Battle of the Bulger (Can I Be a Witness? Edition)

June 7, 2013

The Boston Globe is reporting on its website that its reporters can cover the trial of mobster James “Whitey” Bulger.

Judge rejects Bulger effort to ban Globe journalists

US District Court Judge Denise J. Casper ruled today that Boston Globe columnist Kevin Cullen and reporter Shelley Murphy can cover the trial of James “Whitey’’ Bulger, the South Boston gangster who was recorded on jailhouse tapes describing his disdain for the two journalists who have chronicled his career for decades . . .

Bulger’s defense team put Cullen and Murphy on their witness list, saying they might need to be called to impeach testimony from key prosecution witnesses. But federal prosecutors, citing comments Bulger made in the jail conversations, said he was motivated by his disdain towards Cullen and Murphy.

 

The feeling is, of course, mutual, as Cullen’s column in today’s dead-tree edition illustrates.

I’ll be glad to submit some sample testimony right here so they can decide whether they really want to call me as a defense witness.de5e692f74914a5487db1f8aabf250e4-de5e692f74914a5487db1f8aabf250e4-0

I believe Whitey Bulger is a deeply cynical and vicious criminal who made millions by killing and intimidating people while he was protected by a deeply corrupted FBI.

I believe he made millions from the drug trade, extorting money from drug dealers even as he and his apologists propagated the nonsense that he never was involved in drugs.

 

And etc. in much the same vein. Except all that’s, well, moot now.

But not yet for Boston Herald columnist Howie Carr, who’s also on Bulger’s witness list and has not been dismissed from it by today’s ruling. So Carr can continue to produce drive-bys like Wednesday’s piece:

Picture 8No question about it, I’ll find courtside seat

First I tried to get a victim’s seat in the courtroom — no go.

Then I figured I’d just attend Whitey’s trial as a reporter — but Bulger put me on his witness list, although I am confident the judge will eventually decide to allow me to watch the trial, even if I do have to be a witness — a hostile witness, that is.

But given my dismal record in court, I don’t want to take any chances. So I filled out a jury questionnaire just in case that might get me inside.

 

And etc. – including most notably Question 39:

Based upon any … articles you have read, have you formed an opinion regarding James “Whitey” Bulger that would prevent you from being a fair and impartial juror in this case?

I think I read several hundred times in the Globe that, “Jimmy kept the drugs out of Southie.” Is that true?

 

The hardreading staff can’t really say, but maybe Kevin Cullen can.

 

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Globe Roxburys Violence

June 3, 2013

From our Compare ‘n’ Contrast in Clear Idiomatic English desk

Boston Sunday Globe, Metro Page Two:

Woman dies in Roxbury shooting

A woman is dead and a man was in serious condition after a shooting in Roxbury Saturday afternoon, Boston police said.

The two, both believed to be in their 20s, were shot around 3:22 p.m. while sitting in a silver sedan on Walnut Avenue in Roxbury, Police Superintendent William B. Evans said at the scene Saturday.

Police are investigating whether that shooting is related to another in Roxbury Saturday morning that left two men wounded.

 

Sunday Boston Herald, Page One:

 

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Sunday Boston Herald, Page Two:

 

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[To be sure graf goes here:]

Admittedly, the feisty local tabloid is all about crime, scandal, and crime. But in this case who really did justice to yet another travesty/tragedy in Boston’s minority neighborhoods?

That’s right. The Herald.

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Hark! The Herald! (Whitey You Can Drive My Carr Edition)

June 1, 2013

From our Walt Whitman desk

As the hardreading staff noted earlier, the Boston Herald is all aglow over the imminent trial of James “Whitey” Bulger, especially the personal involvement of its star columnist Howie Carr (who “vowed to watch Whitey every step of the way through judgment day,” according to the feisty local tabloid).

And maybe testify on the mobster’s behalf. From today’s front page:

 

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And the navel-gazing piece:

 

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Yeah yeah – I’m Spartacus. Lede:

It’s not exactly the resume-enhancer I’d have picked for myself — “defense witness for Whitey Bulger.”20130601howie

But I can’t say I wasn’t expecting it either. And I’m not sure how serious Whitey’s lawyers are. Maybe they’re just trying to keep me and the Globe reporters out of the courtroom.

There’s an old saying in the law: If you have the facts, pound the facts. If you have the law, pound the law. If you have neither, pound the table.

Hey, J.W. Carney, lay off that table. Put your shoe back on.

 

Carr says he’ll probably “be relieved of my awesome responsibilities as a defense witness Monday, when the feds and Whitey’s lawyers make their final motions.”

That’s a relief, eh? He can then go back to “watching Whitey every step of the way” yak yak yak.

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Hark! The Herald! (Battle of the Bulger Edition)

May 31, 2013

From our Walt Whitman desk

The Boston Herald is still pounding away at Gov. Deval Patrick (D-Elsewhere) over the Massachusetts welfare rumpus, but the feisty local tabloid has its eye on bigger game next week when the trial of James “Whitey” Bulger begins in earnest.

Here’s the preview the Herald ran in today’s edition:

 

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And here are some of the details:

 

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It’s all fabulously overdone:

Look for Howie Carr, who vowed to watch Whitey every step of the way through judgment day, on the video reports.

No deadly detail is too small, so Herald reporters will be tweeting live . . .

[Reporter Laurel Sweet will] be close enough to look into Whitey’s eyes as loved ones of his 19 alleged murder victims take the stand. She’ll also be able to read jurors’ reactions to the gruesome evidence and chilling testimony.

 

Sweet.

Crosstown, there’s no word yet from the Boston Globe on who’ll be close enough to look into Whitey’s eyes, but today’s edition does feature this:

Globe’s Cullen, Murphy may testify in Bulger trial

Lawyers for James “Whitey” Bulger, who has bragged about strafing The Boston Globe offices with gunfire during the busing crisis of the 1970s, may call two of the newspaper’s journalists as defense witnesses at his upcoming trial.

His legal team filed a list of 78 potential witnesses Thursday, including Globe columnist Kevin Cullen and reporter ­Shelley Murphy.

Both have covered Bulger for decades and earlier this year published a book detailing his rise to power in Boston’s underworld and his capture in 2011 in Santa Monica, Calif., ­after 16 years on the run as one of the FBI’s most wanted fugitives . . .

Other journalists on the ­potential witness list include former Globe reporters Gerard O’Neill and Dick Lehr, as well as Boston Herald columnist Howie Carr.

 

Damn – the Herald forgot to mention that part in its full-page promo, although it did have this online (tip o’the pixel to Mike Deehan at Massterlist).

Then again, there’s always tomorrow.

 

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Massachusetts Welfare? Well, Foul! (II)

May 30, 2013

This is mother’s milk to our feisty local tabloid.

 

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The Boston Herald is on the Massachusetts welfare abuse scandal like Brown on Williamson. Today’s edition goes yesterday’s one better, with three – count ’em, three – full pages of pleased-as-punch coverage.

 

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You’ll notice there are two Truth Squad screeds (here and here) about Deval Patrick’s no-show response to State Auditor Suzanne Bump’s audit of the Department of Transitional Assistance, along with one Howie Carr mail-in, a high-dudgeon editorial,  and this editorial cartoon.

 

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There’s also this roll call (You Asked for It!) of the Senate votes last week rejecting photo IDs on EBT cards 30-8. (Full vote here.)

 

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And this convenience store receipt purportedly showing a seven grand balance on someone’s EBT card.

 

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It just doesn’t get any better than this for the Herald (from its editorial):

[I]t isn’t just the zombie-benefits problem.

It’s the individual who claimed to have had his EBT card lost or stolen — 127 times. It’s the use of a Massachusetts benefits card in St. Thomas — over a period of four months (surprise, they happened to be the coldest months of the year in New England). It’s the double-dipping, and all of the other clear signals of fraud that DTA missed along the way.

 

But the Herald’s not missing any.

Crosstown at the Boston Globe, the DTA rumpus is just monkey-business as usual. Page One:

 

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But instead of piling on, the stately local broadsheet goes the misery-loves-company route.

 

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New Bay State slogan: Thank God for New Jersey, eh?

 

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Massachusetts Welfare? Well, Foul!

May 29, 2013

The new audit of the Massachusetts welfare system gets very – say it with me – different treatment in the local dailies today.

Boston Globe Page One:

 

Picture 1

 

Lede:

Massachusetts gave millions of dollars in questionable public assis tance to people who were listed as dead, used multiple Social Security numbers to boost their payments, or apparently sold their benefit cards for cash over the past few years, according to a state audit released Tuesday.

The report by State Auditor Suzanne Bump is the latest study finding that the state did not do nearly enough to ensure that welfare benefits went only to qualified recipients. The head of the agency that administers the aid quit in January after another scathing report from the inspector general.

Bump’s audit found that 1,160 recipients were either dead or used a deceased person’s Social Security number, costing $2.4 million between July 2010 and April 2012.

It also flagged another $15.6 million in suspicious transactions from electronic benefit cards between 2010 and 2012, including cards that were used as far away as Alaska, Hawaii, or the US Virgin Islands, suggesting the recipients either no longer lived in Massachusetts or had extra cash for travel.

 

 

Helpful chart:

 

welfare

 

 

Other fun facts to know and tell:

• The Massachusetts Department of Transitional Assistance “provides aid to roughly one in seven people in the state”

• That’s about 885,000 people

• Who receive $1.7 billion a year

• And drive the Boston Herald to distraction

Not surprisingly, Page One of today’s feisty local tabloid is sharp, if a bit hyperventilating:

 

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Inside, the gimme gals and guys get the usual double-barreled treatment, complete with the told-you-so front pages of yore:

 

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And Howie Carr mails in the usual about  the “Department of Terrorist Assistance,” although it’s probably safe to say Tamerlan Tsarnaev is not among the 1164 ghost riders.

Anyway, just for the record, here’s the Herald’s bottom line (note the “possible,” “suggesting,” and etc.):

 

Picture 5

 

Listen – the hardworking staff hates paying taxes as much as the next guy, assuming the next guy isn’t Mitt Romney. And there’s no question the DTA has problems that should be fixed. But isn’t this being blown out of proportion a bit?

1164 out of 885,000?

$18 million out of $1.7 billion?

Really, there’s gotta be something better the Herald could hyperventilate about.

Then again, it wouldn’t sell as many papers, would it?

 

 

 

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Boston Dailies Memorialize Vets

May 27, 2013

Both local dailies feature tributes to America’s military veterans this Memorial Day, although in – all together now – different ways.

The Boston Globe remembers the 45 Massachusetts soldiers killed in Afghanistan over the past 12 years.

Picture 19

 

Crosstown, the Boston Herald focuses on one particular veteran.

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George J. Gottwald Jr. gets his own spread inside the feisty local tabloid:

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The Herald also gives over its editorial and op-ed pages to Memorial Day tributes.

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Tip o’ the pixel to both papers today.

 

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Boston Herald a Suffolk University Satellite Campus

May 24, 2013

There’s some serious co-branding going on at the Boston Herald these days, where the Suffolk University logo is on the feisty local tabloid like Howie Carr on a Bay State solon.

For starters, there’s the Suffolk connection to the Herald’s weekly Press Party webcast, the underdog half of the Great Boston MediaWatch Dogfight with WGBH’s Beat the Press. Here’s the ad from today’s paper:

 

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And here’s how the webcast’s background looks:

 

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Suffolk even gets part of the bug for video packages:

 

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In the Herald itself, Suffolk’s VP of Whatever John Nucci now seems to have his own column:

 

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But there’s no tag or ID for Nucci, just the Suffolk logo.

Wait – there’s more. Nucci also turns up in Press Party packages, just to round things out.

 

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The Nucci column, it turns out, is part of this initiative, which the Herald announced a couple of weeks ago.

raceformayorHerald, Suffolk U. set to give voters a lesson in city politics

Suffolk University and the Boston Herald are joining forces to provide the most comprehensive multimedia coverage anywhere on this year’s milestone race for mayor of Boston.

The university, which already teams with the Herald on the weekly “Press Party” media analysis Web show, brings to the table an array of important tools for voters who want cutting-edge coverage of the mayoral battle.

 

Those tools includes polling and blogs and Nucci and stuff. So that’s a lesson in something.

But . . . is it just us, or is this a bit much, considering that the Herald is supposed to be sort of covering Suffolk University?

Not to get technical about it.

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Here’s Your Hat, What’s Your Murray?

May 23, 2013

The local dailies have very – all together now – different takes on yesterday’s swan song for Lt. Gov. Timothy Murray.

The Boston Globe runs it upper left on today’s front page:

 

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The Boston Herald gives it all of Page One:

 

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And page two . . and page four . . . and page five . . .

 

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Never one to disappoint, the feisty local tabloid features all the usual aspects in today’s coverage, starting with Joe Battenfeld’s batting Murray around:

IMG_2307.JPGTim Murray, we hardly needed ye

When Tim Murray flees the lieutenant governor’s office, he will leave behind a historic legacy: that we don’t need a lieutenant governor . . .

Despite Patrick’s flowery tribute to his second banana yesterday, Murray had no power or influence in the administration and usually could be found standing behind the governor at press conferences, saying nothing. The lieutenant governor ranked so low he didn’t even merit one of those cool MEMA vests that Patrick wears during disasters.

 

And etc.

Next up, Howie Carr mails in his balding retreads:

010512murray03‘Crash’ is no test dummy

The Worcester Chamber of Commerce?

Nobody’s all that surprised to see Tim “Crash” Murray take the golden parachute. But shouldn’t it have been a more appropriate job, like, say, with NASCAR?

 

Ha-hah!

As you’d expect, the going-away party is a lot more subdued crosstown at the stately local broadsheet. In addition to the straightforward Page One piece, there’s this sober-minded assessment from op-ed columnist Joan Vennochi:

Murray’s ambition meets reality

IF ONLY there were no mysterious car crash.

If only he weren’t embroiled in a possible fund-raising scandal.

If only Governor Deval Patrick resigned and left the job of acting governor to his lieutenant governor, Timothy P. Murray could be the Democrat to beat in 2014.

Murray’s ambition — always grander than his profile — felt more delusional as time and controversy dragged on.

 

Even the boyos at the Herald would agree with that, yeah?

The Globe also features a largely judgment-free editorial about Murray’s departure:

An unsurprising end to Murray’s once-promising political career

The announcement Wednesday that Lieutenant Governor Timothy Murray will resign to lead the Worcester Chamber of Commerce mainly served to ratify what most on Beacon Hill basically knew: that his recent political scandals had left him without a path to higher office, while his current duties were too limited to sustain an ambitious person’s career.

Murray’s departure ends an awkward chapter in Massachusetts political history . . .

 

That level of understatement, however, is entirely missing from the Herald’s editorial today:

Lt. Gov. Tim Murray yesterday gave the people of Massachusetts his two-week notice, thus drawing a curtain on one of the most underwhelming tenures of a statewide office-holder in recent Massachusetts history. And that’s saying something.

Murray is trading the privilege of elected office for what amounts to a bigger salary and a shorter commute, resigning with nearly two years left in his term to accept a lucrative job as president of the Worcester Regional Chamber of Commerce.

Now, we aren’t particularly sorry to see Murray go but we happen to think elected officials shouldn’t throw over the voters simply for the favor of a fat paycheck.

 

Wait a second . . . the Herald spends all this time saying Murray was a useless slug in a worthless job, but now he should have stayed?

The hardreading staff will be at the chiropractor’s if you need us.

 

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