August 21, 2014
From our False Start desk
Great news for the up to several people who listen to Boston Herald Radio!
New programming!
Today’s Herald, page two:
The lede about “The Lede.”
But wait – here’s the promo for BHR on page 14:
See – no “Lede.”
To make matters even more confusing, the BHR website has “The Lede” at 8 am, not 9.
Beyond that, how many shows can they run at noon?
C’mon, Heraldniks – we know you’re giddy with delight over all the new programs, but sober up, wouldya? Up to several people are counting on you.
1 Comment | 
Uncategorized | Tagged: Boston Herald, Boston Herald Radio, Erica Moura, Matt Fitzgerald, Prisca Pointdujour, Rachel Fox, The Lede, The Roundup, Tyler Sullivan | 
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Posted by Campaign Outsider
August 20, 2014
The local dailies occupy parallel universes today in their coverage of the ongoing violence/protest in Ferguson, Mo.
Yes, both have editorial cartoons mirroring the unrest in the wake of the Michael Brown shooting.
Boston Globe’s Dan Wasserman:
Boston Herald’s Jerry Holbert.
But beyond that, the papers couldn’t be more different in their opinion pieces.
Former homeland security official/gubernatorial candidate Juliette Kayyem’s op-ed in the Globe about the failures of the law enforcement community:
Globe columnist Derrick Jackson’s piece on the failure of white Americans to, well, get it:
Crosstown at the Herald, though, the failure all belongs to the media.
Call the roll.
Howie Carr:
Joe Fitzgerald:
Jonah Goldberg:
One town, two different worlds, eh?
Leave a Comment » | Uncategorized | Tagged: Boston Globe, Boston Herald, Derrick Jackson, Ferguson, Howie Carr, Joe Fitzgerald, Jonah Goldberg, Juliette Kayyem, Michael Brown | Permalink
Posted by Campaign Outsider
August 19, 2014
This is one of those Everything You Need to Know About the Local Dailies moment.
Full-page ad in today’s Boston Globe:
Full-page ad in today’s Boston Herald:
Say no more.
Leave a Comment » | Uncategorized | Tagged: Boston Globe, Boston Herald, laparoscopic surgery, Massachusetts Coalition for Occupational Safety & Health, MassCosh, MBTA janitors, SEIU, Weitz & Luxenberg P.C. | Permalink
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August 19, 2014
When the Hillary Clinton Rock Star Diva story broke yesterday, the hardreading staff knew it would be mother’s milk to the feisty local tabloid. And today’s Boston Herald did not disappoint.
Inside, readers were treated to two Whack-a-Hill columns – one from Kimberly Atkins, the other from the inexplicable Adriana Cohen.
(Note the rare double Little Green Number that Clinton rates.)
Crosstown, today’s Boston Globe said nothing about Queen Hillary, not even in Tom Keane’s Hillary is inevitable no longer op-ed. (The paper does have a News Brief: Clinton to attend key Iowa fundraiser. No mention of how she’ll get to Indianoloa.)
In a Weekly Standard piece this week (Hillary Clinton’s Reputation), Jay Cost says “it’s better than you think” and reminds us that “what matters in the Beltway does not necessarily play in Peoria.”
That goes the other way around, too. Case in point: Queen Hillary didn’t make today’s New York Times, either. But stay tuned – Maureen Dowd is up tomorrow.
Leave a Comment » | Uncategorized | Tagged: Adriana Cohen, Boston Globe, Boston Herald, Hillary Clinton, Jay Cost, Kimberly Atkins, Las Vegas Review-Journal, Maureen Dowd, New York Times, Queen Hillary, Rock Star Diva, Sherman Frederick, Weekly Standard, whack-a-Hill | Permalink
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August 18, 2014
Local cartoonist Darby Conley submitted this in yesterday’s Boston Sunday Globe. (Click to enlarge.)
Full frontal rudity.
The state bird is a human hand.
Oh yes.
That’s the Bay State all over.
But especially Boston.
P.S. Just for the record, the Sunday Boston Herald has zero worthwhile comic strips. Representative sample:
Don’t bother clicking to enlarge. Something short of the Real McCoy.
Leave a Comment » | Uncategorized | Tagged: Boston Globe, Boston Herald, Darby Conley, full frontal rudity, Get Fuzzy, The Flying McCoys | Permalink
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August 16, 2014
From our One Town, Two Different Worlds desk
It all started in the Boston Globe two weeks ago with this report.
Trying to put a tribute to William Bulger in the books
South Boston’s Branch Library would be renamed for the neighborhood’s legendary politician, William M. Bulger, under a proposal by City Council President Bill Linehan.
“Bill Bulger’s advocacy and commitment to the Boston Public Library system is unquestionable,” Linehan said in a statement Tuesday. “His commitment to service, to the people of South Boston, Boston, and the Commonwealth are well documented and heralded.”
Uh-huh. Like this Boston Herald column from two days later?
Regardless, all’s been quiet on the Bulger front until this editorial popped up in yesterday’s Globe.
Linehan stirs up resentments with proposal to honor Bulger
THERE AREN’T clear standards for naming a Boston public building after a former political leader. But there should be obvious 
reasons why not to make such a designation: To rehabilitate a tarnished reputation; to reward supporters of a deeply divisive figure; to score political points by sticking up for a neighborhood bigwig. All these bad reasons seem to be underlying the proposal by City Council President Bill Linehan to name the South Boston library for his neighbor William M. Bulger, the former Senate president and University of Massachusetts president. It’s a mischievous proposal designed to stir up old loyalties and resentments, and the City Council should reject it out of hand.
And etc.
As night follows day, the Globe’s sonorous editorial turned into the Herald’s screaming front page.
Today’s story in the feisty local tabloid gives you everything you want: drama, conflict, blood feuds, political waffling, Bulgerite weaseling – you name it.
All in a two-dailies work.
Leave a Comment » | Uncategorized | Tagged: Bill Linehan, Boston City Council, Boston Globe, Boston Herald, Boston Public Library, Bulgerite weaseling, James "Whitey" Bulger, Marty Walsh, Michael Burggren, South Boston Branch Library, William M. Bulger | Permalink
Posted by Campaign Outsider
August 11, 2014
As the hardreading staff noted a couple of weeks ago, Boston GlobeSox owner John Henry is having a fling with his crosstown rival in a series of email exchanges with Herald sports scribe Michael Silverman.
First he used the frisky local tabloid to dopeslap his star sports columnist Dan Shaughnessy over his dismissal of Red Sox Nation’s unswerving devotion to the Olde Towne Team.
Yesterday, Henry opened the kimono a bit more in Silverman’s Baseball Notes column. About meddling with the Globe’s sports coverage, Henry said this:
“I don’t get involved at all with baseball coverage,” Henry said. “That would be completely inappropriate. I did get involved in pushing for Score, which was a standalone NFL section we created, and they did a terrific job on that. I’d like to see more coverage of the 
Revolution because I think they are becoming a more important part of the community. Soccer is becoming more important as evidenced by the reception Liverpool [the soccer club Henry owns] received here (at Fenway) this year. But I haven’t said anything to our editor or sports editor . . .
“I have not initiated a single discussion on the Sox, Liverpool or baseball. There are other areas I attend to; it’s a complicated, diverse business that is radically changing. It’s an important asset of the community.”
Translation: I don’t want to control sports coverage – I want to control sports coverage advertising.
Silverman’s Globe-go-nuts grafs:
Boston remains a two-newspaper town, a vanishing species around the country. The healthy competition between the Globe and the Herald, including but not limited to local and regional news and sports, is a boon for readers. That the Globe now uses its excess printing capacity to print the Herald highlights the changing economic realities of the two newspapers. Each strives to give its readers the best coverage possible, from the Red Sox to Beacon Hill. When it comes to sports coverage, Henry sees ESPN as the Globe’s chief competition — but with a caveat.
“In sports, the Globe competes on the Web with everyone,” Henry said. “You are one click away from the best in the world in every area. ESPN is what we are up against in sports. But you also have the damn Herald.”
You’re welcome.
Hey, Globeniks: Flirty local tabloid on Line 1.
Leave a Comment » | Uncategorized | Tagged: Ben Cherington, Boston Globe, Boston GlobeSox, Boston Herald, Dan Shaughnessy, ESPN, Fenway Park, flirty local tabloid, frisky local tabloid, John Henry, Larry Lucchino, Liverpool, Michael Silverman, Red Sox, Revolution, Tom Werner | Permalink
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August 10, 2014
Last week, as you splendid readers might – or, more likely, might not – recall, the hardreading staff noted the yin and yang of State House renovation coverage in the local dailies. Today comes the latest installment in the form of this piece by Boston Herald political scribe Matt Stout.
Treat the Press
Renovation
costs for Globe
at State House near $30G
New six-figure “blast” windows, $120,000 in floor repairs, $26,000 to move wall sockets because of “revised furniture layouts” — the extra $2.3 million spent to repair the State House’s gubernatorial suite ran the gamut of changes.
Count The Boston Globe among those added costs.
Work connected to the broadsheet’s fourth-floor State House office is sprinkled throughout the project’s so-called change orders, thanks in part to its place in the building’s cozy southwest corner.
Mee-ow. The final tally? “All told, the state credited $29,550 in unforeseen work in connection with the paper’s digs.”
Funny, but that fact went unmentioned in both Akilah Johnson’s report last week (which was entirely uncritical) and Joan Vennochi’s follow-up column the next day (which was reasonably critical of the “museum quality” makeover).
Big deal, you say? Thirty grand is lunch money compared to the total $11.3 million tab? Just sour grapes on the part of the Herald?
Roll your own.
Last graf of Stout’s piece:
The Herald’s fifth-floor office was unaffected by the monthslong construction. (Though, if anyone over there is reading, our A/C has been making weird noises.)
Buck up, Matt – summer’s almost gone.
Leave a Comment » | Uncategorized | Tagged: Akilah Johnson, Boston Globe, Boston Herald, Deval Patrick, Joan Vennochi, Matt Stout, State House renovations | Permalink
Posted by Campaign Outsider
August 8, 2014
It’s been a couple of months since the Boston Globe launched its weekly section Capital, and for the most part it seems pretty fat (12 pages) and happy (exuberant layouts). The only thing even vaguely controversial about the sections is the spelling of its name.
Globe editor Brian McGrory has a running gag with Jim Braude and Margery Eagan on WGBH radio about why it’s Capital with an a not an o. McGrory keeps wriggling out of revealing the paper’s reasons, but here are three possible ones from today’s edition.
Would those ads likely have run in the A or B section if there were no Capital? Probably. But you have to believe a section geared toward political junkies is a more appealing environment for all three advertisers. For the first two, it’s obvious. For Steward Health Care, it’s a bit more oblique.
From Bruce Mohl’s CommonWealth piece last month on why Steward “is missing from the group of health care competitors that have banded together to fight the consent agreement negotiated by Partners HealthCare and Attorney General Martha Coakley”:
Some think the company decided to sit this one out because of its close ties to Coakley. The attorney general in 2010 approved the acquisition by Cerberus/Steward of six Caritas Christi hospitals owned by the Boston archdiocese. Coakley also retains some regulatory oversight over Steward, including a say in whether the health care system can shut down any of its hospitals.
Steward executives, led by CEO Ralph de la Torre, gave big to Coakley when she ran for the US Senate in 2010 and ponied up again earlier this year as she mounted her run for governor. Campaign finance records indicate de la Torre and his wife Wing led a group of Steward executives and spouses who made $500 donations to Coakley on February 26. More Steward officials contributed to Coakley in late March.
In all, Steward executives have contributed more than $18,000 to Coakley since late last year. No other health care system has taken such an interest in the gubernatorial campaign, which may help explain why Steward is less interested in the legal fight over the Partners expansion plans.
Interesting. But back to the original question: Why Capital with an a? Maybe because that’s what it hauls in.
P.S. Needless to say, none of the above ads ran in the Boston Herald.
1 Comment | Uncategorized | Tagged: Boston Globe, Boston Herald, Brian McGrory, Bruce Mohl, Capital, Christians United for Israel, CommonWealth Magazine, CUFI, Everett, Hamas, Israel, Jim Braude, Margery Eagan, Martha Coakley, Massachusetts casino, Mohegan Sun, Revere, Steward Health Care System, WGBH, Wynn Resorts | Permalink
Posted by Campaign Outsider
August 8, 2014
From our Walt Whitman desk
It’s been one year since the feisty local tabloid launched Boston Herald Radio, and the paper is celebrating the anniversary in its accustomed style.
Start, as usual, with Page One.
“Best yet to come”? That’s good to hear.
Inside, the firsty local tabloid devotes a full-page, Joe Battenfeld-bylined piece to the anniversary bash.
Our favorite part:
Herald Radio’s launch was named to the prestigious Frontier Fifty list of outstanding talk media webcasts in the nation by industry bible Talkers Magazine.
Which got the headscratching staff to wondering: How many talk media webcasts are there in the nation?
We couldn’t find the answer on the Googletron (we’re guessing it’s a lot), but we did locate BHR on the Frontier Fifty:
Let’s hope Boston Herald Radio’s second anniversary headline is, We’re Number 35! We’re Number 35!
Good luck, guys, and happy anniversary.
Leave a Comment » | Uncategorized | Tagged: Ann Romney, Boston Herald, Boston Herald Radio, firsty local tabloid, Frontier Fifty, Gary Sinese, Joe Battenfeld, Joe Sciacca, Leonard Nimoy, Megan Fox, Pat Purcell, Rand Paul, Stephen Lynch, Talkers Magazine, Walt Whitman | Permalink
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It's Good to Live in a Two-Daily Town 