Boston Herald, As Usual, Deval-ues Gov. Patrick

November 26, 2014

From our One Town, Two Different Worlds desk

Not surprisingly, both Boston dailies today covered the local reaction to the Ferguson grand jury (non)decision.

Boston Globe Page One:

 

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For the trifocal set:

 

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Just for the record, the early edition that arrived at the Global Worldwide Headquarters featured a harder-edged take.

Raucous crowds take to the streets in Boston

In the pews and on the streets Tuesday night, full-throated cries of frustration and grief echoed from Roxbury throughout Boston and beyond over a grand jury’s decision to not charge a Missouri police officer in the fatal shooting of an unarmed black teenager.

An estimated 1,400 protestors marched from Dudley Square to the South Bay House of Correction facility, then shout down the Massachusetts Avenue Connector near Interstate 93 before being blocked by a police line. Protestors pushed in unison against police, some of whom were clad in helmets and protective gear.

 

The web version of the story is even softer than the late edition pictured above, especially the photo/caption.

 

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But all the versions have much the same information on the presence of high-ranking local politicians.

At the forum, Mayor Martin J. Walsh and Governor-elect Charlie Baker delivered brief addresses before ceding the microphone to others in the crowd . . .

As dozens watched on a video feed downstairs, Walsh and Baker said they came to the meeting to listen, learn, and comfort those still raging.

“One thing missing from Ferguson is the opportunity for people to grieve,’’ Walsh said. “I want to ensure the people of Boston feel safe and secure, and that we are respectful in addressing our feelings.”

 

And etc. (Baker wound up getting more play in the print edition than on the web.)

Notice anyone who’s missing? So did the Boston Herald.

 

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Inside, Joe Battenfeld drops the hammer on the Bay State’s absentee governor.

Another of many missed chances for Deval

They all showed up, from 
incoming Gov. Charlie 
Baker to Mayor Marty Walsh to an expelled state rep, but the one pol who probably had the most to say to a packed crowd at the Twelfth Baptist Church was strangely absent.

Deval Patrick got elected because of his ability to connect and communicate with voters. But when the AN3V9879.JPGnation’s only black governor had a chance to talk directly to frustrated and angry Boston residents in the aftermath of the St. Louis County grand jury decision, he skipped out of town.

The lame-duck governor was on a plane to Atlanta for an early Thanksgiving with the in-laws last night while a packed crowd vented at community meeting and protesters closed down streets last night over the non-indictment of a Ferguson police officer in the shooting death of Michael Brown.

 

Final tally: The feisty local tabloid tougher on protestors and Patrick. So what else is news?


‘Next’ Ad-dition to the Boston $unday Globe

November 17, 2014

Granted, the hardreading staff is well into the early (there’s that characteristic optimism!) stages of its dotage, but we don’t recall ever seeing this particular section in the Boston Sunday Globe.

 

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Regardless, the Next section is a gold(en-years)mine of advertising. Representative (facing pages) sample:

 

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That comes on the heels of last week’s new sections Chill and Longwood: A City Within the City.

Do we see a pattern emerging here?


In Like Flynn at the Boston Herald

November 14, 2014

Score one for the Boston Herald: Today’s feisty local tabloid beats its crosstown rival to a juicy local story.

Start at the top of Page One:

 

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The story inside:

 

New Flap in Bid to Honor Flynn

A panel headed by City Council President Bill Linehan is floating the controversial idea of naming the Boston Convention & Exhibition Center — a key landmark closely linked to the recently deceased Mayor Thomas M. Menino — after former Mayor Raymond L. Flynn.

The proposal, included in a press release yesterday by the Raymond L. Flynn Commission headed by the STON1922.JPGSouth Boston councilor, met with immediate resistance from longtime city observers who worked with both mayors.

“Ray Flynn and Tom Menino were both old friends and they both deserve recognition, but I was in the trenches when I represented the City Council in the late 1990s, and Tom Menino was the person who drove the construction of the convention center, there’s no doubt about that,” said Larry DiCara, a former council president.

 

Along with that piece the Herald includes the obligatory reader reaction and also – awkward!this column by the paper’s occasional chinstroker, Ray Flynn himself.

It was always about serving Hub’s people

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At the outset, let me say I never wanted my name on any city building or billboard — not even a sign at a baseball field.

But I am humbled by the kind gesture of Boston City Councilor Bill Linehan and his committee in recognizing my service to the people of Boston over the years.

The honor of serving the city I love was always enough for me. Working hard every day and doing the best I could for the needy and those without a political voice was all I ever wanted to do.

 

And etc.

Linehan – as he so often does – started moonwalking as soon as his trial balloon drew the least bit of heat. Right now, we know something will be named after Flynn and something after Menino – details TBA.

Details also TBA in the Boston Globe, which at post time had nothing on the naming rumpus.

 

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Maybe the stately local broadsheet should give Ray Flynn a column, eh?


Pick One: Boston Globe Majors in (U)Mass Marketing or, Boston Globe Pimps Out Page One

November 13, 2014

The Boston Globe is having quite a financial fling with the University of Massachusetts these days. First it was this “Special Supplement to the Boston Globe” that ran this past Sunday.

 

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As the hardreading staff noted, that’s “Special” as in “Advertising,” which the Globe would have stated explicitly if it cared to be honest with its readers.

Now comes this doozie in today’s edition of the $tately local broadsheet (photos courtesy of the Missus).

 

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That was followed by this:

 

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Along with this:

 

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And this:

 

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At least they labeled the wraparound “Advertisement,” eh? But it’s the leasing out of the Globe banner that’s the problem here. Funny thing is, ten years ago the Globe rejected that kind of sellout. From the January 19, 2004 Boston Business Journal:

Globe rejected a front-page advertisement for JetBlue

The Boston Globe apparently rejected a proposal by JetBlue Airways Corp. to run the same full front-page advertisement touting the airline’s arrival at Logan International Airport that the Boston Herald published last week amid voluble criticism.
The Boston Herald ended up running the ad on Jan. 7, catching considerable flak for accepting an ad that one source valued at least at $25,000. But a JetBlue official told the Boston Business Journal that the Globe also was approached with the same opportunity.

 

And turned it down, sort of.

Globe spokesman B. Maynard Scarborough said he believed the newspaper’s advertising department discussed selling a “wrap” to JetBlue, but no deal was reached. Such a wrap would not have contained mock editorial content, he said, adding the Globe does not sell Page 1 advertising and has no plans to do so.

 

Well, that’s now “inoperative,” as they say.

Here’s what the Herald did run (via WBUR’s Bob Oakes).

 

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That’s the actual front page on the left, the ad front page on the right.

And while we’re tripping down Memory Lane with local journos, here’s what the redoubtable Dan Kennedy wrote in the Boston Phoenix Media Log back then:

[A]t the very least, the front should have been prominently labeled as an ad. This isn’t just a violation of the traditional wall separating business and editorial – this is an out-and-out demolition.

 

Today at Media Nation, Dan wrote this: “If the Globe hasn’t crossed a line, perhaps it has moved the line past where we always thought it was.”

Fair enough. But to us, they did cross the line.


Herald Has Healthy Edge in Obamacare Dustup

November 12, 2014

There’s a nifty little rumpus underway over a gaffe by a local healthcare guru who sort of told the truth by accident.

It all got started a few days ago when an outfit called American Commitment posted this video:

 

 

In yesterday’s edition, the Boston Herald was on it like Brown on Williamson.

Obamacare architect blasted for ‘deliberate deception’

An MIT professor considered one of the architects of Obamacare is being blasted by critics over a video they say shows him admitting the law’s “lack of transparency” was designed to dupe a gullible American public.

Jonathan Gruber, an economics professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, made the explosive comments that have now gone viral on the Internet as a panelist during a lecture on “The Role of Economics in Shaping the ACA” at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School on Oct. 17, 2013

 

Gruber then hied himself to the friendly confines of MSNBC for damage control.

 

 

But that did nothing to mollify the projectile pundits on the right.

 

 

Today the feisty local tabloid ran this follow-up:

Regrets over remarks on ‘stupidity’ of voters

George Gosner Jr, Spring Insurance Group     Jonathon Gruber, Massachusetts Institute of Technology     AndrŽs L—pez, AJL Consultants     Louis Malzone, Massachusetts Coalition of Taft-Hardly Funds     Nancy Turnbull, Harvard School of Public Health     Celia Wcislo, 1199 SEIU United Healthcare Workers East     Ian Duncan, Solucia Inc.

Obamacare architect Jonathan Gruber yesterday walked back his controversial remarks that a “lack of transparency” triggered by the “stupidity of the American voter” helped pass the embattled health care law, saying he “spoke inappropriately.”

“The comments in the video were made in an academic conference,” Gruber told MSNBC yesterday. “I was speaking off the cuff, and I basically spoke inappropriately. And I regret having made those comments.”

Gruber declined a Herald request for an interview.

 

Big surprise, yeah?

Also not surprising: The Boston Globe has ignored the whole donnybrook.

 

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So what else is news?


Boston Globe Special Sections Are Serious Ad-ditions

November 10, 2014

As the hardreading staff plowed through yesterday’s Boston Sunday Globe, we were struck by all the special sections it featured: Chill, Longwood: A City Within the City, and 11 Ideas from Boston 2014.

That last stood out because of what was printed at the top of each page:

 

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Close-up for the bifocal set:

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There were ads sprinkled throughout the “Special Supplement,” such as this one:

 

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But we think the whole section is an ad – at least that’s the implication. Here’s another clue from an inside page:

 

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The other two sections – Chill and Longwood: A City Within the City – are run-of-the-mill news sections designed to be ad magnets in particular categories.

Longwood first.

 

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Representative ads:

 

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Then Chill.

 

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This section was an absolute ad bonanza. Representative samples:

 

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Our prediction: Look for lots more of this in the future, especially the “Special Supplements.” Maybe next time the Globe bean counters could be a little more transparent about what they’re serving to their readers.


Why Does the Boston Ad Club Hate the Herald?

November 8, 2014

The hardreading staff has always loved the Hatch Awards (a.k.a. The Night of the Long Knives), which annually honor the best advertising campaigns in New England.

From a previous life:

 

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(Warning: Dr. Ads is not a licensed physician.)

Yesterday the Ad Club ran this celebratory ad in the Boston Globe.

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Best of Show went to Mullen (the ad agency that initiated the Night of the Long Knives when it velvet-roped-off its seating area one Hatch night back in the ’80s).

P.S. The Ad Club ad did not run in the Boston Herald.

Just like last year.

Par for the (of) course.


Hark! The Herald! (Charlie Baker’s House! Edition)

November 7, 2014

The Boston Herald has its promo mojo working overtime today.

From Joe Battenfeld’s piece:

National office for Charlie Baker? Nope, and you can believe it

Sick of governors with a flair for fancy speeches and a nose for the national
stage?

Massachusetts, here comes your man.

“Not to worry,” Gov.-elect Charlie Baker said in a Boston Herald interview. “I will not be a governor who gets involved in national politics.”

Sure, you’ve heard that one before. Michael Dukakis. Bill Weld. Mitt Romney. Deval Patrick. They all said they just wanted to be a great governor — right before they booked flights to Iowa.

But with Baker, he probably means it.

 

Accent on “probably.”

And accent on “Boston Herald interview,” as if the flirty local tabloid was the only girl Baker danced with yesterday. (His spotlight dance with the Boston Globe is here. In that interview – in his home – he also “expressed little desire to get involved in national Republican politics.”)

Just so you don’t forget, the Herald photo captions also tell the tale.

 

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And, even better than the Heraldniks going to Charlie’s house, he went to their house this morning.

 

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Isn’t that special?


Martha Coakley: Redemption in Boston Globe, Rejection in Boston Herald

November 7, 2014

From our Late to the Party Pooper desk

Is it just us, or did the Boston Globe bend over backwards yesterday to sponsor the Martha Coakley Victory in Defeat Tour?

For your Page One consideration:

 

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Then, Yvonne Abraham’s Metro column:

Redemption, even in loss

Martha Coakley did not lose the election on Tuesday. Charlie Baker won it.

Both candidates — haunted by four-year-old criticisms of their failed bids for US senator and governor, respectively — put the ghosts of 2010 to rest for good this week.

In fact, they’d left them behind months ago, but some critics hadn’t noticed. Tuesday showed them. There was undeniable redemption in Baker’s victory, and, however painful it had to be, in Coakley’s narrow defeat.

 

Cut to Joan Vennoch’si op-ed:

Martha Coakley gets political redemption

THIS TIME, no one could say Martha Coakley gave up the fight.

In fact, she didn’t formally concede the governor’s race to Republican Charlie Baker until Wednesday morning.

Forgive her if she hung on a little too long.

 

Sorry, Joan – Boston Herald editorial page editor Rachelle Cohen doesn’t forgive her.

Coakley takes cowardly way out

Fails to bow off political stage gracefully to Baker

In politics as in life there are right ways and wrong ways to do things. How unfortunate that Martha Coakley had to end her political career on such a sour note — choosing the wrong way.

With hundreds of her supporters still in the Fairmont Copley Plaza ballroom as election eve turned into morning, Coakley slipped out and headed home. The job of telling the crowd to go home fell to her running mate, Steve Kerrigan, who told supporters, “It’s going to be a long night or rather a long morning” and urged folks to head on out.

 

Cohen’s conclusion: “It was simply wrong [for Coakley] to skulk away without a word — even if that word fell short of a concession speech.”

Hmmm. You tell us.


It’s Good to Live in a Twin-Daily Town

November 6, 2014

It’s not just business as usual in the local dailies today.

To wit:

 

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To half-wit:

 

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Sorry – couldn’t resist.