On Wednesday Boston Herald editorial cartoonist Jerry Holbert sparked a watermelon-flavored rumpus with this ill-advised (and ill-supervised) drawing in the clueless local tabloid.
Much mishegoss ensued.
(The redoubtable Dan Kennedy has a smart recap of the fiasco here.)
Whoopi Goldberg Defends Boston Herald Cartoonist on ‘The View’
In response to a controversial cartoon that appeared in yesterday’s Boston Herald, ”The View” co-host Whoopi Goldberg defended the cartoonist on today’s show.
Following information that the Sept. 19 White House fence-jumper made it to the East Room of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue rather than just past the North Portico doors as earlier reported, Jerry Holbert‘s cartoon contribution in yesterday’s print edition portrayed President Barack Obama brushing his teeth with a man behind him asking, “Have you tried the watermelon toothpaste?” and the caption “White House Invader Got Farther Than Previously Thought.”
[Thursday] morning, Goldberg addressed the controversy on “The View,” saying “I don’t believe he did it on purpose. I don’t think he was thinking about it.”
Here’s the clip:
Just for the record: Rosie Perez was having none of it.
[A] similar cartoon posted to an archive of Holbert’s work on GoComics.com doesn’t use the watermelon stereotype—in that version, the toothpaste is raspberry-flavored, even though the rest of the cartoon is drawn up exactly the same:
It’s unclear at what point the choice to use “watermelon” was made before the cartoon went to print and appeared in Wednesday’s newspaper.
In fact, it was the other way around, as BoMag‘s update indicates:
Holbert clarified Wednesday that it was his intention to include the term “watermelon” in his cartoon, not thinking about the racial connotations, and the switch to “raspberry” was made by outside editors since his cartoons are syndicated.
Holbert told [Boston Herald radio] that on Tuesday night someone wrote to him and asked if they could change the watermelon reference, and he was “confused” by the request. “I changed it to raspberry and sent it back to them,” he said.
As our Walt Whitman desk attests on a regular basis, the Boston Herald is a past master at using its newshole to promote . . . that’s right – the Herald. And now apparently, the fuzzy local tabloid is offering the same sort of ad-itorial package to its advertisers.
Witness the latest installment of the paper’s daily plug for Boston Herald Radio, the webcast that up to several people a day listen to.
Nice bit of venial synergy for Dunkin’ Donuts, eh? Lede of the “interview” at left.
Todd Wallace, field marketing manager for Dunkin’ Donuts, joined Boston Herald Radio’s “Morning Meeting” with Hillary Chabot and Joe Battenfeld to talk about the iconic coffee chain’s new products.
You gotta hear this segment to believe it. Those Heraldniks sure can take the r out of radio.
The hardreading staff was cruising through the Boston Globe Sports section this morning and amid the final final farewells to the irreplaceable Number Two, Derek Jeter, Number Two (but not at Fenway Park), we came across this full-page ad.
Our first thought: Yeah, thanks suckers.
Our second thought: Wonder if Boston GlobeSox owner John Henry ran the same ad in crosstown rival Boston Herald.
It’s Sendoff Sunday for Yankee great Derek Jeter as he says so long to baseball and the Fenway Faithful. So it’s not surprising that the local dailies have some parting gifts for the splendid shortstop who, as far as we know, never got a nickname.
From the Boston Globe, it’s a bouquet of stats – Jeter’s career relative to the Red Sox. (On the web here, but graphics not really working.)
Close-up of Jeter’s numbers:
Nice, but a little cold and calculating.
Crosstown at the Boston Herald, the sendoff is much warmer.
And the feisty local tabloid goes into extra innings, as Track Gal Gayle Fee tracks Jeter’s dating average.
Marty Walsh needs to unkiss the Blarney Stone. On his trip to the Ould Sod, Boston’s mayor has gotten shamrocks in his eyes for the second time in as many weeks, earning him the top half of today’s Boston Herald.
The feisty local tabloid dedicates a full page inside the paper to this piece:
MAYOR OFF HIS BEANS
Walsh slips with hockey idea
Mayor Martin J. Walsh was forced to walk back yet another off-the-cuff statement, this time after a firestorm set off by his bizarre proposal to play the Beanpot hockey tournament in Belfast — the mayor’s second gaffe in two weeks that has PR experts urging his handlers to rein him in.
In a move that left sports fans baffled and set Twitter ablaze, Walsh expressed his support for a “Belfast Beanpot” yesterday, telling the BBC, “In light of the recent Sister City twinning between Belfast and Boston, which is underpinned by a long-standing connection between the two cities through ice hockey, I think it would be wonderful to bring the Beanpot to Belfast and am lending my support to the campaign.”
The Beanpot Tournament is a 62-year-old Boston tradition in which Harvard University, Boston College, Boston University and Northeastern University hockey teams compete for Hub bragging rights.
That got the Twitterati’s Irish up, but not so much at the Boston Globe, which tucked the rumpus into the SportsLog section.
This is mother’s milk to the feisty local tabloid.
‘Sweetheart’? C’mon, Charlie
Gaffe could haunt Baker
Charlie Baker just can’t get it right when it comes to women.
The GOP gubernatorial candidate is desperately seeking female votes, but his latest gaffe — calling FOX 25 political ace Sharman Sacchetti a “sweetheart” — is sure to land him in the doghouse with some women voters.
Woof woof.
The Jessica Heslam piece in today’s Boston Herald, not surprisingly, contains the obligatory apology from Baker, whose campaign seems to be choreographed by Joe Cocker.
“I apologize to Sharman, as she is an accomplished professional and someone who I have come to both respect and consider a friend,” Baker said in a statement.
There are also the usual statements from the usual suspects in the umbrage-industrial complex.
Just for the record, here’s the incriminating video (see 1:03).
Since the days of the sainted Edward R. Murrow, the first rule of TV newswriting has been Say Cow, See Cow. It’s also a pretty good rule of thumb for print media. But not so much in today’s local dailies. In reporting on the celebrity sighting at Gillette Stadium yesterday, they adopted a Say Cow, See Whatever approach.
Turns out you have to go to the Globe’s website to see it.
Fans got a good laugh when Mark Wahlberg accidentally left Robert Kraft hanging for a high five after the Patriots scored their touchdown Sunday at Gillette Stadium. Wahlberg, who’s still in town to shoot “Ted 2,” sat in the owner’s box during the game and (above) chatted with QB Tom Brady before kickoff.
Or go to YouTube:
Globe print subscribers are welcome to have a cow over the slight.
The undoubtable Alan Dershowitz has penned a five-part polemic for the Boston Globe, promoted this way on Page One of yesterday’s edition:
And here’s the first installment in the series, published in yesterday’s Ideas section.
War of principles
How should a democracy decide when to compromise its ideals in pursuit of victory?
WHEN DEMOCRACIES seek to protect their citizens against new threats posed by terrorist groups such as Al Qaeda, ISIS, Hamas, and Boko Haram, the old rules — designed for conventional warfare among nations — sometimes become anachronistic. New balances must be struck between preserving people’s civil liberties and protecting them against terrorist violence. As Aharon Barak, the former president of the Supreme Court of Israel — a nation that has confronted this issue over many decades — once put it: “Although a democracy must often fight with one hand tied behind its back, it nonetheless has the upper hand.”
Barak was right on two scores: The commitment to the rule of law constrains democracies in fighting terrorists who have no concern for international law; yet although we must fight terrorism with one hand behind our back, that does not mean that we cannot use the other hand forcefully, effectively, and legally.
So why skip the five-part series?
Start with this gonna-drive-us-nuts graf:
None of these issues is amenable to simple answers. They require nuance and calibration — qualities often lost in the emotional debates engendered by the controversial practices employed against terrorists.
Nuance and calibration?
Sounds a lot like “roll your own.”
That’s a one-part series as far as we’re concerned.
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