Hark! The Herald! (Wayne’s World Debate Edition)

June 9, 2014

The Boston Herald has slowly evolved into a cross between The Onion and one big selfie.

Exhibit Umpteen: The feisty local tabloid’s hyperventilating coverage today of . . . itself! Specifically the gubernatorial debate the the Herald will stream on its website tomorrow.

Representative samples range from this announcement . . .

 

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. . . to Hillary “Cassandra” Chabot’s dire warning to Martha Coakley . . .

 

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. . . to John “Cassandra” Nucci’s dire warning to everyone else . . .

 

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Wow. So, presumably, there will be a tremendous web audience tomorrow morning, extensive media coverage of the debate, and serious repercussions for the candidates.

Wow.

 


Chicago Lawyer Again Seeks Ad-vantage from Amy Lord’s Murder

June 9, 2014

From today’s Boston Herald:

 

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ATMSafetyPin is a certain Joe Zingher, as the hardreading staff noted previously, “a Chicago lawyer who holds U.S. Patent 5,731,575, ‘Computerized system for discreet identification of duress transaction and/or duress access’ at ATM banking machines.”

Here’s the ad he ran in the Globe in April.

 

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And here’s his argument from the Herald ad (the Globe reference in the headline is largely playing to the cheap seats):

 

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Mr. Zingher claims his interest is not financial, since his patent is close to expiring. “The idea I’m going to make any money off this is ridiculous,” he told us in April. He also said he hopes to “trigger a class action suit” because suppressing ATM crime information has been part of the banking industry’s business model for 30 years.

Sounds like a pretty good business model for Mr. Zingher too, yeah?

 


That’s Just So Mean! (Juliette Kayyem Edition)

June 7, 2014

Yesterday’s Boston Herald featured this column by Hillary Chabot:

Not time for scrappy Kayyem to hold back

The crowded Democratic gubernatorial field is stacked against long shot Juliette Kayyem, but the newcomer hasn’t been afraid to throat-punch her rivals in her quest for the Corner Office.

Now it’s time for this 44-year-old upstart to turbo-channel Chuck Norris.

 

But the photo that accompanied the column looked like Kayyem was turbo-channeling the Bride of Chuckie.

 

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C’mon, Heraldniks – we know you can’t abide liberals, but was that really necessary?

 


Globe’s New ‘Capital’ Section Delivers Capital Gains

June 6, 2014

When newspapers introduce new sections to their print editions, it’s always about one thing: advertising dollars. So as welcome as the Boston Globe’s new Capital section may be to us in a gubernatorial election year that also sees the U.S. Senate up for grabs, the full-page ads in today’s maiden voyage are even more welcome to the Globe.

Exhibit A, from the Friends of Mohegan Sun:

 

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Exhibit B, from Steward Health Care System:

 

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But it’s this one that especially caught the eye of the hardreading staff:

 

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And who, exactly, is Humane Watch? It’s our old pal Rick Berman, the self-proclaimed Dr. Evil who fronts for corporations that oppose public interest groups ranging from PETA to MADD.  (Berman’s funders are largely anonymous, but you can get some idea of them here.)

Caveat reader, yeah?

 


What Can the Herald Not Do for Brown? (Florida Scamsters Edition)

June 5, 2014

As the hardreading staff noted earlier, the Boston Herald is working overtime to ignore anything negative about its policrush Scott Brown (R-Elsewhere), while the Boston Globe front-pages once again Brown’s questionable involvement with the shady Florida outfit, Global Digital Solutions.

Brown’s solution to his Globe-al problem? Dump the scamsters. Todd Wallack and Noah Bierman continue to report.

Brown cuts ties to Fla. company

Gives up stock, says his role had become campaign distraction

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Republican Scott Brown abruptly resigned Wednesday from an obscure Florida company and gave up stock initially valued at $1.3 million after facing a barrage of questions about his role as a “senior adviser,” a controversy that had dogged his US Senate campaign in New Hampshire.

Brown’s resignation from the advisory board of Global Digital Solutions Inc. was announced about two hours after a news media event in the state’s capital designed to highlight his official entry into the race. He was repeatedly challenged by reporters in Concord seeking answers about what he had done to earn the stock grant, and whether he had scrutinized the company before lending it his name.

“I’ve already answered it for two days,” Brown said, defending his role at the company. “We put out a statement.” The questions continued, and Brown said, “I am not really sure what else to say,” as cameras recorded him getting into his green GMC truck. Democrats promptly posted video of the uncomfortable exchange.

 

Said video:

 

 

And it’s not just the Democrats who are on Brown’s case – other news organizations are hounding him too, as a quick search of the Googletron reveals.

 

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Notably absent from the list? That’s right – the Herald. Far be it from the flirty local tabloid to criticize its pinup boy, eh?

 


Bianca de la Gonza (II)

June 3, 2014

As the hardreading staff mentioned earlier, former WCVB morning minx Bianca de la Garza bid Boston ad-ieu in the local dailies on Sunday. Our post generated two Facebook comments from opposite ends of the spectrum.

Really admire her – smart, beautiful, hard-working. But who wrote this? Imagine a girl from Milton, graduate of Emerson in local television? Look around B, Emerson is a broadcasting powerhouse, and Milton ain’t the sticks.

Who picked that outfit? Not to be a prude, but: What does that neckline have to do with journalism?

 

Okay so today, Bianca got some love from Track Gal Gayle Fee at the Boston Herald and this version of the non-journalistic neckline could easily bring a blush to the face(book) of the latter commenter.

 

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File Under: Hot News.

 


What Can the Herald Not Do for Brown?

June 3, 2014

The Boston Herald has long been the house organ for former Sen. Scott Brown (R-Elsewhere), routinely boosting the peripatetic pol through what it does – and does not – cover.

Exhibit Umpteen of the latter comes today, as the flirty local tabloid completely ignores the biggest story about Brown right now – his questionable involvement with a shady Florida outfit called Global Digital Solutions.

Crosstown at the Boston Globe, the Brownanigans have been front-page news – twice.

From the Boston Sunday Globe:

Scott Brown got big stake in obscure Florida firm

For advisory role, an award with initial worth of $1.3m

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An obscure company in West Palm Beach that markets itself as a firearms manufacturer made a splashy announcement last summer: It was appointing Scott Brown, the former Massachusetts senator, to its advisory board.

Not revealed at the time was what Brown received in exchange for lending his name to the venture. But a report the company made to the Securities and Exchange Commission last month, which has not been previously made public, shows that Brown received stock that was worth $1.3 million at the time. Its value has declined considerably since then, as the stock price has fallen by half.

 

Sort of like Brown’s own stock, eh? According to the piece by Todd Wallack and Noah Bierman, Global Digital Solutions started out as a beauty supply company and “does not yet sell or make guns. It has no revenue, no patents, no trademarks, no manufacturing facilities, and no experience developing weapons, according to its most recent corporate filings.”

Hmmmm.

From today’s Globe:

Scott Brown defends stake in Florida company

Says he advises startup; rivals call for disclosure

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WINDHAM, N.H. — Scott Brown, former senator of Massachusetts, on Monday defended his decision to accept 1.5 million shares of stock from an obscure Florida company, saying he offers guidance and serves as a sounding board in exchange for his large stake in the firm.

“It’s a startup company that I’ve been on the board for, what seven, eight months, offering any type of advice when asked,” Brown said in a brief interview after a campaign event at a local gas station highlighting his energy plans.

Brown defended the legitimacy of the company, Global Digital Solutions Inc., dismissing concerns that it has announced a series of acquisitions that have not been completed. Among them was an announcement in March that it intended to buy Remington Arms Co. LLC, one of the world’s largest gun manufacturers, for more than $1 billion. That was greeted with derision by Remington and others in the industry.

 

Derision! That’s what Brown has in common with Global Digital Solutions. It all makes sense now.

 


Bianca de la Gonza

June 3, 2014

From our Late to the Going-Away Party desk

The hardreading staff was out of two-daily-town over the weekend, so we missed Bianca de la Garza’s farewell tour in the local dailies on Sunday.

But we must say, it was impressive.

Boston Globe ad (in two easy-to-read pieces):

 

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Slightly less impressive Boston Herald ad:

 

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Most impressive: That the ads appeared at all.

Lucky gal, Bianca.

 


Boston Chinstrokerati Play Jared Remy Blame Game

May 28, 2014

From our One Town, Two Different Worlds desk

Today’s Boston dailies bury the needle on the Contrast-O-Meter in the assigning of blame phase of Jared Remy’s first-degree-murder trial. In the wake of Remy’s preemptive guilty plea, local columnists cast their gimlet eye on very different subjects. Start with Yvonne Abraham’s front page piece in the Boston Globe.

Rampager makes one more  attack on his victim

WOBURN — What a bizarre mix of contrition and blame-shifting we saw in Middlesex Superior Court Tuesday. What a spectacle of the depths to which people can sink. What a vividly detailed map of the wasteland brutality leaves behind.rathe_remy_met07a

Standing in that low-ceilinged, fluorescent lit courtroom, Jared Remy called Jennifer Martel, the woman he murdered with gruesome force at least partly witnessed by their 4-year-old daughter, “an angel.”

He’s the one at fault for killing her, he said. No share of the blame should go to his parents, who his lawyer said had been unfairly maligned, held partly responsible by some for not doing more to rein in a violent son who had been spiralling blatantly out of control for years.

 

Right – tell that to the Boston Herald, where columnists Margery Eagan and Joe Fitzgerald engage in a slapfight over Jared Remy’s father Jerry, whose career as a Red Sox sportscaster could be – some say should be – collateral damage in this tragic affair.

Count Eagan among the latter.

 ‘RemDawg’ benefits from a blatant double standard

Jared Remy has spared his daughter Arianna and Jennifer Martel’s family the anguish of a gruesome trial. He has also spared his father AN3V8624.JPGJerry and helped him keep his job behind the NESN microphone broadcasting Red Sox games.

Sox fans are clearly divided over whether the sins of the son should be visited upon the father. But they might feel differently about Jerry Remy’s lighthearted banter if they heard Martel’s murder described in stomach-churning testimony by neighbor Kristina Flickinger Hill.

 

And they’d definitely feel differently, Eagan writes, “if it were Phoebe Remy’s career on the line. If a mother spent thousands of days on the road while all three of her children were having run-ins with the law, they’d say she abandoned her children, cruelly and selfishly, when they needed her most. She’d also lose her job in a nanosecond.”

Fitzgerald, for his part, decries “armchair quarterbacks who have turned the misery of Jared’s parents into a merciless cottage industry.”

“What kind of parents were they?”

“Were they enablers, thus creators of the monster he became?”

“Should Jerry continue as a Red Sox broadcaster?”

It’s contemptible.

 

Actually, what’s contemptible, as Abraham points out, is Jared Remy’s explanation of the brutal murder.

“I always told Jen she could leave,” he said. “But do not threaten me with my child. That night, Jen had a knife in her hand and threatened me with my daughter, so I killed her. I don’t think it’s right when women use their kids against their fathers.”

It was chilling, appalling, this matter-of-fact assertion of cause and effect. His twisted invocations of his rights as a father — he mentioned it once on the stand and again in his statement — mocked all of the lofty talk of accepting responsibility that preceded it. Even as he sat in handcuffs and leg chains, admitting he had done something unspeakably awful, he was blaming his victim.

 

One town, three different worlds, no waiting.

 


Boston.comment: KidVid Says Site Redesign Is ‘Crap’

May 25, 2014

From our Late to the House Party desk

The new! improved? boston.com has met with decidedly mixed reviews, some of which the site itself is showcasing, as the redoubtable Jim Romenesko reports.

CUTE KIDS COMPLAIN ABOUT BOSTON.COM’S REDESIGN (‘WAS THIS JOHN HENRY’S IDEA?’)

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The kids in this video are reading actual complaints that Boston.com got after its recent redesign. Here are some of the “child actors’” lines:

* “I can’t find anything I’m looking for.”
* “I feel like I’m looking at a children’s picture book.”
* “My wife and I hate your website.”
* “I think my grandmother might like this site.”
* “Is this an April Fool’s joke?”

 

And etc.

(Romenesko: “That’s the son of Boston.com news and homepage editor Hilary Sargent on the right; the other two belong to Boston Globe CEO Mike Sheehan.”)

And the whole thing belongs to boston.com, which “owns” the redesign in its YouTube video.

 

 

The hardreading staff’s favorite: “Boston.com is like the squirrelly uncle you put up with on holidays.”

Squirrel on, DotComniks.