the redacted documents.
Score one for the snappy local tabloid.
From our One Town, Two Different Worlds desk
The local dailies have duly noted this week’s Boston University School of Medicine shindig to kick off a seven-year, $16 million study called DIAGNOSE CTE, which will examine the relationship of head injuries to the degenerative brain disease chronic traumatic encephalopathy.
That, of course, is a subject the National Football League has a $12 billion a year interest in.
Interestingly, that interest got very different play in yesterday’s local papers.
Kay Lazar’s Boston Globe Metro Page One piece:
Study to test brain damage in living
Why do some athletes who suffer repeated head injuries develop a devastating brain disease, while others seem immune? And can this degenerative disease be treated or even prevented?
A team of scientists from across the country gathered Wednesday at Boston University School of Medicine to launch a pioneering study aimed at detecting chronic traumatic encephalopathy, or CTE, a disease that silently destroys the minds of athletes after years of repetitive blows to the head. But this time, unlike so much of the research preceding it, the studies will be conducted in people who are alive.
The NFL connection was relegated to the story’s final graf.
[A] congressional committee last week issued a scathing report saying it found evidence top NFL officials improperly tried to influence the selection of scientists for government-funded research on CTE. That interference, the report found, concerned the grant eventually awarded to the team led by BU’s [Robert] Stern.
But the National Finagling League’s interference was headline material in Lindsay Kalter’s Boston Herald report.
Doc: we won’t fumble
Despite NFL cries, CTE project rolls on
Boston University neuroscientist Dr. Robert Stern said his groundbreaking study on head trauma, which was
officially launched yesterday, will not be sullied by the long-brewing controversy over the NFL’s alleged attempts to strip him of his funding.
“I’m just so unbelievably excited to get this science moving right now,” Stern told the Herald. “This is the time to do this science.”
He added, “We’re now going to move forward.”
As will the Boston dailies, each on its own track.
From our One Town, Two Different Worlds desk
How odd is this?
Wednesday’s Boston dailies separately – or is that respectively? – featured two heinous murderers seeking redemption for the umpteenth time.
The Boston Globe front-paged one of them.
More pain as killer again bids for parole
NATICK — Every five years, in a hushed parole board hearing with the family he traumatized and tore apart, Richard
Seymour apologizes to his ex-wife and daughter, and to the memory of the teenage son he beat to death in a drug-fueled rage.
And each time, his family remains unmoved, refusing to forgive him for a brutal crime that has already kept him behind bars for three decades.
On Tuesday, Seymour’s family renewed the painful ritual of arguing against his release, telling the state’s parole board they are haunted by the thought of Seymour being set free. Their grief over Patrick Seymour’s death, they said, has never left them.
You can read the gruesome details, but the bottom line is this:
The decision of the board is not expected for several months. According to the most recent study by the state’s Executive Office of Public Safety, about one-quarter of parole requests are granted for inmates serving life sentences.
This year, Patrick Seymour would have turned 48.
And this year Jeffrey Curley would have turned 29. But Charles Jaynes and Salvatore Sicari brutally murdered him in 1997. And now Jaynes, like Seymour, is looking to wiggle free of his punishment.
From Wednesday’s Boston Herald:
Child killer Jaynes seeking new trial
Charles Jaynes, the self-styled Wiccan serving life for the 1997 kidnapping and murder of 10-year-old Jeffrey Curley of Cambridge, is imploring a panel of federal appellate justices to either grant him a new state trial or set him free, arguing the public was wrongfully barred from his first one — and that he was the victim of lousy lawyering.
A three-justice panel that includes retired U.S. Supreme Court Justice David Souter took Jaynes’ appeal under advisement yesterday as Jeffrey’s father Robert Curley endured yet another court hearing, 19 years after his son was kidnapped and killed by Jaynes and Salvatore Sicari, his body dumped in a river in Maine.
It’s heartbreaking what these families have to endure in the wake of their unimaginable tragedies.
It’s also the American justice system.
Your objections go here.