As the hardreading staff has noted on multiple occasions, Boston Globe Names columnist Mark Shanahan regularly, er, re-curates the work of other Boston journalists.
What are some of the places you miss out here in Boston?
Oh God, I miss everywhere. I miss everywhere. The list is truly endless. I get jealous when my friends call me and bitch about [expletive] weather. Just the list of places is just too long to go into. I miss everything about that city.
Well, we miss you, too.
Aaaaw . .
But this Boston Magazine Daily piece by Spencer Buell yesterday presented a very different portrait of Lehane.
Dennis Lehane Apologizes for Using the N-Word in His Emerson Speech
“I should have known better.”
Author Dennis Lehane has apologized after receiving backlash for his use of the n-word during his Emerson commencement speech Sunday.
“Hurting people with the use of that word, of all words, was about as far from my intention as one could get, but I take ownership of the result,” he says in a statement. “I should have known better.”
In the speech, which cautioned against romanticizing the past, Lehane told a story about growing up in the 1970s during Boston’s busing crisis, when racial divisions in the city spiked over school desegregation.
He described driving with his family in a car through a swarm of protesters on Broadway in South Boston. The demonstrators had “hung effigies” of federal judge Arthur Garrity Jr. and Massachusetts Sen. Ted Kennedy, and were “lighting them on fire with torches,” he recalled. He added, “They were screaming, ‘N—s out.’”
That’s all well and good: Two different news outlets with two different news angles. Business as usual.
Dennis Lehane apologizes for using racial slur in Emerson speech
Author Dennis Lehane has apologized for using a racial slur during his commencement speech at Emerson College Sunday. Lehane, a Dorchester native best known for his novels “Mystic River” and “The Given Day,” used the N-word while talking about the protests in South Boston during the busing crisis of the 1970s.
“I will never forget this for the rest of my life. We were trapped in the back of a car,” Lehane told graduates. “We couldn’t move. We could just be buffeted down the street. And they had hung effigies of Arthur Garrity, who was a judge at the time, of Teddy Kennedy, and they were lighting them on fire with torches. And they were screaming, ‘N—s out.’”
There were apparently complaints after the speech because Lehane issued a statement Monday morning apologizing for using the slur.
Here’s our complaint: Once again, Shanahan has cribbed material from another reporter without attribution.
Google News time check around midnight Monday:
C’mon, man – be a mensch and give credit where credit’s due, yeah?
So, to recap for the umpteenth- hell, just see here.
The question is this: How did Marty’s Mash Note to the Boston Public Schools wind up as a full-page ad in last Wednesday’s Boston Globe?
On Friday, CommonWealth Magazine (which came late – but smart – to the party) reported the issue thusly:
THE BOSTON GLOBE FOUNDATION donated a full-page ad in Wednesday’s newspaper to Boston Mayor Marty Walsh so he could thank the staff of the Boston Public Schools at the close of the school year.
Ellen Clegg, who heads the foundation, said the mayor personally asked Globe CEO Mike Sheehan for the ad space and the foundation provided it because the message was in keeping with the organization’s focus on education and literacy.
But Ms. Clegg had previously told the hardreading staff this:
The Globe Foundation donated the ad to the Boston Public Schools pro bono, as a public service. When we get a request for support from organizations that fit the Foundation’s mission, we work with the Globe’s advertising department to donate pro bono print ads in space that would normally go to unpaid “house ads.” It’s a great way to engage with the community. Other recent examples of pro bono ads include the One Fund and the MLK Summer Scholars Program, which the Foundation co-sponsors with John Hancock.
C’mon – “[donating] an ad to the Boston Public Schools pro bono” and kowtowing to the mayor of Boston aren’t even in the same zip code.
Regardless, Ms. Clegg perpetuated the split decision yesterday in these post-CommonWealth answers to our pre-CommonWealth questions, which took her initial explanation at face value:
• When you donated the ad to the Boston Public Schools, did you know it would take the form of a letter from Mayor Walsh?
Yes.
• Who did the creative/production of the ad?
The Globe’s advertising department.
• Given the ad’s content, did you have any concerns that it would appear you donated the ad to Mayor Walsh, raising questions about the appearance of compromising the Globe’s arm’s-length relationship with him?
The Globe’s newsroom is independent from the business side of the organization, and from the Globe Foundation, and had no involvement here.
I’m sure you’ve seen the newsroom’s recent scrub of Mayor Walsh’s hiring record (link below). I have confidence that our journalists will continue to scrutinize public officials and powerful institutions, including City Hall.
Frankly, we’re more interested in scrubbing Ms. Clegg’s record of telling the hardreading staff one thing and CommonWealth another.
From the start of John Henry’s dual ownership of the Boston GlobeSox, the paper pretty consistently ignored conflicts of interest in his business dealings with the Menino administration (see here and here). If Henry is now dancing to Marty Walsh’s tune, he should own up to that, too.
Last Wednesday, this full-page ad appeared in the Boston Globe:
That got the headscratching staff to wondering who paid for Marty’s Mash Note to the Boston Public Schools. So we sent a note to the Boston Globe Foundation (see lower left in the ad) asking just that: Did Mayor Walsh (read: Boston taxpayers) foot the bill? Did the Globe Foundation? Did no one?
And here’s what Globe lifer Ellen Clegg replied:
The Globe Foundation donated the ad to the Boston Public Schools pro bono, as a public service. When we get a request for support from organizations that fit the Foundation’s mission, we work with the Globe’s advertising department to donate pro bono print ads in space that would normally go to unpaid “house ads.” It’s a great way to engage with the community. Other recent examples of pro bono ads include the One Fund and the MLK Summer Scholars Program, which the Foundation co-sponsors with John Hancock.
(The hardquizzing staff followed up with an email that asked Ms. Clegg these questions: 1) When you donated the ad to the Boston Public Schools, did you know it would take the form of a letter from Mayor Walsh? 2) Who did the creative/production of the ad? 3) Given the ad’s content, did you have any concerns that it would look like you donated the ad not to the BPS but to Mayor Walsh, appearing to compromise the Globe’s arm’s-length relationship with him?
(We have yet to hear back.)
Meanwhile, as the redoubtable Dan Kennedy pointed out to us, the redoubtable Dan Kennedy pointed us to this piece in Commonwealth Magazine, where it seems to us Ms. Clegg told a very different story to CommonWealth Magazine (which, frankly, came late to the party):
Globe Foundation gives full-page ad to Walsh
Mayor approached CEO Sheehan for space
THE BOSTON GLOBE FOUNDATION donated a full-page ad in Wednesday’s newspaper to Boston Mayor Marty Walsh so he could thank the staff of the Boston Public Schools at the close of the school year.
Ellen Clegg, who heads the foundation, said the mayor personally asked Globe CEO Mike Sheehan for the ad space and the foundation provided it because the message was in keeping with the organization’s focus on education and literacy.
Yes, well, Ms. Clegg might want to focus on her own message(s). Clearly, she gave us a mere bag of shells.
The hardreading staff will call Ms. Clegg tomorrow and try to clarify all this, because turning your newspaper into a mayoral Make a Wish fund is a lot different from “donating an ad to the Boston Public Schools.”
On Wednesday, this full-page ad appeared in the Boston Globe:
That got the headscratching staff to wonder, Who picked up the tab for Marty’s Mash Note to the Boston Public Schools?
So we sent a note to the Boston Globe Foundation, whose logo appears lower left, asking if they could tell us if Mayor Walsh (read: Boston taxpayers) paid for the ad space or the Globe Foundation did or if any money changed hands at all.
And here’s the reply we received from Globe stalwart Ellen Clegg:
The Globe Foundation donated the ad to the Boston Public Schools pro bono, as a public service. When we get a request for support from organizations that fit the Foundation’s mission, we work with the Globe’s advertising department to donate pro bono print ads in space that would normally go to unpaid “house ads.” It’s a great way to engage with the community. Other recent examples of pro bono ads include the One Fund and the MLK Summer Scholars Program, which the Foundation co-sponsors with John Hancock.
Ms. Clegg graciously offered to talk with the hardquizzing staff and we have a call in to her.
As the hardreading staff has noted on numerous occasions, the relationship between Boston Globe/Red Sox owner John Henry and the City of Boston (read: Tom Menino) over the past several years became increasingly – and profitably – chummy, from Landsdowne Street air rights to Fenway Franks.
Boston Mayor Marty Walsh has always struck the hardreading staff as deep-down a Boston Herald kind of guy. But you can’t tell by looking at the local dailies today.
Boston Globe, Page 9:
Boston Herald: Nada thing.
Of course this logo lower left in the ad might explain that.
Subsequently, the headscratching staff sent this email to the Boston Globe Foundation:
I produce the website It’s Good to Live in a Two-Daily Town and I read with interest Mayor Walsh’s full-page ad in today’s Globe. I also noticed that the Boston Globe Foundation logo was included lower left.
Can you tell me if Mayor Walsh paid for the ad space? Or if the Boston Globe Foundation did? Or if any money changed hands at all?
When I got to chat briefly with Linda [Pizzuti, Henry’s wife] after the Chamber breakfast, she described her role at the paper as “evolving.” Is there any greater sense of what exactly her role will be yet?
Linda is fully engaged working on important issues for the Boston Globe. She is leading initiatives to activate our subscriber base connecting the Globe to the community. She is heading up the Boston Globe Foundation. And she serves on a number of internal committees that deal with real estate, circulation, social media and other business issues.
She was the driving force behind our recently launched Globe GRANT program, which gave our subscribers vouchers they are assigning to non-profit organizations for advertising space in the Boston Globe. This program has been very warmly received by charitable organizations and subscribers.
(Henry also writes in the exchange, “Mike [Barnicle] knows everyone worth knowing.” Huh.)
Anyway, we’re hoping to hear from the stately local broadsheet’s stately local do-gooders.
Did Marty Walsh (read: Boston taxpayers) pay for yesterday’s full-page ad? Did Linda Pizzuti? Mike Barnicle? Nobody?
Today’s Boston Herald features this story about an interview Jerry Remy gave to WEEI’s John Dennis and Gerry Callahan yesterday.
‘Mixed feelings’ for Martel’s father after Remy interview
Jennifer Martel’s father said he has “mixed feelings” about Red Sox icon Jerry Remy’s lengthy and defensive radio interview yesterday, in which the NESN color man admitted he and his wife enabled their alleged killer son but denied coaxing Martel into dropping a restraining order shortly before her murder . . .
In the interview — Remy’s first extensive comments about his son — the second-baseman turned broadcaster and restaurateur said he never got Jared Remy his Red Sox security job, didn’t know the bodybuilder was using his allowance on steroids, and defended his record as a grandfather to the couple’s 5-year-old daughter, Arianna. A custody settlement reached this week awards the Remys visitation while giving guardianship to Martel’s parents.
But the foggy local tabloid left out how Remy “defended his record as a grandparent” – by attacking Herald columnist Margery Eagan for this piece questioning the wisdom of giving Jerry and wife Phoebe Remy shared custody of their granddaughter Arianna, whose mother, Jennifer Martel, Jared Remy allegedly murdered.
From Eric Randall’s Boston Magazine blog post yesterday:
Jerry Remy Does Not Like To Be Called a Bad Grandparent
Remy shot back at a Herald column that wondered whether he’s fit to see his granddaughter.
NESN Red Sox commentator Jerry Remy gave a fascinating interview to the Dennis & Callahan radio show that shed light on which criticisms gets most under his skin in the wake of his son Jared’s alleged murder.
You know I read a column yesterday that comes out and says we’re bad parents and we shouldn’t even be allowed to see our granddaughter because what will we do, have pictures of our son all over the house? I mean we’re not stupid … It’s that kind of reporting that is disgusting to me because what are we going to do, bring our granddaughter into the house, show her pictures of daddy? Give me a break. Have her on the phone with him from the can? Give me a break. Take visitations to jail? Give me a break. I mean, we’re not stupid either. So it’s those kind of things that upset me a bit.
Apparently it upset the Herald too, since they left that part out.
Boston magazine’s Steve Annear had it first in a blog post yesterday.
Mayor Walsh Bucks Broncos Jersey Bet
He was supposed to wear the jersey at the U.S. Conference of Mayors, but he canceled the trip because of the snowstorm.
Mayor Marty Walsh has the snow to thank for saving him the embarrassment of wearing a Broncos jersey in front of his fellow mayors from across the country.
Citing the impending storm that’s set to drop up to 10 inches of snow in the Boston area through Wednesday afternoon, Walsh canceled his trip to Washington, D.C., where he was scheduled to attend the U.S. Conference of Mayors.
And scheduled to wear the Broncos jersey at some point during the three-day conference.
But he punked out.
Today’s Boston Herald picked up the story (sorry, BoMag – no credit for you!) and added this wrinkle from Boston University’s Thomas Whalen:
“It’s probably not a good idea for Boston’s newly elected mayor to be wearing a Broncos jersey … but a bet is a bet. And he’s welshing on a bet. Does he keep his word? It’s not a good way to start.”
Waiting to hear from the Welsh Anti-Defamation League. Except there isn’t one. But this is a good Mike Royko piece.
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It's Good to Live in a Two-Daily Town 