It's Good to Live in a Two-Daily Town

It’s true that both local dailies are covering the Republican National Convention in Florida, but they’re hardly covering it the same way.

The Boston Globe: Dutiful.

The Boston Herald: Exuberant.

Start on Page One (via The Newseum’s Today’s Front Pages):

Words warm and combative? Hey, somebody passed their Headlines as a Second Language course.

But . . . compare and contrast the crosstown version in clear idiomatic English:

That’s more like it, eh?

As for resources devoted to convention coverage, the hardcounting staff  has the Globe with five reporters and two columnists (and Is He or Isn’t He Callum Borchers, who gets a Tampa dateline here but not here).

The Herald seems to have deployed two reporters and two columnists (and Is He or Isn’t He Peter Gelzinis, who isn’t but sounds like he is).

Beyond sheer numbers, though – and proportionally the Herald is probably neck-and-neck with the Globe – there’s a distinct enthusiasm gap between the two papers. The Herald, for example, is running this series:

Warren’s take: Wrong priorities from Brown’s party

Democratic Senate candidate Elizabeth Warren is commenting on the Republican National Convention all week. Here’s her latest installment.

The opening night of the Republican Convention showed that Scott Brown’s party has the wrong priorities for Massachusetts . . .

Blah blah blah.

Wait – the Herald hired Warren to write this series? The hardreading staff is investigating.

Meanwhile, the Herald also has a UMass Lowell student (Corey Lanier, come on down!) blogging from Tampa, and a whole bunch of reader comments punctuating their coverage.

So far, the Herald is winning this bakeoff – easily.