June 15, 2015
From our Never-Ending DisADvantage desk
Once again the Boston Herald is, as they say in the Midwest, sucking hind teat.
Exhibit Umpteen: This ad, which ran on page A3 of yesterday’s Boston Sunday Globe.
Nuts to fast food graf:
The same ad ran in yesterday’s New York Times (which published this Associated Press interview with Panera founder Ron Shaich last month about the chain’s No No List).
But, insult to (financial) injury, there was no ad whatsoever in the Boston Herald, whose readers arguably could use some healthier fare.
One more missed meal for the hungry local tabloid.
1 Comment | 
Uncategorized | Tagged: Associated Press, Boston Globe, Boston Herald, DisAdvantage, Food Policy, hungry local tabloid, New York Times, No No List, Panera Bread, Ron Shaich | 
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Posted by Campaign Outsider
March 19, 2015
Unless the hardreading staff’s memory fails us, the Boston Herald (especially Tom Mashberg) did yeoman’s work in the wake of the Great Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum Robbery in 1990.
And unless our eyes fail us, the fartsy local tabloid has published exactly nothing about the 25th anniversary of The Big Snatch.
Plug Boston Herald Gardner Museum into the Googletron and you get one lame Associated Press piece.
Boston museum marks 25 years since infamous art theft
BOSTON — It’s been called the biggest art heist in U.S. history, perhaps the biggest in the world. But 25 years later, the theft of 13 works from Boston’s Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum remains unsolved.
The theft has spawned books, rumors and speculation about who was responsible — and multiple dead ends.
Yet authorities and museum officials remain hopeful, noting that stolen art almost always gets returned — it just sometimes takes a generation or so.
“Although a quarter-century has passed since the art was stolen, we have always been determined to recover it and we remain optimistic that we will,” said Anne Hawley, the Gardner’s director, who was in charge at the time of the theft.
Good for them. Meanwhile, the Boston Globe has been on the Gardner anniversary like Brown on Williamson.
Representative samples:
Not to mention Bill McKeen’s review of Stephen Kurkjian’s Master Thieves: The Boston Gangsters Who Pulled Off the World’s Greatest Art Heist last weekend.
But . . . nothing in the Herald.
Paging Tom Mashberg. Paging Mr. Tom Mashberg.
P.S. Don’t bother linking – Mashberg’s pieces are all archived. Translation: Give the Herald $3.95 a pop.
That’s just wrong.
Leave a Comment » | Uncategorized | Tagged: Anne Hawley, Associated Press, Boston Globe, Boston Herald, fartsy local tabloid, Gardner heist, Googletron, Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, like Brown on Williamson, Master Thieves: The Boston Gangsters Who Pulled Off the World's Greatest Art Heist, Stephen Kurkjian, The Big Snatch, Tom Mashberg, William McKeen | Permalink
Posted by Campaign Outsider
January 3, 2015
From our Late to the Late Mario Cuomo desk
Mario Cuomo spoke in poetry, but lived in prose.
Exhibit A: His Hamlet on the Hudson forever fluttering.
Maybe that’s why the local dailies didn’t bother to compose their own obituaries of the former New York governor, but cherry-picked them from other news outlets.
The Boston Globe, on the one hand, plunked the New York Times obit on its front page.
The Boston Herald, on the other hand, plucked the Associated Press.
Hey – that’s show biz.
(To be fair, today’s Globe has this laudatory editorial and this less-so column by Michael A. Cohen. The Herald has this farewell from Ray Flynn.)
Leave a Comment » | Uncategorized | Tagged: Adam Nagourney, Associated Press, Boston Globe, Boston Herald, Hamlet on the Hudson, Mario Cuomo, Michael A. Cohen, New York Times, Ray Flynn | Permalink
Posted by Campaign Outsider
March 3, 2014
As the hardreading staff noted last week, CommonWealth Magazine broke this story about Boston Mayor Marty Walsh reassessing yet another sweetheart deal for the Red Sox and Fenway Park.
Walsh reviewing Red Sox deal
Agreement makes permanent Van Ness Street arrangement
THE ADMINISTRATION OF Boston Mayor Marty Walsh said it is reviewing an agreement the city struck with the Boston Red Sox in October that formalized a long-standing arrangement allowing the club to close off Van Ness Street during Fenway Park events.
The agreement, signed by Red Sox president Larry Lucchino and Mayor Thomas Menino’s police and transportation commissioners, makes permanent what appears to have been an informal arrangement between the club and the city allowing the team to close off the section of Van Ness next to Fenway during games. The Red Sox typically used part of the street for employee parking, paying no fee to the city to do so.
We also noted that the story was Xerox-reported by numerous other news outlets – including the Boston Herald and the Associated Press – without crediting CommonWealth.
What we failed to note was this further rip-off by the Herald.
Reporter Colman Herman wrote this in his piece: “No other single private entity is allowed to close off a street in Boston on a regular basis.”
In Richard Weir’s Herald report, that sentence is placed in the mouth of Gregory Sullivan, “the former state former [sic] inspector general . . . [who] dismisses the Sox’ arguments as ‘irrelevant and a smokescreen.'”
“This is another precious gem dropped into the Red Sox basket at the expense of the taxpayers,” Sullivan, the research director of the Pioneer Institute, said of the Van Ness Street contract. “It’s a public street owned by the city of Boston. And no private party should have exclusive rights to use it in this way without compensating the city. Period. … No other single private entity is allowed to close off a street in Boston on a regular basis.” [Emphasis added]
We have it on good authority that Sullivan contends he never said that last part.
Back to you, Boston Herald and Richard Weir.
1 Comment | Uncategorized | Tagged: Associated Press, Boston Herald, Boston Red Sox, Colman Herman, CommonWealth Magazine, Fenway Park, Larry Lucchino, Marty Walsh, Richard Weir, Tom Menino, Van Ness, Xerox-reported | Permalink
Posted by Campaign Outsider
October 31, 2013
On a day that the Boston Globe has produced fabulous, comprehensive coverage of last night’s Red Sox World Series Championship win, it might be easy to miss (and churlish to note, some would say) that the New York Times provided 50% of the paper’s A section today. (Associated Press 27%, Boston Globe 22%).
Page A4 was entirely picked up from the Times.
Don’t get us wrong: We realize the majority of the Globe’s A section has to consist of wire-service reports; that’s the reality of the Texas-chainsaw newspaper business. Beyond that, we recognize the Globe is a big local newspaper with a big local footprint.
Not every day, though, features a World Series win. Almost every day, on the other hand, features an A section that’s Times Lite. Given the financial relationship that Red Sox owner John Henry just ended between the Globe and the Times, the latter’s lingering presence seems, we dunno, weak. And 50% is a lot of lingering.
Media Nation’s Dan Kennedy made a strong case last week about Why John Henry should dump Times content. Today’s edition only buttresses that.
Leave a Comment » | Uncategorized | Tagged: Associated Press, Boston Globe, Boston Red Sox, Dan Kennedy, John Henry, Media Nation, New York Times, Times Lite, World Series, World Series Champions | Permalink
Posted by Campaign Outsider
October 26, 2013
Boston Celtics legend Bill Sharman died yesterday, and both local dailies outsourced his obituary.
The Boston Globe picked up the New York Times obit (apparently the Globeniks are not listening to the redoubtable Dan Kennedy at Media Nation).
Bill Sharman, in Hall of Fame as Celtics all-star and NBA coach; at 87
NEW YORK — Bill Sharman, who was elected to the Basketball Hall of Fame twice, first as a sharpshooting guard who helped establish the Boston Celtics dynasty in the 1950s and then as the coach who led the 1971-72 Los Angeles Lakers to a record 33-game winning streak and 
the NBA title, died Friday at his home in Redondo Beach, Calif. He was 87.
A perfectionist as both player and coach, Mr. Sharman is also credited with introducing what is now a fixture of the pro and college games: the morning shoot-around, a light game-day workout to loosen up, set strategy, and prepare for the evening’s contest.
For 10 seasons beginning in fall 1951, Mr. Sharman teamed with the playmaking guard Bob Cousy to form one of the NBA’s legendary backcourts . . .
The Boston Herald went for the Associated Press sendoff.
Bill Sharman, at 87, played on Celtics champion teams
LOS ANGELES — Bill Sharman effortlessly straddled both sides of the Celtics-Lakers rivalry, winning championships and making friends from Boston to Los Angeles during a unique basketball career.
Even when he struggled to speak in his later years with a voice worn out from passionate coaching, Sharman remained a beloved mentor and a hoops innovator who saw great success from almost every perspective in more than a half-century in the NBA.
Sharman, the Hall of Famer who won multiple titles both as a player for the Celtics and a coach for the Lakers, died Friday at his home in Redondo Beach, the Lakers announced. He was 87.
Very likely both papers will have remembrances in their sports section tomorrow. But for today, Sharman lost home court advantage.
Leave a Comment » | Uncategorized | Tagged: Associated Press, Bill Sharman, Bob Cousy, Boston Celtics, Boston Globe, Boston Herald, Dan Kennedy, Media Nation, NBA, New York Times | Permalink
Posted by Campaign Outsider
September 2, 2013
Today marks the third edition of the Boston Herald to ignore the death of the great Seamus Heaney.
It’s not like anyone at the dicey local tabloid would have to actually read some of Heaney’s poetry. They could just run a wire story, they way they did today with David Frost’s obituary.
Better yet, they could pick up this appreciation by Roy Foster in The Guardian:
Seamus Heaney remembered
Seamus Heaney, who has died at the age of 74, was a poet of immense power, a brilliant intellect, an inspiration to others – and the best of company
My first thought on hearing the immeasurably sad news of Seamus Heaney‘s death was a sensation of a great tree having fallen: that sense of empty space, desolation, uprooting. Heaney’s place in Irish culture – not just in Irish poetry – was often compared to that of WB Yeats, particularly after he followed Yeats in winning the Nobel prize in 1995. He possessed what he himself ascribed to Yeats, “the gift of establishing authority within a culture”. But whereas Yeats’s shadow was seen, by some of his younger contemporaries at least, as blotting out the sun and stunting the growth of the surrounding forest, Heaney’s great presence let in the light. Part of this was bound up in his own abundant personality. Generosity, amplitude and sympathy characterised his dealings with people at every level, and he was the stellar best of company. It was as if he had learned the lesson prescribed (though not really followed) by Yeats: that the creative soul, “all hatred driven hence”, might recover “radical innocence” in being “self-delighting, self-appeasing, self-affrighting”.
For God’s sake, Heraldniks – just run something.
1 Comment | Uncategorized | Tagged: Associated Press, Boston Herald, David Frost, Nobel prize, Richard Nixon, Roy Foster, Seamus Heaney, The Guardian, WB Yeats | Permalink
Posted by Campaign Outsider
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 . . . ”
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.
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.
1 Comment | Uncategorized | Tagged: Associated Press, Bill Burke, Boston Globe, Boston Herald, Dickens of Detroit, Elmore Leonard, James Verniere, Raymond Chandler, Washington Post | Permalink
Posted by Campaign Outsider
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:
The Herald should grow up and take its lumps for inaccurate reporting, instead of compounding it with even more.
5 Comments | Uncategorized | Tagged: AP, Associated Press, Boston Herad, Boston Marathon bombings, Chart Girl, CNN, Guy Darst, John King | Permalink
Posted by Campaign Outsider
April 22, 2013
Boston was on the mind of everyone who ran the London Marathon yesterday, as Page One of The Guardian attests (via the Newseum’s Today’s Front Pages).
And London was on the mind of the Boston dailies – especially the Globe, which sent sportswriter Shira Springer over there to cover the event.
Boston firmly in the thoughts of Londoners
LONDON — Moments after finishing the London Marathon, Harry Neynens struggled with his emotions. He started to describe crossing the finish line Sunday amid cheering crowds, then stopped. He needed a moment to collect his thoughts, to choke back tears. He started his story again. This time, the narrative began back on Boylston Street in Boston.
For Neynens, the 2013 London Marathon and 2013 Boston Marathon always will be linked. A week ago, Neynens, who lives in Enfield, Nova Scotia, waited on Boylston Street for his wife, Colleen, to finish Boston. Colleen spotted Harry in the crowd at the 26-mile mark, ran over, and kissed her husband. Then Harry walked down Boylston Street to catch up with Colleen once she crossed the line. She finished as 4 hours 7 minutes 12 seconds flashed on the race clock. He found himself 100 yards away from the bomb explosions and he saw some of the critically injured victims.
“I had a hard day out here,” said Neynens, who wore a 2013 Boston Marathon hat during his London run and finished in 2:48:09. “I was hurting, but obviously I was not hurting near as much as the injuries that I saw, people who lost their legs. I finished for all those people who were hurt and those people who couldn’t finish last Monday.
“There was a banner we passed around Mile 25 that said, ‘Run if you can. Walk if you must. But finish for Boston.’ That meant a lot to everybody. It was great to see the support of everybody out there for the runners and for Boston.”
It went beyond moral support, as this Associated Press report in the Boston Herald noted:
For a day, at least, Boston and London were One as well.
Leave a Comment » | Uncategorized | Tagged: Associated Press, Boston Globe, Boston Herald, Boston Marathon, London Marathon, The Guardian, The Newseum, The One Fund, Today's front Pages | Permalink
Posted by Campaign Outsider
It's Good to Live in a Two-Daily Town 