Herald Revising History Again (Bombing Coverage Coverup II)

April 28, 2013

The Boston Herald continues to criticize news organizations that erroneously reported an arrest  two days after the Marathon bombings – without noting that the feisty local tabloid itself did exactly the same thing.

Exhibit A: The Herald’s Press Party webbcast on Friday, which the hardworking staff at Campaign Outsider previously chronicled.

Exhibit B : Today’s op-ed by retired Heraldnik Guy Darst.

Always a new(s) way to blunder

Let’s not be too hard on the unfortunate John King and CNN for erroneously reporting in the aftermath of the Boston Marathon bombing that a suspect had been arrested. The pressures of a 24/7 news cycle are nothing new to a special class of journalists who have worked under them for more than a century, reporters for the wire services. Some of their blunders are legendary — and instructive.

The leading wire service, the Associated Press, also reported an arrest just as King did.

 

Just as numerous news outlets – including the Herald – did. Handy referesher chart from the excellent Chart Girl:

ARREST_900

 

The Herald should grow up and take its lumps for inaccurate reporting, instead of compounding it with even more.

 


Brain Freeze at Boston Herald

December 4, 2012

Monday’s Boston Globe featured major coverage of a major brain injury study from Boston University.

Via the Newseum’s Today’s Front Pages:

MA_BG

(Full disclosure: The hardreading staff moonlights as a mass communication professor at BU.)

Monday’s Boston Herald, on the other hand, featured . . . nothing.

But the feisty local tabloid did post this AP story to its website Monday morning:

BU study links head injuries to brain damage

BOSTON — An extensive study of the brains of dead athletes and others shows that most had signs of brain damage after suffering repeated head injuries.

The study published Monday by the Boston University School of Medicine reports on the autopsies of 85 brain donors.

The autopsies revealed extensive evidence of protein tangles clogging brain tissue and causing the destruction of brain cells in football players, wrestlers, hockey players, boxers, and military combat veterans.

 

The AP report even credited the Globe piece, which had to hurt over at Wingo Square.

Just like a brain freeze, eh?


Brown/Warren Debate and Twitch

November 2, 2012

There’s one final debatement in the  Scott Brown/Elizabeth Warren U.S. Senate race.

AP report via the Boston Herald:

Warren ad tweaks Brown for refusing debate offer

Democrat Elizabeth Warren is tweaking Massachusetts Sen. Scott Brown for refusing a final debate offer.

The fourth debate was planned for Tuesday, but was delayed because of Superstorm Sandy.

Warren agreed to a Thursday debate, but the GOP’s Brown declined. He had twice pledged that a final debate would happen, but a Brown aide said it conflicted with a bus tour he planned for the close of the reelection campaign.

In Warren’s new radio ad, a narrator faults Brown for backing out of the debate, saying “rather than discuss the issues, he had to grab a bus” and adding “with his record you can’t blame him for hitting the road.”

The Boston Globe features the same AP report.

But only It’s Good to Live in a Two-Daily Town (besides Warren’s campaign website) features the actual radio spot:

Bottom line: Debate and switch off.