Battle of the Bulger (Cullen the Facts Edition)

June 8, 2013

The Boston Herald wants you to know it’s on the Whitey Bulger trial like Brown on Williamson, so they’re running this ad in today’s edition:

 

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And here’s an example of that “complete coverage.”

060713bulgermg002Witness ban lifted for Globe duo

Judge Denise J. Casper ruled yesterday that Boston Globe reporter Shelley Murphy and columnist Kevin Cullen can attend James “Whitey” Bulger’s trial, exempting them from her order to keep witnesses out of the courtroom except to testify . . .

In a separate court motion yesterday, Bulger’s lawyers threatened a push to isolate the jury from the outside world throughout the expected four-month trial “if the editors of the Globe do not show better judgment in the publication of columns that are designed to sell newspapers and for-profit books written by this columnist (Cullen).”

 

Interesting, yes? But hardly complete.

Here’s the same issue in the Globe:

Earlier Friday, Bulger’s defense attorney J. W. Carney Jr. filed a court motion in support of the request to ban Murphy and Cullen from the courtroom, alleging that Cullen’s Friday column on Bulger was sensational and would prejudice a jury.

Carney later said he would consider asking that the jury in the case be sequestered, which would prove to be costly and a hardship for jurors, if the Globe does not “show better judgment in the publication of columns that are designed to sell newspapers and for-profit books written by this columnist.”

But Casper rejected Carney’s argument when she granted the newspaper’s request to exclude Cullen and Murphy from the courtroom during testimony, noting the journalists’ constitutional rights in reporting on Bulger’s past and covering his trial.

Casper said she read the column Friday morning and indicated it seemed to support the Boston Globe’s argument, telling Carney, “From a 1st Amendment point of view I don’t know if it lends more support to your position, or more support to your opposing party’s point of view.”

 

[To be sure graf goes here.]

To be sure, both papers are pursing their own interests: the Herald to make the Globe look bad, the Globe to make itself look good. (The stately local broadsheet for the most part doesn’t concern itself with the feisty local tabloid.)

That’s all to be expected. But hey, Heraldniks: Complete coverage? Try again.

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Battle of the Bulger (Can I Be a Witness? Edition)

June 7, 2013

The Boston Globe is reporting on its website that its reporters can cover the trial of mobster James “Whitey” Bulger.

Judge rejects Bulger effort to ban Globe journalists

US District Court Judge Denise J. Casper ruled today that Boston Globe columnist Kevin Cullen and reporter Shelley Murphy can cover the trial of James “Whitey’’ Bulger, the South Boston gangster who was recorded on jailhouse tapes describing his disdain for the two journalists who have chronicled his career for decades . . .

Bulger’s defense team put Cullen and Murphy on their witness list, saying they might need to be called to impeach testimony from key prosecution witnesses. But federal prosecutors, citing comments Bulger made in the jail conversations, said he was motivated by his disdain towards Cullen and Murphy.

 

The feeling is, of course, mutual, as Cullen’s column in today’s dead-tree edition illustrates.

I’ll be glad to submit some sample testimony right here so they can decide whether they really want to call me as a defense witness.de5e692f74914a5487db1f8aabf250e4-de5e692f74914a5487db1f8aabf250e4-0

I believe Whitey Bulger is a deeply cynical and vicious criminal who made millions by killing and intimidating people while he was protected by a deeply corrupted FBI.

I believe he made millions from the drug trade, extorting money from drug dealers even as he and his apologists propagated the nonsense that he never was involved in drugs.

 

And etc. in much the same vein. Except all that’s, well, moot now.

But not yet for Boston Herald columnist Howie Carr, who’s also on Bulger’s witness list and has not been dismissed from it by today’s ruling. So Carr can continue to produce drive-bys like Wednesday’s piece:

Picture 8No question about it, I’ll find courtside seat

First I tried to get a victim’s seat in the courtroom — no go.

Then I figured I’d just attend Whitey’s trial as a reporter — but Bulger put me on his witness list, although I am confident the judge will eventually decide to allow me to watch the trial, even if I do have to be a witness — a hostile witness, that is.

But given my dismal record in court, I don’t want to take any chances. So I filled out a jury questionnaire just in case that might get me inside.

 

And etc. – including most notably Question 39:

Based upon any … articles you have read, have you formed an opinion regarding James “Whitey” Bulger that would prevent you from being a fair and impartial juror in this case?

I think I read several hundred times in the Globe that, “Jimmy kept the drugs out of Southie.” Is that true?

 

The hardreading staff can’t really say, but maybe Kevin Cullen can.

 

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Hark! The Herald! (Battle of the Bulger Edition)

May 31, 2013

From our Walt Whitman desk

The Boston Herald is still pounding away at Gov. Deval Patrick (D-Elsewhere) over the Massachusetts welfare rumpus, but the feisty local tabloid has its eye on bigger game next week when the trial of James “Whitey” Bulger begins in earnest.

Here’s the preview the Herald ran in today’s edition:

 

Picture 1

 

And here are some of the details:

 

Picture 4

 

Picture 5

 

Picture 6

 

It’s all fabulously overdone:

Look for Howie Carr, who vowed to watch Whitey every step of the way through judgment day, on the video reports.

No deadly detail is too small, so Herald reporters will be tweeting live . . .

[Reporter Laurel Sweet will] be close enough to look into Whitey’s eyes as loved ones of his 19 alleged murder victims take the stand. She’ll also be able to read jurors’ reactions to the gruesome evidence and chilling testimony.

 

Sweet.

Crosstown, there’s no word yet from the Boston Globe on who’ll be close enough to look into Whitey’s eyes, but today’s edition does feature this:

Globe’s Cullen, Murphy may testify in Bulger trial

Lawyers for James “Whitey” Bulger, who has bragged about strafing The Boston Globe offices with gunfire during the busing crisis of the 1970s, may call two of the newspaper’s journalists as defense witnesses at his upcoming trial.

His legal team filed a list of 78 potential witnesses Thursday, including Globe columnist Kevin Cullen and reporter ­Shelley Murphy.

Both have covered Bulger for decades and earlier this year published a book detailing his rise to power in Boston’s underworld and his capture in 2011 in Santa Monica, Calif., ­after 16 years on the run as one of the FBI’s most wanted fugitives . . .

Other journalists on the ­potential witness list include former Globe reporters Gerard O’Neill and Dick Lehr, as well as Boston Herald columnist Howie Carr.

 

Damn – the Herald forgot to mention that part in its full-page promo, although it did have this online (tip o’the pixel to Mike Deehan at Massterlist).

Then again, there’s always tomorrow.

 

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The Tamerlan Tsarnaev Diaries (Boxing Edition)

April 21, 2013

From our Compare and Contrast in Clear Idiomatic English desk

Interesting columns in Saturday’s local dailies about Boston Marathon bomber Tamerlan Tsarnaev’s short-lived boxing career.

Ron Borges in the Boston Herald:

Boston Marathon SuspectsPro boxer threw punches with ‘evil’ Tamerlan Tsarnaev in 2010

If Edwin Rodriguez knew back in late 2010 what he knows now, his boxing encounter in Worcester with Boston Marathon bombing suspect Tamerlan Tsarnaev would have had a different ending, that’s for sure.

Reached yesterday afternoon, Rodriguez, the No. 2-ranked super middleweight in the world, pulled no punches when discussing his only encounter with Tsarnaev.

“I wasn’t trying to kill him; we were just sparring,” Rodriguez said, “but I would have if I knew he was that evil and a coward.”

 

Money quote:

“It told you everything that he showed up at my gym with nobody,” Rodriguez said. “I’ve never been to a gym by myself. When you go to someone else’s gym, you always want someone to have your back.”

 

Crosstown at the Boston Globe, columnist Kevin Cullen filed this:

22045677Nothing tough about this boxer’s character

Tamerlan Tsarnaev was a pretty good boxer, and he fashioned himself a tough guy. He was so tough he was charged with assaulting his girlfriend.

Last Monday, tough guy Tamerlan Tsarnaev and his brother left bombs on the sidewalk on Boylston Street and killed an 8-year-old boy, a 29-year-old woman who grew up in Medford, and a 23-year-old Chinese graduate student at Boston University.

 

Money quote:

It takes a tough guy to pack a bomb with ball bearings and nails and purposely put it in a crowd so that it will kill and maim men, women, and children. The Tsarnaevs were so tough that when they decided to kill a fine police officer named Sean Collier on Thursday night, they approached him from behind and shot Collier in the head even before Collier could get out of his cruiser.

 

Boston journalists are fighting mad about the Marathon mayhem, no doubt about it.

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Whitey Wars in Local Dailies

April 10, 2013

From our Dueling Excerpts desk

For the past three days, the Boston Herald has been excerpting columnist Howie Carr’s new book Rifleman: The Untold Story of Stevie Flemmi, Whitey Bulger’s Partner.

(The hardreading staff suspects that lots of the book is Carr’s Already Told Story of Stevie Flemmi, but we can’t say for sure since we have no intention of actually reading the book or the excerpts.)

Regardless, today’s Herald features the final excerpt in the three-part series:

010504rico‘Rifleman’: Agent Rico and Stevie like blood brothers

FBI always had a place for the thug

Gangster Stevie “the Rifleman” Flemmi is due in Boston in June to testify in his longtime underworld partner Whitey Bulger’s federal murder trial. In today’s excerpt from my new book, “Rifleman,” based on Flemmi’s 2003 confession, he details some of his dealings with corrupt FBI agent H. Paul Rico:

When they first met in 1958, Rico was a young FBI agent and Flemmi was an up-and-coming hoodlum. Pretty soon they were, you might say, thick as thieves.

 

And etc.

Previous excerpts include this:

 

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And this:

 

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All three come in the wake of the Boston Globe’s relentless promotion of the Kevin Cullen/Shelly Murphy book Whitey Bulger: America’s Most Wanted Gangster and the Manhunt That Brought Him to Justice. From the Globe’s February 10 front-page advertorial:

51YOYTrt7cLA window into Whitey’s brutal life and mind

New biography traces Bulger’s rise, reign, and the reckoning ahead

As he sits brooding in his drab cell awaiting trial, South Boston gangster James “Whitey” Bulger is telling friends that while he feels tortured by his cramped captivity, with its isolation, strip searches, and dismal food, he is ready and eager for “the big show” — the trial where he will defend his sense of honor if not exactly his innocence . . .

Bulger’s generous view of himself, not as a cunning killer and cynical informer but as a criminal with scruples and a kind of noble romantic, is detailed in a new and comprehensive biography of Boston’s most infamous criminal, to be published this week. Also detailed are all the reasons not to accept his self-serving self-portrait, from his long and murderous career as a gangster to his well-documented history of providing information to the FBI.

 

That would be Cullen and Murphy’s book, which was not only flogged on the Globe’s front page, but in numerous fiull-page ads like this as well:

 

Picture 3

 

 

The hardguessing staff’s conclusion: The Cullen/Murphy book will do a lot better than Carr’s cut ‘n’ paste job.

We’ll leave it to you to check the Amazon numbers.

 

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Boston Globe Herald Hostage, Day Two

February 22, 2013

The Schadenfreude Gazette is at it again today:

Picture 1

 

Obligatory two-page spread:

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Helpful chart:

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Oh, yes – don’t forget Jerry Holbert’s editorial cartoon:
holberts 02-22 cartoon

 

Highlight of the Herald’s coverage: Jessica Heslam’s interview with the reptilian Michael Wolff about News Corp. Dark Knight Rupert Murdoch as a potential buyer:

“Rupert would be terrifically interested in the Boston Globe,” said Vanity Fair contributing editor Michael Wolff, author of “The Man Who Owns the News: Inside the Secret World of Rupert Murdoch.” “Rupert is now in the process of shopping for American newspapers but doing that in the context of that this is the bottom of the market.”

So what would be the right price for Murdoch?

“Practically free,” Wolff told me. “Assuming that there is cash flow, he would buy it on a heavily, heavily, heavily, heavily discounted basis. Rupert, at this point, is an economic buyer.”

 

But an unlikely one, says old friend Mark Jurkowitz, associate director of the Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism. “The prospect of Rupert going head-to-head with the Boston Herald seems somehow un-American. That’s his baby. … That would surprise me.”

Crosstown at the stately local broadsheet meanwhile, Globe columnist Kevin Cullen has a message for the Heraldniks:

The change that is coming is about business, not journalism. As for the delight fully delusional people who see a change of ownership as a death sentence, the natural consequence of the Globe being part of the vast left-wing conspiracy, please, sit back, crack another cold one and adjust your tinfoil hats. Ask Sal DiMasi, John Tierney, and Mike McLaughlin, just recent examples, if they think the Globe goes easy on Democrats.

The Globe isn’t going anywhere. It’s changing owners.

 

Message: Stick that in your pipe, Howie.

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Throwing the Book(s) at Whitey Bulger

February 11, 2013

Dueling book plugs in the local dailies the past two days, starting with this Boston Sunday Globe Page One pompom:

Picture 3A window into Whitey’s brutal life and mind

New biography traces Bulger’s rise, reign, and the reckoning ahead

As he sits brooding in his drab cell awaiting trial, South Boston gangster James “Whitey” Bulger is telling friends that while he feels tortured by his cramped captivity, with its isolation, strip searches, and dismal food, he is ready and eager for “the big show” — the trial where he will defend his sense of honor if not exactly his innocence.

But however defiant he remains, Bulger was prepared to give prosecutors an easy way out, saying he offered himself up for execution if the government would let the woman he loves walk free.

“I never loved anyone like I do her and offered my life [execution] if they would free her — but no they want me to suffer — they know this is the worst punishment for me by hurting her!” Bulger wrote to a friend last year as his longtime girlfriend, Catherine Greig, faced the prospect of years in prison for her devotion to him . . .

“Whitey Bulger: America’s Most Wanted Gangster and the Manhunt That Brought Him to Justice,” written by the authors of this article (Kevin Cullen and Shelley Murphy), with editorial support from The Globe, reveals a host of new information about Bulger, from his pursuit of domestic tranquillity in a tangled romantic triangle, to his seeking out a psychiatrist a la Tony Soprano, to his heretofore little-known role as an agent of mayhem during the city’s school desegregation crisis.

 

Lots of juicy stuff in the “new and comprehensive biography” that just hit bookstores.  Meanwhile, columnist Howie Carr blurbs a different Bulger book in today’s Boston Herald .

021013whitey001Book: Whitey’s rage at black prez led to his capture

Can Whitey Bulger blame his own raging case of Obama Derangement Syndrome rather than a tabby cat for his 2011 capture?

That’s the suggestion in a bombshell new biography, “Whitey: The Life of America’s Most Notorious Mob Boss,” by veteran Boston reporters Dick Lehr and Gerard O’Neill.

When Whitey and moll Catherine Greig had been living in Santa Monica, Calif., as “Mr. and Mrs. Charlie Gasko,” Greig became close to Icelandic model Anna Bjornsdottir, bonding over the care of a stray cat. Whitey often joined them outside their apartment building.

But, Lehr and O’Neill write, Bjornsdottir and Whitey never spoke again after she “unabashedly” expressed admiration for the first black president.

“He practically exploded … disgusted that she could admire a black man as president … Nothing was the same after . . . “

 

Carr conveniently fails to mention 1) that Lehr and O’Neill are former Boston Globe reporters, and 2) that Cullen and Murphy have a new Whitey bio as well.

The Globe piece is more magnanimous:

[Bulger’s] first known cooperation with law enforcement was in 1956, when he agreed to identify his bank robbery accomplices so that his then-girlfriend would not face criminal charges for accompanying him on a trip that culminated with a bank robbery in Indiana. That early turn as a snitch was first reported by WBUR, citing documents obtained by two former Globe reporters, Gerard O’Neill and Dick Lehr, who also have a biography of Bulger coming out soon: “Whitey: The Life of America’s Most Notorious Crime Boss.”

 

And getting even more so by the day.

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Where in the Political World Is Barney Keller?

October 15, 2012

Kevin Cullen has a smart column (boink! Sorry, paywall) in yesterday’s Boston Globe about the current grassy knoll mishegoss over debate moderators.

Nut graf:

In this election cycle, more than any in memory, the role and performance of the debate moderator has been as widely discussed as anything the candidates say. Which is not good.

Cullen then helpfully provides an example:

I thought Jon Keller, the WBZ political analyst, did a good job moderating the first Scott Brown-Elizabeth Warren Senate debate. But when I mentioned that to a Democratic political operative, he leaned in conspiratorially and said, “You know, Keller’s son works for the Massachusetts Republican Party.”

Actually, I do know that. But what has that got to do with Jon Keller or the price of a cup of coffee?

Not to get technical about it, but Barney Keller left his job at the Mass. GOP three years ago, as the Boston Herald reported at the time:

State GOP spokesman Barney Keller is stepping down from his post to go work for New York gubernatorial candidate Rick Lazio.

Keller, son of WBZ TV political reporter Jon Keller, has been the face of the Massachusetts Republican party since March 2008. Next week he starts his new job with Lazio, a former congressman who lost a U.S. Senate race to Hillary Clinton in 2000.

Since then, Keller fils has moved on to a bigger job at Grover Norquist’s the Club for Growth:

Barney Keller

Communications Director

Barney joined the Club for Growth in April 2011. He previously worked as Deputy Communications Director on Pat Toomey’s campaign for US Senate. Prior to that Barney was Press Secretary for Rick Lazio’s campaign for Governor of New York. Barney has also worked at the Massachusetts Republican Party, the New Hampshire Republican Party, and got his start in politics working on the special election Congressional race of Jim Ogonowski in MA-05.

A native of Belmont, Massachusetts, Barney graduated from the University of Chicago with a B.A. in Economics and Sociology in 2007. He currently lives in Washington.

So, really, he’s got nothing to do with a WBZ debate between Scott Brown and Elizabeth Warren moderated by his old man.

Not to get technical about it.

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Whitey Bulger Testify Edition

August 7, 2012

Most Bostonians thought they’d never live long enough to see this headline in the Boston Globe:

Bulger plans to take stand in his defense

What follows is a straightforward recounting of what J.W. Carney Jr., Whitey Bulger’s lawyer, told news organizations yesterday:

James “Whitey” Bulger, once America’s most wanted criminal, will for the first time address the charges against him, taking the stand in his own defense in hope of convincing a jury that federal officials once granted him immunity for his many crimes, his lawyer said Monday.

J.W. Carney Jr. announced that plan during a hearing in US District Court in Boston. He said Bulger wants to provide a firsthand account of his relationship with the FBI and the deal he had for working secretly as a government informant.

“He is going to tell the truth, if the judge permits him to,” Carney later told reporters outside the federal courthouse.

The Boston Herald, not to be outdone, has two straightforward recountings of what Carney said (here and here).

So that’s a wash. It’s the columnists who provide today’s compare-and-contrast moment.

First, Herald resident wise guy, Howie Carr.

There are three chances of Whitey Bulger testifying at his own trial next March.

Slim, fat and none.

As a taxpayer, I demand a refund from Whitey’s public defender J.W. Carney. Is this the best you can do, Jay?

And it’s not just Howie who says that.

“I guarantee you that punk won’t take the stand,” Boston defense attorney Tony Cardinale was saying last night.

Globe columnist Kevin Cullen, though has a different take in this web piece that didn’t make the hardreading staff’s copy of the paper:

Did you really think that Whitey Bulger was going to sit there in the courthouse named after his old neighbor Joe Moakley and merely take notes on a yellow legal pad while federal prosecutors painted him as a killer of women, an enabler of drug dealers, and, egads, worst of all, a rat?

It was always in the cards that Whitey Bulger was going to take the stand in his own defense. His lawyer, J.W. Carney Jr., has been saying as much for much of the last year, making it official with Monday’s announcement.

The only surprise is that anybody’s surprised. Whitey may be venal but he ain’t stupid. What’s he got to lose? This is the last dance. He has one shot to counter the prevailing image that took hold while he and Cathy Greig spent what Judge Doug Woodlock deliciously called “16 years of extended banality” on the run.

Who’s right? Flip a coin. Then wait until March.

 

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