Boston Herald Outsources Its Gardner Heist Coverage

March 1, 2022

The hardreading staff was captivated – as no doubt you splendid readers were – by the latest Gardner-Museum-Chasing-Its-Ghosts tale that played out in the local dailies yesterday.

Let’s start with the redoubtable Shelley Murphy’s Page One piece in the Boston Globe.

Investigators suspect a link between the Gardner Museum heist and an execution-style murder in Lynn

On a February night in 1991, James Marks had just returned from Maine and was unlocking the door to his Lynn home when a gunman crept up behind him and opened fire, killing him with two blasts from a shotgun, according to police.

The killer fled on foot, leaving a few footprints, but the case remains unsolved, although a mob associate who died years ago has been implicated.

Some authorities now say they suspect there may be a link between the execution-style murder of Marks — a hustler and convicted bank robber — and one of Boston’s most famous unsolved crimes: the 1990 theft of masterpieces valued at more than $500 million from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum.

(That’s “Anthony Amore, the security director of the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum . . . reflected in the empty frame that held the painting ‘The Concert’ by Vermeer,” for those of you keeping score at home.)

Crosstown at the Boston Herald – actually it’s no longer crosstown since the Globe barely occupies its stately State Street headquarters and the Herald newsroom is couch-surfing at the Lowell Sun – the new Gardner revelation was also a big story.

 

 

Except check out the byline.

That comes as no surprise given this post we published a few months ago.

Boston Herald Publisher Moonlights at Hartford Daily

Kevin Corrado is the publisher of the Boston Herald, as the feisty local tabloid duly – and daily – notes on its masthead.

But now Corrado, who in his spare time is also Regional Publisher at MediaNews Group:Northeast Cluster: Massachusetts & New York, is expanding that expansive portfolio to include the Nutmeg State.

According to Stephen Singer’s piece in the Hartford Courant, its publisher and editor-in-chief Andrew Julien – a 30-year veteran of the paper – is switching teams to become executive editor of Tribune Publishing’s New York Daily News.

Meanwhile . . .

MediaNews Group Regional Publisher Kevin Corrado will take over business operations at the Courant on an interim basis and begin the search for a new editor in Hartford.

“Andrew has been a wonderful steward for the Courant, and while we’re sorry to see him go, our loss is New York’s gain,” Corrado said.

To call that eyewash is an insult to saline solution everywhere . . .

Meanwhile, the flimsy local tabloid’s Incredible Shrinking Newsroom is bidding adieu to Erin Tiernan, who has blissfully decamped to MassLive.

Here’s guessing the filching local tabloid will feature plenty more out-of-town bylines in the days and weeks ahead.

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John Henry to Boston Herald: Drop Dead

October 3, 2016

Sure, David Ortiz’s Fenway Swan Song turned out to be (Not So) Sweet Caroline as the Sox lost five of their last six, but at least Big Papi got a sweet sendoff in the local dailies.

Sunday’s papers were a Papipalooza of congratulatory ads, with both the Boston Globe and the Boston Herald publishing special Commemorative Sections.

Their front pages gave you a good idea of who was going to win the advertising sweepstakes in the Farewell to Big Arms.

 

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Notice that the Globe section is sponsored by Xfinity, while the Herald section is sponsored by nobody.

And notice the advertisers in the thirsty local tabloid: Catholic Memorial High School, Aria Trattoria, Sullivan Tire, Central Auto Team, Parker Professional Driving School, Modell’s Sporting Goods, and – our personal favorite – The Hamilton Collection.

 

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Nothing like a Laser-Etched Glass Sculpture to keep the the memories alive.

Crosstown at the Boston Globe, there was a different class of commemorative ads: New Balance, Mohegan Sun, University of Massachusetts, and – remarkably – the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum.

 

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Not to mention ads from Herb Chambers, Dunkin’ Donuts, Sleepy’s, Miltons, Granite City, and, of course, Xfinity.

No surprise there: That high/low advertising split runs pretty much true to form for the local dailies.

But here’s where it gets interesting:

Boston GlobeSox owner John Henry ran this ad in Sunday’s Globe Sports section.

 

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Close-up for the copy-impaired:

 

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The thing is, Henry did not run the same ad in the Herald, even though that would have been the right (and inexpensive) thing to do.

Bad form, Mr. GlobeSox. Bad form.

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Boston Herald AWOL on Gardner Heist Anniversary

March 19, 2015

Unless the hardreading staff’s memory fails us, the Boston Herald (especially Tom Mashberg) did yeoman’s work in the wake of the Great Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum Robbery in 1990.

And unless our eyes fail us, the fartsy local tabloid has published exactly nothing about the 25th anniversary of The Big Snatch.

Plug Boston Herald Gardner Museum into the Googletron and you get one lame Associated Press piece.

Boston museum marks 25 years since infamous art theft

Art Heist Mystery

BOSTON — It’s been called the biggest art heist in U.S. history, perhaps the biggest in the world. But 25 years later, the theft of 13 works from Boston’s Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum remains unsolved.

The theft has spawned books, rumors and speculation about who was responsible — and multiple dead ends.

Yet authorities and museum officials remain hopeful, noting that stolen art almost always gets returned — it just sometimes takes a generation or so.

“Although a quarter-century has passed since the art was stolen, we have always been determined to recover it and we remain optimistic that we will,” said Anne Hawley, the Gardner’s director, who was in charge at the time of the theft.

 

Good for them. Meanwhile, the Boston Globe has been on the Gardner anniversary like Brown on Williamson.

Representative samples:

 

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Not to mention Bill McKeen’s review of Stephen Kurkjian’s Master Thieves: The Boston Gangsters Who Pulled Off the World’s Greatest Art Heist last weekend.

But . . . nothing in the Herald.

Paging Tom Mashberg. Paging Mr. Tom Mashberg.

P.S. Don’t bother linking – Mashberg’s pieces are all archived. Translation: Give the Herald $3.95 a pop.

That’s just wrong.

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Why Aren’t The Boston Dailies Asking About the Gardener Guard?

March 20, 2013

Both local dailies on Tuesday featured the blockbuster revelation that the FBI knows who stole 13 works of art from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum 23 years ago.

Boston Globe:

paintings-4793FBI says it knows identity of Gardner art thieves

Names not divulged; trail of Gardner masterworks ended with a sale try a decade ago; investigators cite progress, seek help in cracking 1990 case

Federal investigators, in an unprecedented display of confidence that the most infamous art theft in history will soon be solved, said Monday that they know who is behind the Gardner Museum heist 23 years ago and that some of the priceless artwork was offered for sale on Philadelphia’s black market as recently as a decade ago.

In the most extensive account to date of the investigation, Richard DesLauriers, the FBI special agent in charge of the Boston office, would not identify those involved in the heist, saying it would hinder the ongoing investigation. But he said that knowing the identity of the culprits has “been opening other doors” as federal agents continue their search for the missing artwork.

 

Boston Herald:

BI1E6653.JPGFBI: We know who pulled off Gardner art heist

The stunning revelations that the 13 masterworks stolen from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum were shuttled through Connecticut and Philadelphia and peddled for sale in Pennslvania — and most amazingly, the FBI knows who did it — whipped even the most fervent experts of the infamous 1990 heist into frenzy yesterday, stoking optimism that authorities may soon solve the world’s greatest art theft.

Federal authorities, speaking on the 23rd anniversary of Boston’s last great unsolved mystery, said yesterday that members of an East Coast “crime organization” orchestrated the daring theft and then tried selling a share of their $500 million haul in Philadelphia a decade ago.

 

But neither paper seemed to ask the obvious question:

Does this new knowledge have anything to do with the recent re-interviewing of the hippie Gardner guard as reported by the Globe last week?

cavanaugh_17gardner4_metroDecades after the Gardner heist, police focus on guard

Night watchman Richard Abath may have made the most costly mistake in art history shortly after midnight on March 18, 1990. Police found him handcuffed and duct-taped in the basement of the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum seven hours after he unwisely opened the thick oak door to two thieves who then stole 13 works of art valued at more than $500 million.

For years, investigators discounted the hapless Abath’s role in the unsolved crime, figuring his excessive drinking and pot smoking contributed to his disastrous decision to let in the robbers, who were dressed as police officers. Even if the duo had been real cops, watchmen weren’t supposed to admit anyone who showed up uninvited at 1:24 a.m.

But, after 23 years of pursuing dead ends, including a disappointing search of an alleged mobster’s home last year, investigators are focusing on intriguing evidence that suggests the former night watchman might have been in on the crime all along — or at least knows more about it than he has admitted.

 

Is it just us, or are the Boston news media not connecting the dots?

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