Boston.com(merce) Shmushes Advertising & Editorial

June 7, 2017

From our State of the Cuisinart Marketing desk

In response to the hardreading staff’s post the other day about the Boston Herald auctioning off its editorial content to advertisers (and in the process conscripting its freelance writers into some sort of lend-lease program), splendid reader MM sent us this.

 

 

The Boston.com article in question: 

15 can’t-miss concerts in Boston this June

From Kiss Concert to Dead & Company, Hall & Oates to Megadeth.

An annual summer pop staple and pioneering jam band at Fenway are just two great music events hitting Boston in June.

Guitar gods

Rodrigo Y Gabriela
Flamenco guitar duo Rodrigo y Gabriela is celebrating 10 years of performing together with a U.S. tour that will stop in Boston. The Mexico City natives are acoustic guitar virtuosos, and bring intricate soloing and and an unrivaled dynamic to a genre that’s not often given the spotlight. The two have collaborated with many famous composers and have even performed at the White House for President Barack Obama. (Tuesday, June 6 at 7 p.m.; House of Blues; $39.50-$59.50; all ages; tickets available here)

 

And etc. – for 14 more events.

Every tickets available here links to a ticket-buying site such as the House of Blues or MLB.com or AXS.com.

And what MM points out as “the italicized line at the end”?

Boston.com will receive payment if a purchase is made through the article.

 

As MM notes, that might be the first such partnership for Boston.com, but it’s emblematic of the monetizing efforts newspaper companies like Boston Globe Media are scrambling to initiate as they battle dwindling circulation numbers and plummeting ad revenues.

(The New York Times Co. has been the hands-down leader in this mash for cash, as our kissin’ cousins at Campaign Outsider have dutifully chronicled.)

But Globe Media has been ramping up the money chase as well. In addition to the Boston.commerce gambit, there’s the Globe Live storytelling event last month, the ongoing Boston Globe Travel Show, and who knows what else to come.

(To be sure graf goes here.)

To be sure, the hardrooting staff is all for anything that keeps newspapers alive and well – and keeps the separation between advertising and editorial alive and well at the same time.

‘Nuf sed.

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Herald Brings Brazil Nightclub Tragedy Home

January 28, 2013

The nightclub fire that killed 233 people in Sao Paulo Santa Maria, Brazil, yesterday has, as many have pointed out, haunting similarities to The Station nightclub fire in Rhode Island a decade ago. Both Boston dailies noted the echoes in their print editions today, one much more vividly than the other.

The Globe ran the story Page One, but it was a pickup from the New York Times.

Picture 1

 

The Globe did toss in a couple of local references:

The disaster ranks among the deadliest nightclub fires in history, comparable to the 2003 blaze at The Station nightclub in Rhode Island that killed 100 people, one in 2004 in Buenos Aires in which 194 were killed, and a fire at a club in China in 2000 in which 309 people died. In 1942, a fire at the Cocoanut Grove nightclub in Boston killed 492 people . . . The scene recalled the 2003 fire at The Station nightclub in West Warwick, R.I., at which the rock band Great White was performing. During the show, pyrotechnics set fire to flammable soundproofing foam that lined the walls and ceiling, killing 100 and injuring 200.

 

The Herald coverage, though, cut much closer to home:

Picture 2

 

Lead piece:

Brazil Nightclub FireFire rocks Hub Brazilians, survivors of R.I.’s station

‘It’s just heartbreaking … that someone else has to go through this’

The pyrotechnic fire that killed at least 233 people in a crowded Brazilian nightclub yesterday stunned the still traumatized survivors of Rhode Island’s 2003 Station nightclub blaze and prompted prayer vigils among the Boston area’s large Brazilian community.

“It’s just heartbreaking to know that someone else has to go through this,” said Gina Russo, 45, of Cranston, R.I., a survivor of the Station nightclub fire, who has undergone 54 surgeries to date after more than 40 percent of her body was burned. She lost her fiance in the fire.

“It’s everybody’s worst nightmare,” said Aguilar Martins of 
Lynnfield, a 42-year-old Brazilian who attended a vigil at the First Brazilian Baptist Church in Charlestown. “We’re so far away, you can’t really do much about it.”

 

Except tell the stories as best you can.

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