October 6, 2015
The feisty local tabloid has two MBTA-related stories pretty much to itself today.
First, Kimberly Atkins’ column on an advertising rumpus that’s shadowed the T for two years now.
T ad issue may merit court’s consideration
Free-speech dispute on Supreme’s radar
WASHINGTON — A free-speech dispute over political ads in MBTA buses, trains and stations is likely headed for the U.S. Supreme Court and could have far-reaching effects on 
paid messages on public property.
The case stems from 2013, when the MBTA agreed to post paid ads from pro-Palestinian group Committee for Peace in Israel and Palestine that read: “4.7 million Palestinians are classified by the U.N. as refugees.” But the T then rejected the American Freedom Defense Initiative’s ad, submitted in response, which read: “In any war between the civilized man and the savage, support the civilized man. Support Israel. Defeat Jihad.”
So far, as Atkins reports, “[t]wo federal courts had backed the MBTA’s decision to reject the AFDI ad, under its policy barring ‘disparaging’ or ‘demeaning’ messages.”
Prior to those two decisions, the MBTA’s batting average in ad dustups was well below the Mendoza Line, as the hardreading staff noted two years ago. And Atkins also writes that “[i]n New York and Philadelphia, by contrast, courts have ordered transit agencies to run paid ads they had rejected, including one that claimed Muslims believe ‘killing Jews is worship.'”
So who knows if it even gets to the Supremes, and who knows how they’ll lean.
But we’re guessing the MBTA loses this one too.
Elsewhere in today’s Herald, there’s this news from the T’s Ghost of Winter Past.
Scott bows out of bid for NTSB post
President Obama has withdrawn his nomination of former MBTA chief Beverly Scott to the National Transportation Safety Board, abruptly ending her controversial bid to the $155,000-a-year post, the Herald has learned.
Obama officially rescinded her nomination yesterday, according to a White House document viewed by the Herald. A White House spokesman said last night Scott requested that her nomination be withdrawn “due to personal reasons related to her family.”
Efforts to reach Scott were unsuccessful.
That’s a surprise, eh?
(To be fair graf goes here)
To be fair, today’s Boston Globe does have a squib (via the State House News Service) about Scott, although it tells a slightly different story.
Huh. Maybe we need Scott herself to come forward as the tiebreaker.
Yeah – that’s coming just like a Riverside train.
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Uncategorized | Tagged: American Freedom Defense Initiative, AP, Beverly Scott, Boston Globe, Boston Herald, Cannabis News, Ghost of Winter Past, Israel, Joe Pesaturo, Kimberly Atkins, Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority, MBTA, Mendoza Line, Palestine, Pamela Geller, State House News Service, The Committee for Peace in Israel and Palestine, Titan, transit advertising | 
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Posted by Campaign Outsider
June 24, 2015
From our Walt Whitman desk
Today’s Boston Herald features the latest in its series of told-you-so front pages.
Helpful close-up:
The story inside focuses on the $300,000 ad campaign the MBTA’s Boston Carmen’s Union has been running for several months.
ON THE CAMPAIGN RAIL
Carmen spent $300G on ads to battle Baker’s MBTA reform
The powerful Boston Carmen’s Union, in a bid to derail Gov. Charlie Baker’s MBTA reforms, has spent $300,000 on radio ads, organized campaign-style phone banks and poured thousands into the political coffers of key lawmakers and politicians
overseeing T policy, a Herald
review found.
The review shows the 6,000-member-strong labor group’s mounting resistance as a top legislative committee has rebuffed Baker’s key reforms . . .
The Herald’s Erin Smith and Matt Stout write, “[t]he carmen have put out three radio spots, at a cost of $300,000, so far, with a fourth expected by the end of the week and the campaign isn’t over yet, according to longtime Democratic campaign operative Michael Goldman, who is coordinating the media strategy for Local 589.” (Listen to one here.)
There’s also a radio blitz on local airwaves from the Amalgamated Transit Union, which Goldman says he’s not associated with. Of the union’s “we’re here to help” ads Goldman says, “[our] thing has been positive commercials.”
Positive, maybe, but not all that reliable, as CommonWealth magazine pointed out last month.
One ad says, “Given the advanced age of current equipment and tracks, it’s a miracle that fully 95 percent of the million-plus trips made each year have been completed on time. But the T transit workers won’t be satisfied until that number reaches 100 percent.”
Yeah. Except the Carmen’s Union definition of “completed on time” is . . . “actually happened.” If you define completed on time as “arrived at destination on schedule,” that 95% drops to around 72% (67% this year so far) according to CommonWealth’s Steve Koczlea and Bruce Mohl.
So, once again we see that MBTA=Might Be Totally Accurate.
Or might not.
Leave a Comment » | Uncategorized | Tagged: Amalgamated Transit Union, Boston Carmen's Union, Boston Globe, Boston Herald, Bruce Mohl, Erin Smith, Matt Stout, MBTA, Michael Goldman, Stev Koczela, Walt Whitman | Permalink
Posted by Campaign Outsider
April 7, 2015
Well, Charlie Baker’s task force on bringing the MBTA better trolley karma has finally issued its report, and today’s local dailies – wait for it – give it very different play.
The Boston Globe sort of missed the bus in its Page One coverage.
Maybe because the Boston Herald did its own review of MBTA employee absences a week ago, the Little Tabloid That Could featured this on Page One instead:
Story inside:
T left $2.2b on the table
Funds earmarked for repairs were never spent
The MBTA, which has repeatedly cried for more funding, has failed to spend more than $2.2 billion earmarked over the last five years to fix its dated, problem-plagued system, according to the expert panel Gov. Charlie Baker created to examine the 
embattled agency.
The stunning pile of unused cash accounts for roughly half of the
$4.5 billion the T has set aside since fiscal 2010 for its so-called capital budget. The unspent funding has also helped drive the growing backlog of much-needed maintenance needs, the panel found. State officials had earlier pegged that stockpile of “state-of-good repair” projects at $6.7 billion, but that figure is now seen as “the floor and not the ceiling,” according to one panel member.
Very interesting.
Apparently the folks on Morrissey Blvd. felt the same, because late this morning the sleepy local broadsheet played some website catch-up.
In the better-late-than-never Globe piece, there was no acknowledgement of the Herald’s scoop. Same old story, eh?
Leave a Comment » | Uncategorized | Tagged: Boston Globe, Boston Herald, Charlie Baker, expert panel, Little Tabloid That Could, MBTA, MBTA absences, the T, trolley karma | Permalink
Posted by Campaign Outsider
March 18, 2015
Well, not exactly that specifically, but still . . .
As you splendid readers might remember (c’mon, it was only yesterday), the hardreading staff couldn’t help but note the fuddy local tabloid’s tut-tutting about Gov. Charlie Baker’s St. Patrick’s Day skit lampooning the MBTA (Maybe Better Tomorrow, Alright?) and its snow woes.
Representative sample from yesterday’s front page:
Today, Herald columnist Joe Fitzgerald essentially told his bosses to put a sock in it.
Listen to Charlie and just lighten up, everybody
Charlie Baker, this one’s for you.
If you saw yesterday’s Herald, you read of the governor’s give-me-a-break response to knee-jerk critics who charged he should not have made lighthearted references to dysfunction at the T three days ago at the St. Patrick’s Day breakfast in Southie.
“If you can’t poke fun at yourself,” he scoffed, “you’re not getting it.”
Too often the jokes on Beacon Hill are on us, which is what made Baker’s slapstick such a breath of fresh air.
As opposed, presumably, to all the hot air coming from the umbrage-industrial complex.
Let’s just hope Fitzgerald got the last word on this idiotic riff. We’re pretty sure the Heraldniks can come up with a different idiotic riff without too much trouble.
Leave a Comment » | Uncategorized | Tagged: Boston Herald, Charlie Baker, fuddy local tabloid, Heraldniks, Joe Fitzgerald, Maybe Better Tomorrow Alright?, MBTA, St. Patrick's Day breakfast | Permalink
Posted by Campaign Outsider
March 17, 2015
The faulty (but still fáilte) local tabloid is giving the umbrage-industrial complex a bad name. For the second day in a row, the Boston Herald is mewling about the so-called jokes at this year’s St. Patrick’s Day breakfast.
Start with yesterday’s Herald:
Baker teams with T chief to yuk it up over rail fail
Gov. Charlie Baker’s appearance alongside embattled MBTA General Manager Beverly Scott in a skit goofing on the transit system’s winter woes got a chilly reception from some who say it runs counter to Baker’s image as a reformer of the troubled authority.
“I think it would be prudent to try to avoid making a joke out of it,” said David Tuerck, executive director of the Beacon Hill Institute, who noted that the commuter rail is still operating on a reduced schedule.
“This was a mistake for him. It’s in bad taste. It’s not amusing to people who are still putting up with the inconvenience of a situation that’s gone on for weeks now, well beyond the period when we had a lot of snow.”
The piece included a different critique from one local solon: “[A]ll of these highly produced skits seem to be supplanting the genuineness of the event as it had been in years past,” state Sen. Robert Hedlund said. “It’s become more of an over-the-top production.”
As has the Herald’s rail fail crusade. Today’s front page, lower left:
Story inside:
Baker defends jokes
‘If you can’t poke fun at yourself, you’re not getting it’
Gov. Charlie Baker is standing by his MBTA skit at South Boston’s St. Patrick’s Day Breakfast — and doubled down last night at another holiday dinner in Lowell, where he mocked the transit agency’s dysfunctional commuter rail line.
“It was an opportunity for all of us to sort of poke fun at ourselves, and let’s face it, we all know it’s been a long winter. The MBTA had some issues we worked pretty hard with them to fix,” Baker told the Herald last night. “If you can’t poke fun at yourself, you’re 
not getting it.”
Baker drew some chuckles at the St. Patrick’s Day fete in Lowell, when he joked that during the height of the storms he would be told a number of commuter rail engines were ready to go the next day — only to see that number shrink the following morning.
“I was like, what are these things, teenagers? ‘I got up this morning, Dad looked at me kind of funny. I was out drinking last night. I’m sorry.’ … I wish I was kidding, but the simple truth is the main reason we had so much trouble with the commuter rail is because inside those big, brawny locomotives beats the heart of a 16-year-old,” Baker said.
Now that’s not funny.
The frosty local tabloid also got chilly about some gag props.
Newly minted Attorney General Maura Healey also drew some heat for holding up several fake subpoenas at the Sunday breakfast, and jokingly telling lawmakers in the crowd, “Some of you might be familiar with these. So laugh.”
Santa Clara University Law School professor Margalynne Armstrong found the joke inappropriate for the state’s top lawwoman.
“She needs to make sure she gives the office the respect it deserves. It’s important to not treat her power lightly,” Armstrong said. “The decent thing to do would be to apologize. And it should be a real apology.”
Really, where are they finding these folks?
Regardless, new motto for the Herald: Erin Go Blah!
1 Comment | Uncategorized | Tagged: Beacon Hill Institute, Beverly Scott, Boston Herald, Charlie Baker, David Tuerck, Erin Go Blah!, faulty local tabloid, frosty local tabloid, Linda Dorcena Forry, Margalynne Armstrong, Maura Healey, MBTA, Robert Hedlund, Santa Clara University Law School, St. Patrick's Day breakfast | Permalink
Posted by Campaign Outsider
March 13, 2015
From our Five-Ring Monte desk
Nice his ‘n’ her columns in today’s local dailies about the latest hijinks from the high-rolling Boston 2024 machers.
Ladies first. The Boston Globe’s Shirley Leung gives the 2024niks a front-page dopeslap for “acting like a private club.”
The secrets boomerang on Games organizers
The Boston Olympic movement hit a new low this week, and even ringleader John Fish would have a hard time arguing with that.
That would explain all the mea culpas.
“There were some mistakes in communication,” acknowledged Fish, the chief executive of Suffolk Construction, in a lengthy phone interview.
The mistake, of course, was not communicating, but why get technical about it.
Crosstown at the Boston Herald, Howie Carrtoon’s column gives the Boston 2024 boyos a much harder time.
Let hack Games begin at St. Pat’s feed
Will Boston 2024 set up a booth at Halitosis Hall on Sunday morning so that all the hacks can fill out their applications for gainful unemployment at the next Big Dig?
The St. Patrick’s Day breakfast — what better place to recruit yet more indolent dolts and layabouts who need no-heavy-lifting jobs 
(as opposed to work)?
Come Sunday, John Fish, the unelected pooh-bah of this fiasco, can personally greet the payroll charlies as they stumble into the BCEC.
If you “work” at the MBTA, boys, no need to fill out any of these intrusive forms. Your bona fides are in order. Have you lads been to visit your Uncle Whitey lately?
You can probably fill in the rest of the hacky local tabloid rant. Of course if you want some facts about the Boston 2024 payroll patriots, you’ll have to look elsewhere. The hardreading staff recommends Adam Vaccaro’s piece at Boston.com that compares local Olympic spending to previous bids by Chicago and New York. The numbers are very instructive. Not to get technical about it.
Leave a Comment » | Uncategorized | Tagged: Adam Vaccaro, BCEC, Boston 224, Boston Globe, Boston Herald, boston.com, Chicago 2016, five-ring monte, hacky local tabloid, Howie Carr(toon), John Fish, MBTA, No Boston Olympics, NYC2012, Shirley Leung, St. Patrick's Day, Sufflk Construction | Permalink
Posted by Campaign Outsider
March 2, 2015
We have a split decision in our Local Dailies Advertising Sweepstakes today. This half-page ad appears in the Boston Herald but not the Globe.
On the other hand, these two full-page ads appear in the Boston Globe but not the Herald.
(The latter is about Anthem being hacked a month ago and forking over such data as Social Security numbers, dates of birth, income information, etc. The usual drill.)
On yet another hand, this quarter-page ad pops up on the Globe’s op-ed page.
Readable version:
So, not an even split decision. But at least the thirsty local tabloid got something this time around.
Leave a Comment » | Uncategorized | Tagged: Anthem, Boston Police Foundation, ELM, Environmental Leeague of Massachusetts, George Bachrach, MBTA, New England Patriots, PEGA, Robert Kraft, Second Annual Gala | Permalink
Posted by Campaign Outsider
October 22, 2014
Start at the start:
Last Saturday’s Boston Herald featured this front page:
The story inside (as the hardreading staff noted at the time):
Activists want T bid derailed
Human rights and labor activists are voicing outrage that the Patrick administration could soon award a staggering $1.3 billion subway contract to a rail enterprise owned by the repressive Communist Chinese government, saying the deal would be a “terrible disgrace.”
“If the left-leaning Massachusetts blue staters love to boycott things that break the wrong way on issues of rights, why does China get a pass on all of that?” said Tom Cushman, a human rights activist and professor at Wellesley College.
“If this were an entity that was known to be hostile toward transgendered people or gay people or who violated the rights of minorities, people would be up in arms over a contract like this. But (they) do all those things. They are hostile toward all those people, but China doesn’t register on the screen of the morally outraged.”
Now comes the Boston Globe with this front page piece in yesterday’s edition.
T job’s top bid is from China
Subway car plan draws concerns on human rights
A railcar and locomotive manufacturer controlled by China’s government has emerged as the top bidder for a $566.6 million contract to supply the MBTA with new cars for the Red and Orange lines.
The Massachusetts Department of Transportation board of directors is scheduled to vote Wednesday on the contract for CNR MA Corporation, which is a venture of China CNR Corporation Limited and CNR Changchun Railway Vehicles Co., according to the board’s agenda.
The contract for 284 subway cars will include the construction of an assembly plant in Springfield, according to a person with knowledge of the contract. The MBTA said last year it expected to begin delivering Orange Line cars in the winter of 2018, and the Red Line cars in the fall of 2019.
The Globe piece has a number of new details, but nowhere does it credit the Herald for catching this train first.
Bad form, Globeniks. Bad form.
Leave a Comment » | Uncategorized | Tagged: Boston Globe, Boston Herald, Changchun Railway Ventures, China CNR Corp., Harry Wu, Massachusetts General Hospital, MBTA, MGH, Orange Line, People's Republic of China, Red Line, Tom Cushman, Wellesley College | Permalink
Posted by Campaign Outsider
October 18, 2014
Money and the People’s Republic get front-page headlines in today’s local dailies. Start with this colorful one in the Boston Herald.
Nice. The story inside:
Activists want T bid derailed
Human rights and labor activists are voicing outrage that the Patrick administration could soon award a staggering $1.3 billion subway contract to a rail enterprise owned by the repressive Communist Chinese government, saying the deal would be a “terrible disgrace.”
“If the left-leaning Massachusetts blue staters love to boycott things that break the wrong way on issues of rights, why does China get a pass on all of that?” said Tom Cushman, a human rights activist and professor at Wellesley College.
“If this were an entity that was known to be hostile toward transgendered people or gay people or who violated the rights of minorities, people would be up in arms over a contract like this. But (they) do all those things. They are hostile toward all those people, but China doesn’t register on the screen of the morally outraged.”
Well, it does at the railsy local tabloid.
Crosstown at the Boston Globe, it’s an entirely different business on Page One.
MGH in talks for hospital in China
Massachusetts General Hospital is in early discussions with two partners to build a full-service hospital with 500 to 1,000 beds in China, a country that is struggling to meet growing demand from its 1.4 billion citizens for top-quality medical care.
Mass. General signed a “framework agreement’’ last week with a Chinese hospital that specializes in traditional medicine and a Chinese investment firm, allowing the three parties to exchange financial information and work on developing a definitive agreement to open a facility in an island city close to Hong Kong.
Mass. General executives called the talks preliminary and said they have not made a final decision about whether to participate in the project, but that they hope to do so by next summer.
So both these deals are still up in the air. Plenty of opportunity for the Chinese checkers to do their damnedest.
Leave a Comment » | Uncategorized | Tagged: Boston Globe, Boston Herald, Changchun Railway Ventures, China CNR Corp., Harry Wu, Massachusetts General Hospital, MBTA, MGH, Orange Line, People's Republic of China, Red Line, Tom Cushman, Wellesley College | Permalink
Posted by Campaign Outsider
January 1, 2014
Tip o’ the pixel to Nancy Goldner, who had this Letter to the Editor in Tuesday’s Boston Globe.
Where’s transparency on T’s naming sale?
IN THE wake of the failure of transparency and accountability that led to the loss of $25 million of MBTA pension money uncovered by the Globe, we need to restore the “public” to the quasi-public MBTA. (“Ex-T pension chief recommended $25m investment that went bust,” Dec. 20). Now there is another troubling disregard of the public dimension. The MBTA is turning our T stations and rail and bus lines into commodities for sale to private corporations that can come up with the $1 million price tag. In return, they will get naming rights, branding, advertising, and online and on-site promotion rights.
A small advertising notice announcing the Corporate Partnership Program appeared in the Globe Metro section on Dec. 26. Selling off the public spaces thousands of riders pass through everyday will subject us to relentless advertising pitches whenever we ride the T. Don’t riders deserve a say before the MBTA further commercializes our public spaces?
Nancy Goldner
That sent the hardscrambling staff to the 12/26 edition of the stately local broadsheet, and this ad:
Half a million for the Tom (Not a Racist) Yawkey Station? One million for No.9 Park Street Station?
Cheap at half the price, as Soupy Sales would say.
Leave a Comment » | Uncategorized | Tagged: Boston Globe, cheap at half the price, Corporate Partnership Program, Letters to the Editor, MBTA, Nancy Goldner, No.9 Park Street Station, Soupy Sales, Tom (Not a Racist) Yawkey Station | Permalink
Posted by Campaign Outsider
It's Good to Live in a Two-Daily Town 