Brownout at the Boston Globe (Marco Rubio Edition)

August 27, 2013

It’s clear by now that former Sen. Scott Brown (R-Elsewhere) will do pretty much anything to grab a piece of the media spotlight.

Today it’s this story in the Boston Herald:

Scott Brown and Marco Rubio posted on Brown's Twitter pageScott Brown Twitter pic causes a stir

It was a political twitter tornado.

When Scott Brown posted a picture of himself with a beaming U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) yesterday, the social media site lit up — especially after he followed it up with a one-word addendum: “Maybe.”

Maybe a GOP ticket in 2016?

 

Yes, and maybe the hardreading staff will win the Nobel Peace Prize for Two-Daily Town.

The best part of the Herald piece is the Scott Brown Shuffle when he was asked what he meant by “Maybe.”

“In the form of an update, as i was rushing to get a plane I responded — maybe to a charitable appearance request. That’s what I get 4 rushing,” Brown [tweeted].

 

Conclusive proof the Scott Brown truly doesn’t know what he’s talking about.

Of course Brown has had Twitter mishaps before, the most memorable being his midnight rambling last January.

 

Picture 1

 

It is said that the act of texting (or, by extension, tweeting) automatically removes 10 I.Q. points. Those are points Scott Brown can ill afford to lose.

The Boston Globe, for its part, was smart enough to ignore the story altogether.

Bqhatevwr.

 

 


Boston Globe a Day Late, Charlie Card Short on MBTA Ring Story?

August 27, 2013

From our stately local broadsheet’s The Hive on Monday:

rings-bigThis ring guarantees easy access to the T

Sick of fishing through your purse or flashing your wallet every time you ride the MBTA? A Kickstarter project, Sesame Ring, is offering stylish RFID rings that you can simply tap against CharlieCard readers as you sail through the crowds.

“Having missed the train many times while fishing for our CharlieCards, we looked for a solution in wearable technology. After months of hard work, we created the 3D-printed Sesame Ring, supported by the MBTA,” the project page states. “Now, you can walk right up to the gantry, use scientifically approved magic, and scoot on through!”

 

At first glance, the Globe is sucking hind teat here.

From the Googletron:

Picture 5

 

But look closer and you see that Globe kissin’ cousin boston.com had the story four days ago – before the other news outlets.

(Except for Boston Magazine’s Boston Daily blog. But neither outlet credits the other, so tie goes to boston.com.)

Two-Daily Town Assignment Desk: Let’s see if the Boston Herald, routinely a lively index to the Globe, picks up this story in the next few days.


Why The Boston Herald Should Respect The Boston Globe (Annie Dookhan Edition)

August 26, 2013

From the Boston Sunday Globe’s front page:

 

Picture 6

 

The Globe proceeded to devote another page-and-a-half to tracking Dookhan defendants freed by the crime lab debacle.

 

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Meanwhile, Sunday’s Boston Herald did what the feisty local tabloid always does: Inflate the personal into the political.

 

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That’s certainly newsworthy in its own right, but what the Herald will never admit is that the Globe story will be its assignment desk all this week.

That’s the Two-Daily Town two-step in a nutshell.


Vin Scully Celebrations: Globe 1, Herald 0

August 26, 2013

Vin Scully, the legendary 85-year-old broadcaster who has called Los Angeles Dodgers games for lo, these last 64 years, has just re-upped for 2014, and the Boston Globe’s Dan Shaughnessy paid tribute to him in Sunday’s edition.

Picture 5Vin Scully simply the best broadcaster of all time

Ted Williams, Jimi Hendrix, Bill Russell, Leonardo Da Vinci, Jim Brown, Winston Churchill, Bobby Orr, Yo-Yo Ma, Muhammad Ali . . .

And Vin Scully.

The best who ever lived.

On Friday, the Dodgers announced that Scully will be back as team broadcaster for his 65th year in 2014. A humbled Scully, now 85, gracefully participated in a press conference, telling the assembled media that he wished the Dodgers had simply released the news with a single line in the evening’s game notes.

 

Classic Scully.

The Sunday Boston Herald had nothing.

Classic Herald.


WQOM Catholic Radio Billboard: Try ‘God Damn’

August 25, 2013

The billboard that WQOM Catholic Radio posted earlier this month has gotten the local station plenty of attention.

Start with this report in the Boston Pilot:

Radio station launches ‘Try God’ billboard campaign

450x300_Pilot_12619

BOSTON — 1060 AM WQOM Catholic Radio is launching a billboard campaign with the message “Try God: 1060 AM Catholic Radio” across the greater Boston area.

According to a [WQOM] press release, the goal of the billboard campaign “is to reach the widest possible audience in a broad cross-section of the Boston community as a way to expand the station’s current evangelization efforts and bring the ‘good news’ of the Gospel message to even more people in the region.”

 

The bad news, though, is that people in the region can’t stop mucking with the message.

A week or so ago the Boston Globe featured this Dan Wasserman cartoon:

 

816toon_wasserman

 

Now comes today’s Boston Herald with a new alteration. (From our Credit Where Credit’s Due bureau: Fox25 had the story Friday. The dicey local tabloid failed to mention that.)

Pranksters aim billboard barb at higher authority

082413billboard

A religious billboard with a little attitude and humor aimed at Mass Pike drivers captured the attention of clandestine critics who went to great lengths to change its message with a barb of their own that looked like the original script.

Chris Kelley, station manager of three-year-old WQOM Catholic Radio, said listeners called early Thursday morning reporting that the big black billboard suggesting: “Try God,” with the text “1060 AM Catholic Radio” underneath had grown a new punch line with the words “The Other White Meat” replacing the station’s call letters.

 

Scot Landry, host of “The Good Catholic Life” radio program on WQOM, was not in an especially forgiving mood about the edit. “This act of vandalism was certainly not a prank,” he told the Herald. “It should cause us to reflect on the subtle and not-so-subtle ways that hostility is increasing against the practice of faith and against religious expression.”

But Kelley tried to spin it into a higher good:

This act . . . is an indication that the ‘Try God’ billboard campaign is attracting attention and making people reflect on the role of God in our lives.

 

Or at least in our dinners.


Boston Herald a Day Late, $500,000 Short on Mayoral Race

August 22, 2013

Preliminary indications are that our feisty local tabloid is taking a pass on the Boston mayoral race. The first competitive City Hall election in 20 years is apparently less important than the non-existent political career of a certain Scott Brown (R-Nowhere).

Monday it was Brown traipsing around Iowa that earned him Page One of the Herald.  (Q: What’s the difference between Scott Brown and the Iowa State Fair butter cow? A: The cow will participate in the 2016 Iowa presidential caucus.)

Today the big news is that Brown continues not to run for governor. So that’s front-page material too.

 

MA_BH

 

But while the Herald recites Make Way for Charlie, a real campaign has broken out in the Boston mayoral race, mostly around City Councilor (and current co-favorite) John Connolly.

From Monday’s Boston Globe:

 

Picture 7

 

Tuesday:

 

Picture 5

 

Wednesday:

 

Picture 8

 

So, to recap: Stand for Children, a national education non-profit, says it’s going to dump half a million bucks into the race. Initially no response in Monday’s Globe from the object of the kibitzer’s largesse. Rival candidates scream bloody murder. One proposes a People’s Pledge.  Connolly bites back at critics in Tuesday Globe, but still doesn’t say anything about the Stand for Children loot. Rivals scream louder. Wednesday, Connolly says he he won’t take the dough, but says People’s Pledges are just a gimmick – no wait – he signs the pledge.

Got that?

Meanwhile, the Herald isn’t reporting much of anything or even recycling Globe stuff the way it sometimes does. Thank goodness, though, for the Herald editorial page, which has noticed there’s a mayoral race.

 

Picture 3

 

The Herald agrees with what Connolly used to believe: “[The People’s Pledge] has become just another self-serving campaign gimmick.”

But fun to watch, yes? As long as someone’s covering it.

 


Herald Goes Double ‘Dutch’

August 21, 2013

The Boston Herald devotes two pages today to remembrances of the great Elmore Leonard, who died yesterday at age 87.

Start with the Associated Press obituary, which begins “He was the master of his genre, the Dickens of Detroit, the Chaucer of Crime. Every novel Elmore Leonard wrote from the mid-1980s on was a best-seller . . . ”

 

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The obit includes Leonard’s legendary writing tip: “Try to leave out the parts that people [tend to] skip.”

In addition to that, the Herald has appreciations by James Verniere and Bill Burke.

 

Picture 1

 

From Verniere’s piece:

In terms of the films based on his work, no one compares to Leonard except perhaps another hard-boiled master, Raymond Chandler (“The Big Sleep,” “Farewell, My Lovely”), and genre masters Ray Bradbury and Stephen King. That’s the company of giants. Leonard was one.

 

Amen.

Crosstown at the Boston Globe there’s an obit picked up from the Washington Post, and an item in Names.

But the feisty local tabloid takes this round.


Al Jazeera America Has Bad News for the Boston Herald

August 20, 2013

The hardreading staff gets four newspapers delivered to the Global Worldwide Headquarters every day: Boston Globe, Boston Herald, New York Times, Wall Street Journal.

Guess which one didn’t have an ad promoting today’s launch of Al Jazeera America, the Qatar-based news organization that recently bought Al Gore’s ghostship channel, Current TV?

That’s right. The Herald.

Today’s Globe featured this ad on the back page of the A section:

 

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The Journal ran the same ad, except with different colors.

The Times, meanwhile, had two Al Jazeera America ads. This full-page ad in the A section:

 

Picture 3

 

And this smaller one in the Business section.

 

Picture 5

 

The Herald got bubkes.

Of course, this happens to the feisty local tabloid all the time, as the hardreading staff has previously noted. Then again, it’s just possible that the paper rejected an effort by AJAM to purchase ad space. Maybe one of the hardhating Heraldniks who reads this will let us know.

Regardless, it’s one thing for Al Jazeera America to buy ads, and quite another to sell them. From TVNewser:

One of the complicating factors with regard to [today’s] launch: it is not clear whether AJAM will have much advertiser support.

The channel’s executive team touted its light commercial load leading up the launch arguing that it was a differentiator, but also declined to say who the flagship launch advertiser would be.

 

That, and cable carriage, will likely determine the fate of AJAM. But not in the near future: They’ve got some pretty deep pockets in Qatar, however you pronounce it.


Brown Is the New Block(head)

August 19, 2013

Of all the nudnik 2016 presidential wannabes (Peter King! Martin O’Malley! Come on down!), Scott Brown (R-Fox News) ranks among the most delusional. But you’d never know that from reading the Boston Herald.

Today’s Page One:

 

Picture 1

 

Inside, the feisty local tabloid is plenty giddy itself, starting with a sunnyside up semi-news story.

081819brown01Nation may learn what Scott Brown can do for U.S.

National Republicans rushed to give former U.S. Sen. Scott Brown’s presidential trial balloon a thumbs up yesterday, saying the Bay State moderate’s impassioned plea for a big tent party could be the 2016 anecdote to debilitating GOP infighting.

“I’m thrilled he’s here. I see 2016 as wide open both nationally and in Iowa — especially if a candidate can come here and make a strong case,” said Iowa Republican committee chairman A.J. Striker. “I think having a diverse field actually strengthens and grows the party.”

 

Certainly grows the coffers of the Iowa Republican committee, yeah?

Then there’s this legit opinion piece by Kimberly Atkins:

 

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Wait – more good news in the Scott Brown Gazette! His daughter Arianna just got engaged! To “a paralegal specialist at the Department of Justice and a former Brown Senate office intern”!

 

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The only skunk at the Herald garden party was this letter writer:

Brown’s betrayal

Bona fide registered Republicans, who share conservative fiscal values and liberal social views, wish Scott Brown would just go back to his obscure role as a member of the corrupt Massachusetts House or Senate (“Brown: ‘Infighting’ aids Dems,” Aug. 16).

He has disappointed a majority of Republicans and moderates who elected him on a false belief he shared their views of less government intervention in their lives. Unfortunately, like every other RINO, he blindsided us with his decisive vote on the Consumer “Destruction” Act. Shame on him for scolding the members of his party who support Republican values.

— Todd Douglas, Weston

 

So Brown’s disappointed Republicans and moderates? That won’t put much giddy-up in a presidential campaign, will it?

Which is essentially what Adrian Walker writes crosstown in the Boston Globe today.

I don’t want to make light of Brown’s presidential prospects. It’s just hard to believe that he has any presidential prospects. For starters, he lost his last election by a substantial margin, something unusual for a sitting senator.

And his so-called brand of politics is far out of step with the leadership of his own party. There’s not much reason to believe the GOP wants a nominee whose main qualification is that he can draw support from Massachusetts moderates. Why would a party that got trounced with Mitt Romney in 2012 turn around and nominate Scott Brown?

 

Walker’s conclusion is that Brown can’t stand being out of the spotlight, so “[t]he quest for attention has become his never-ending campaign.”

At least he’s raised his sights, though. Here’s what the Herald reported yesterday about Brown’s fondest wishes:

Brown, who’s tapped into his musical side since his November defeat to Elizabeth Warren, said he’ll make his “debut” next month playing guitar with his daughter, Ayla, when she opens for the Charlie Daniels Band on Sept. 8 in Webster.

A beginner five months ago, Brown said he’s religiously practiced each night before bed to the point he can strum more than a half-dozen songs . . .

 

Great – he can always live off Ayla if this presidential thing doesn’t work out.

 


Tony C Tributes: Globe 1, Herald 0

August 18, 2013

Forty-six years ago  today, Red Sox homeboy and Hall-of-Fame sureshot Tony Conigliaro had his baseball career turned inside out.

From Bob Ryan’s terrific Boston Globe column today:

tcTony Conigliaro would have been an all-time great

I was there. I was there, and I was pretty close, too.

I was there the night of Aug. 18, 1967, when a Jack Hamilton fastball hit Tony Conigliaro in the face. I was sitting in a box seat not far up the third base line from the screen. I went to 27 Red Sox games that summer, and I seldom had a better seat than I did on that Friday night, the start of a four-game series with the California Angels. I had intended to buy my standard bleacher seat, but a guy sold me a box seat for face value down at Kenmore Square, and so I was hobnobbing with the swells in the $3.50 section that night rather than my usual cronies in the dollar bleacher seats (No, kiddies, I’m not making those numbers up).

I saw a lot of Red Sox history made that summer, but there are some historical events you can do without, this one being quite near the top of the list.

 

Ryan says, “I have not yet been able to let an Aug. 18 go by without thinking of Tony Conigliaro and the night when his life changed irrevocably.” And it certainly did, although Tony C fought back as best he could. As Ryan notes:

Tony Conigliaro was enormously talented. Please remember, when he came back in 1969 after missing the final six weeks of the 1967 season and all of the 1968 season, he was fooling us all. He hit 20 homers and drove in 82 to become the logical winner of the Comeback Player of the Year Award, and he followed that up with 36-116 production in 1970. And then the Red Sox traded him! Don’t get me started on that one.

 

Just be glad he did get started on this one. It’s an excellent read.

(P.S. The Boston Herald had nothing on Tony C’s anniversary today. We’re guessing Joe Fitz tomorrow.)