Surprise! It’s the Globe That’s Bashing Elizabeth Warren

November 9, 2012

Sen.-elect Elizabeth Warren’s Marcel Marceau press conference yesterday got – wait for it – very different treatment in the local dailies today. But in a rare role reversal, it’s the Boston Herald giving her a free pass, while the Globe gave her  a tune-up.

Herald piece:

Expert: Liz Warren’s jitters expected at presser

U.S. Sen.-elect Elizabeth Warren’s jittery first press conference since the election was likely a combination of the political neophyte’s exhaustion and caution as she gets ready to head to Washington, D.C., to take on the high-stakes job, according to a political observer.

“She’s been concentrating so hard on the campaign, I’m sure she’s pretty tired,” said John C. Berg, a political science professor at Suffolk University. “I also think she doesn’t want to go into the Senate having made commitments she regrets.”

Maybe, but she certainly got news coverage to regret. Start with the front page story in the Globe:

Elizabeth Warren holds back with reporters

It was a bit of a rough start for Senator- elect Elizabeth Warren, who held her first official press conference following her victory Tuesday. Suddenly, the voluble Harvard Law School professor and longtime media commentator sounded uncertain and impatient, offering terse answers to questions about fiscal policy and the success of women candidates.

“I’m glad” was all she said when asked to expound on the support she received from women voters and on the influx of women elected Tuesday. Asked to elaborate, she refused, saying: “I’m glad that women turned out to vote for me. I’m delighted.”

Asked a third time, Warren turned to Governor Deval Patrick, who was standing at her side at the State House press conference. “You want to try this?” she said.

Globe columnist Brian McGrory was willing to grab some of it.

Elizabeth Warren a woman of few words

For the sake of Massachusetts, let’s hope that Elizabeth Warren gets better than this.

She was always a mildly underwhelming candidate, clutching her talking points like they were a satchel of gold — millionaires and billionaires, a level playing field, big oil. As deft as she was at slogans, she was never so good at answering questions, which was odd for a person of such experience and substance.

Her acceptance on Tuesday night continued that odd tradition — her stump speech warmed over with a midway nod ­toward her vanquished opponent, Scott Brown. It was hard to fathom that she couldn’t offer a few meaningful words on what it means to capture the honor of representing Massachusetts in the US Senate.

But none of this could have prepared anyone for the scene that unfolded Thursday afternoon in the governor’s suite of the State House . . .

. . . which, McGrory continues, is more than a little problematic:

Yes, she is tired. Of course, it’s all new. Admittedly, this is about style.

But election night was lazy. Thursday was disrespectful. If Elizabeth Warren is better than this, and there is every hope and belief that she is, it’s time to start showing it now.

Who knows – the Herald might even notice.

 

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Brian McGrory: Assignment Desk for the Boston Herald

October 21, 2012

On Friday, Boston Globe columnist Brian McGrory submitted this piece (boink! sorry, paywall):

Ads up; it’s just way too much

I was walking near Copley Square one recent morning when I made a profound mistake. I stopped to appreciate the scenery.

Here’s what I expected: Urban beauty in the form of the grand dame of a hotel, the Fairmont Copley Plaza, and the contrast between Trinity Church and the Hancock Tower, and the sheer dignity of the McKim Building at the Boston Public Library.

Here’s what assaulted me instead: Advertisements. Suddenly, they were everywhere, glowing, sprawling, backlit ads pouring forth from too many places in this once subtle city. Consider a single block of Boylston Street, directly outside the doors of the library.

We begin with a sidewalk restroom that carries a huge ad for, among other things, Maggiano’s Little Italy, which I’m not sure is a selling match.

And there were multiple other ads within a small radius of Copley Square, leading McGrory to this conclusion:

If we had this many ads in this newspaper every week, I’d be a better-dressed man.

McGrory’s column also led to this conclusion in the next day’s Boston Herald:

Signs ad(d) to Bostonians’ discontent

Back Bay and Beacon Hill brownstone dwellers are up in arms over plans to plant nearly 50 17-foot illuminated billboards in Hub neighborhoods — the latest skirmish in a controversial decade-long ad campaign.

“We’re talking about maintaining the quality of life in Boston, which is pretty good, and I don’t think this helps anybody other than the advertising companies,” said Howard Kassler, chairman of the Neighborhood Association of the Back Bay.

There’s no question the Herald report went beyond McGrory’s column in terms of covering neighborhood reaction and detailing the city’s deal with the billboard company.

But there’s also little doubt (at least among the hardreading staff) that the coverage was spurred by McGrory’s column.

That’s what a two-daily town is all about.

 

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Romney Gone Mittsing at the Herald Edition

July 28, 2012

Friday’s Boston Herald was all hands on duck – sorry, deck – covering the local filleting of Chick-fil-A over statements by its anti-gay-marriage CEO Dan Cathy. Page One alone gives you a sense of the Herald’s flood-the-zone coverage of the big buck-buck-bucks faceoff over the chicken chain’s expansion into Boston.

Via the Newseum’s Today’s Front Pages:

The hardcounting staff tallied four-plus pages and eight separate pieces (enough for a Chick-fil-A bucket?) in Friday’s Herald devoted to the dustup.

Which meant there was no one left to adequately mock Mitt Romney for his five-ring circus in London.

In fact, Friday’s Herald had exactly zero stories about Romney’s Olympic Mittshaps. That task fell to Friday’s Boston Globe, which featured:

1) This front-page report

Romney words on Olympics readiness draw British riposte

British Prime Minister David Cameron and England’s famously tough media tweaked Mitt Romney Thursday after the presumptive Republican presidential nominee suggested that London might not be ready for its Olympic moment.

“It’s hard to know just how well it will turn out,” said Romney, who ran the 2002 Olympic Winter Games in Salt Lake City. “There are a few things that were disconcerting: the stories about the private security firm not having enough people, supposed strike of the immigration and customs officials, that obviously is not something which is encouraging.”

Those comments prompted a quick rebuke from Cameron. “We are holding an Olympic Games in one of the busiest, most active, bustling cities anywhere in the world,” Cameron told reporters after visiting the venues where the 2012 Summer Olympics will begin Friday. “Of course it’s easier if you hold an Olympic Games in the middle of nowhere” — an apparent reference to Salt Lake City.

Ouch.

2) This Brian McGrory column

Mitt Romney, lost in translation

To the good, hard-working people of London, please allow me to apologize on behalf of my former governor, Mitt Romney.

When he basically told an interviewer that you Brits were a bunch of layabouts and that your Olympics would almost certainly be a total disaster, he didn’t mean for you to take it personally. Actually, he didn’t really even mean to say it. That’s just what he does, and it takes getting used to.

Will today’s Boston Herald make up for its lack of Romney snark attacks?

We’ll see.

 

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