June 11, 2015
As you splendid readers well know, the Boston news media – from the Boston Business Journal to WGBH to Boston Magazine to WBUR to the Boston Globe – are on Store 2024 like Brown on Williamson.
But not the Boston Herald.
Sure, the feisty local tabloid has provided some basic coverage of the five-ring monte Olympic bid, but it’s not breaking news the way other local outlets have. The Herald these days is more about Deval Patrick’s financial shenanigans.
Not that there’s anything wrong with that.
Exhibit A: Yesterday’s Joe Battenfeld column.
Patrick Secretly Diverted Junket Cash
Former Gov. Deval Patrick’s administration secretly diverted nearly $27 million in public money to off-budget accounts that paid for a $1.35 million trade junket tab, bloated advertising contracts, and a deal with a federally subsidized tourism venture backed by U.S. Sen. Harry Reid, a Herald investigation has found.
The maneuver to fatten the hidden “trust”
accounts with millions from state quasi-public agencies allowed Patrick to skirt the state Legislature and evade state budget cutbacks during the recession, the Herald found.
Elsewhere in the piece, the number seems to be over $37 million. Helpful chart:
Whatever.
Exhibit B: Today’s Herald page 5 (with bonus Inexplicable Green 1).
See? Even the paper’s Olympic coverage is part of its Devalue Pak.
Meanwhile, the latest Boston NOlympics revelations include this in the BBJ, which suggests that those expecting the Massachusetts Bay Transit Authority to “save the Boston Olympics” Must Be Taking Acid. The Boston Globe contributes this front-page piece about Boston 2024 relocating the Widett Circle food wholesalers to the Seaport (one really smart person we know thinks the entire Boston 2024 effort is just a land grab to develop the New Boston Food Market site). The Globe also features this Metro piece about the full-court press on the Boston 2024 organizers to finally get down to specifics.
WBUR also has a couple of new reports today about bigger Olympic footprints, and WGBH tosses in this piece about new venues and public relations.
But the Boston Herald? Call it the shelfie local tabloid.
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Uncategorized | Tagged: 2024 Olympics, BBJ, Boston 2024, Boston Business Journal, Boston Globe, Boston magazine, Boston NOlympics, Deval Patrick, Devalue Pak, feisty local tabloid, five-ring monte, like Brown on Williamson, MBTA=Must Be Taking Acid, New Boston Food Market, Seaport, shelfie local tabloid, Store 2024, WBUR, WGBH, Widett Circle | 
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Posted by Campaign Outsider
March 10, 2015
The local dailies are currently on Boston 2024, the high-rolling Olympic wannabe outfit, like Brown on Williamson – especially in the matter of who’s getting paid what.
Today Boston hits the Dailies Double, with both papers front-paging the buckraking at the Olympic trough.
Boston Globe:
Olympic bid panel offers salary data
Patrick to earn $7,500 per day during travels
Former governor Deval Patrick will earn $7,500 a day for occasional travel as a global ambassador for Boston’s Olympic bid, selling the city and its vision for the Games to the International Olympic Committee, according to salary data released Monday by local 
Olympic planners, who say they do not know how often Patrick would be on the job.
The local Olympic bid committee, Boston 2024, which is funded by private donations, is also paying $1,390,500 in annual staff salary, with six of 10 salaried employees making more than $100,000 a year. Chief executive Rich Davey topped the list at $300,000.
Mark Arsenault’s piece features other hauls as well: “Boston 2024 is paying $44,000 a month to communications consultants, including $15,000 each to Northwind Strategies — overseen by former Patrick aide Doug Rubin — and Keyser Public Strategies, whose president, Will Keyser, was a key strategist in Governor Charlie Baker’s winning campaign.”
And: “The committee also has monthly contracts, for $10,000 each, with William Coyne Jr. and Jack Hart — well-connected lobbyists with South Boston ties.”
And: “Nikko Mendoza, who was Patrick’s director of operations, is vice president for engagement and external affairs, making $120,000 a year, according to Boston 2024.”
That’s a lotta dough-re-mi, eh?
Crosstown at the Boston Herald, it gets even worse.
Inside, the fiscally local tabloid features this handy clip ‘n’ save pay sheet:
Do we see a pattern emerging here? Boston 2024 operates clandestinely, local media force the issue on some issue, Boston 2024 forks over some information. Time to stock up on crowbars.
Leave a Comment » | Uncategorized | Tagged: Boston 2024, Boston Globe, Boston Herald, Boston Homeless Solidarity Committee, Brown on Williamson, Charlie Baker, Dailies Double, Deval Patrick, Doug Rubin, fiscally local tabloid, five-ring monte, International Olympic Committee, Jack Hart, John Walsh, Mark Arsenault, Marty Walsh, Nikko Mendoza, No Boston Olympics, Rich Davey, Will Keyser, William Coyne Jr. | Permalink
Posted by Campaign Outsider
March 8, 2015
Both Boston dailies take on the machers piling up at Boston 2024, the bulldozing bunch trying to bring the Olympic Games to town nine years hence. But the papers have different bigwigs to target.
The Boston Sunday Globe gives the cudgel to Metro columnist Yvonne Abraham, who drops the hammer on Mistah Mayah.
Too close for comfort
You can’t be both cheerleader and watchdog.
Mayor Marty Walsh was initially skeptical about a Boston Olympics, promising to protect the city’s interests as assorted bigs pursued a 2024 Games. Now he’s the Games’ booster in chief.
“Make no mistake, we are in this to win it: to bring the Olympic Games to Boston, along with the immense global investment and community benefits that come with it,” he said at Wednesday’s annual meeting of the Boston Municipal Research Bureau.
Walsh and Boston 2024 are now one. He has fully melded his operation with the one run by John Fish and other titans pushing the Games.
Abraham’s conclusion: “[Marty Walsh] now owns the bid, and all that comes with it, good or bad . . . The mayor has leapt from the Olympic high board. No turning back now.”
Of course, there’s no water in the pool – just a bunch of double-talk – so that doesn’t bode well for anyone.
Crosstown at the Boston Herald, it’s former Gov. Patrick who’s Devalued.
Page One:
Inside, Patrick gets the expensive two-page spread (with special bonus Inexplicable Little Green Numbers!).
This Olympic bid has all the earmarks of classic crony capitalism: The high-priced array of usual suspects, the sleight-of-hand secrecy, the see-no-evil stonewalling – the whole megillah.
The biggest Olympic event of all would be if any of these characters dealt straight with the people of Boston for two minutes at a time.
So far, the prospects don’t look good.
3 Comments | Uncategorized | Tagged: Boston 2024, Boston Globe, Boston Herald, Boston Municipal Research Bureau, Charlie Baker, Deval Patrick, five-ring monte, Marty Walsh, Olympic Games, Yvonne Abraham | Permalink
Posted by Campaign Outsider
January 5, 2015
The Boston Sunday Globe featured Michael Levenson’s swan song for two-term Gov. Deval Patrick.
The Patrick legacy: history and headwinds
Governor made good on much he’d promised, but fractious ties with legislators, and economy’s plunge, held him back
Deval Patrick looked out on Boston Common, presiding not only as the incoming governor but as the leader of a movement that had upended politics. Thousands from across the state cheered and held up cellphone cameras — people of every kind and color, young and old, jubilant multitudes never before seen at the State House.
At his first inauguration under uncommonly fair skies in January 2007, the man who a year earlier had been dismissed as a hopeless romantic with no chance of victory carried with him limitless hope for the future — for better schools, fairer housing, racial healing.
And etc.
Nice sendoff, except . . .
Exhibit Umpteen, from Saturday’s Boston Herald report about Patrick “denying [chairwoman of the Sex Offender Registry Board Saundra Edwards’] claims he had a personal ax to grind in firing her after he said she ‘inappropriately’ tried pressuring an official to classify the governor’s brother-in-law as a sex offender.”
“Your paper has done a whole lot to make a mess of his life,” he said, turning to a Herald reporter yesterday. “That’s certainly been on my mind. I didn’t want to stir all that up again. But we cannot have officials inappropriately interfering with the independence of hearing officers.”
But he doesn’t want to stir all that up again.
Ave atque vale, Deval.
Ye harldy knew us.
Leave a Comment » | Uncategorized | Tagged: Boston Globe, Boston Herald, Deval Patrick, Michael Levenson, Pundit Review, Saundra Edwards, Sex Offender Registry Board | Permalink
Posted by Campaign Outsider
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:
For the trifocal set:
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.
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.
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 
nation’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?
Leave a Comment » | Uncategorized | Tagged: Boston Globe, Boston Herald, Charlie Baker, Darren Wilson, Deval Patrick, Ferguson, grand jury, Joe Battenfeld, Marty Walsh, Michael Brown, Roxbury, South Bay House of Correction, Twelfth Baptist Church | Permalink
Posted by Campaign Outsider
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.
And, even better than the Heraldniks going to Charlie’s house, he went to their house this morning.
Isn’t that special?
Leave a Comment » | Uncategorized | Tagged: Bill Weld, Boston Globe, Boston Herald, Boston Herald Radio, Charlie Baker, Deval Patrick, Joe Battenfeld, Michael Dukakis, Mitt Romney | Permalink
Posted by Campaign Outsider
November 6, 2014
It’s not just business as usual in the local dailies today.
To wit:
To half-wit:
Sorry – couldn’t resist.
Leave a Comment » | Uncategorized | Tagged: Boston Globe, Boston Herald, Charlie Baker, Deval Patrick, Down to Business, twin-daily town | Permalink
Posted by Campaign Outsider
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
July 18, 2014
Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick (D-Am I Still Here?) sort of stepped in it the other day, making a comparison that’s ill-advised nine out of ten times and indefensible the other.
Yesterday’s Boston Globe, Page One:
(Interesting – but not unusual: The web subhead was the much blander “Says immigrants detained in Southwest deserve a safe haven.”)
As night follows day, crosstown rival Boston Herald found a politician to jump on Patrick’s comments. From today’s edition:
Rep: Gov’s Holocaust analogy is ‘ludicrous’
Gov. Deval Patrick’s decision to compare the flood of unaccompanied Central American kids crossing the Texas border to the Holocaust sparked outrage in some circles yesterday, including a Jewish lawmaker who said the “off-putting” remarks had no place in the 
immigration debate.
“I think it was a poor choice and a poor analogy,” said state Rep. Steven S. Howitt, a Seekonk Republican. “Does he get a free pass because he’s the governor and he can say that?
“I just feel that one does not equate one to the other, and to compare Central America to Nazi Germany is just ludicrous,” Howitt said. “The children that were sent back (then) were sent back to death camps and eventually the gas chambers. To my knowledge, we don’t have them in whatever countries these children came from in Central America.”
Back at the Globe, it was left to a reader to point out Patrick’s misjudgment. From today’s Letter to the Editor:
No comparison between migrants and Nazi victims
GOVERNOR DEVAL Patrick is attempting to guilt-trip us by contrasting US refusal to allow legal entry of European Jews in 1939 with his decision to support the illegal entry of immigrant children. His statement offends the memory of six million Jews murdered in the Holocaust (“Patrick wants Mass. to host children,” Page A1, July 17).
Patrick referred specifically to the St. Louis, a ship with 928 passengers, almost all of them Jewish refugees from the Nazis. They were victims of a mandate to torture and exterminate a people because of their faith.
The passengers of the St. Louis never tried to force their way into this country illegally. They did not seek to come here for free health care, free housing, welfare subsidies, or better jobs. Theirs was a voyage of survival, not economic upgrading. Just to save their lives, they would have been content to settle in Honduras, Guatemala, or El Salvador, where many immigrants originate today.
The governments of Central America are lax, corrupt, and inefficient, but, unlike Nazi Germany, they do not have an agenda for their citizens’ torture and extermination.
Those that govern us should be ashamed of their self-serving obfuscation of fact and their violation of the sacred memory of the Holocaust victims’ annihilation.
Michael Zack
Lexington
Amen.
6 Comments | Uncategorized | Tagged: Boston Globe, Boston Herald, Central America, Deval Patrick, Holocaust, Michael Zack, Nazi Germany, Seekonk, St. Louis, Steven S. Howitt | Permalink
Posted by Campaign Outsider
July 18, 2014
From our One Town, Two Different Worlds desk (in cooperation with our Late to the Party desk)
Yesterday’s Boston dailies provided a textbook compare ‘n’ contrast case study on several fronts.
Start with the Boston Herald’s front page:
What followed was Jessica Heslam’s page 2 column about sports radio moron Kirk Minihane’s gutless bitching about FOX Sports fox Erin Andrews’ lame All Star Game interview of groovy St. Louis Cardinals pitcher Adam Wainwright:
Vulgar put-down of Erin Andrews won’t score points for WEEI
Boston sports radio station WEEI — which has been trounced by rival “98.5 The Sports Hub” and is taking a ratings beating because of the cellar-dwelling Red Sox — found itself in hot water yesterday after one of its jock talkers made vulgar on-air comments about a female sportscaster.
“Dennis & Callahan” sidekick Kirk Minihane ended up apologizing for his demeaning remarks about Fox Sports reporter Erin Andrews, but not before the whole brouhaha had some wondering whether it was all a desperate bid to boost ratings.
Groovy. But here’s how the Boston Globe reported it, Metro page 1:
Martha Coakley rips WEEI host for Erin Andrews rant
Stomping onto the dangerous turf of talk radio, gubernatorial candidate Martha Coakley called out a WEEI radio host for an on-air tirade in which he lambasted FOX Sports reporter Erin Andrews, cursing about her and telling her to “drop dead.”
The rant on the “Dennis & Callahan Show” Wednesday morning prompted Coakley to contact a reporter covering the story to weigh in and later prompted an apology from the radio personality.
“Everybody understands fair criticism,” Coakley told Boston.com. “But when it becomes personal, when it’s demeaning, and when it goes over the line as this did, that language is inexcusable, and it’s offensive. I just felt it was important for me to weigh in.”
Yeah, that’s really “dangerous turf” – taking a bold stance against sexist buffoonery. The Bay State needs more Profiles in Courage like that.
Meanwhile, here’s what the stately local broadsheet featured on its front page:
That stands in stark contrast to the frosty local tabloid’s take:
Gov urged to just say no
Bay State lawmen and lawmakers are urging Gov. Deval Patrick to reject President Obama’s request to shelter some of the thousands of children who have been surging across the nation’s southern border illegally, while immigration advocates are calling the crisis a 
humanitarian issue requiring immediate action.
“As long as there are signals being sent out that people can come here illegally and we’re just going to take care of them, then they’re just going to keep on coming,” Bristol County Sheriff Thomas M. Hodgson said yesterday from the Texas border on a fact-finding tour. “Neither the president nor the governor have come down to the border to see what’s happening — had they taken the time to come down, they would understand why sending people to Massachusetts is not the answer.”
(Can we just interject here that Tom Hodgson is the biggest media slut this side of Kim Kardashian? Thank you.)
That’s not even to deal with the hiss & hiss treatment of the BRA in yesterday’s local dailies. (Roll your own.)
It’s swell to live in a two-daily town, yeah?
Leave a Comment » | Uncategorized | Tagged: Adam Wainwright, All Star Game, Boston Globe, Boston Herald, Dennis & Callahan, Derek Jeter, Deval Patrick, Erin Andrews, Fox Sports, frosty local tabloid, hiss & hiss, immigrant children, Jessica Heslam, Kim Kardashian, Martha Coakley, Pres. Obama, Texas border, Thomas M. Hodgson, WEEI | Permalink
Posted by Campaign Outsider
It's Good to Live in a Two-Daily Town 