Boston Globe Packages Self-Promotion As News

September 28, 2019

The hardreading staff has diligently chronicled the Boston Herald’s tendency to turn publicity material into editorial content (see our ongoing series Hark! The Herald! for details of the selfie local tabloid’s puffery).

But, truth be told, the Boston Globe is not immune to that same temptation. As we noted not long ago, “the Boston Globe has lately done its share of self-promotion as well. There was all the hubbub in the newshole last month over the paper’s HUBweek festival, and this wet kiss for ‘Globe Live’ in the Names column last week.”

Now comes this front-page piece in yesterday’s $tately local broadsheet.

 

 

C’mon, Globeniks – that’s not news; it’s PR.

Rather than make poor Andy Rosen “report” your press releases, why not promote HubWeek the same way you do the GlobeDocs Film Festival?

 

 

Perhaps because . . . Linda Pizzuti Henry, the Globe’s managing director and wife of Globe owner John Henry, is also cofounder of HubWeek.

Perhaps.


Boston Globe ‘Names’ Is 2 Days Late, 5 Dollars Short

December 31, 2018

The hardreading staff has noticed – as perhaps you splendid readers have also – that the Boston Globe’s Names column tends to be a weak carbon copy of Olivia Vanni’s Inside Track at the Boston Herald.

Latest case in point: Rob Delaney’s blue Christmas without his son Henry, who died at the age of 2 1/2 earlier this year.

Vanni’s Herald piece on Friday.

Rob Delaney publicly grieves loss of son

While the holidays are meant to be a time for all that’s merry and bright, Rob Delaney gave everyone a friendly reminder that grief doesn’t take a break. The Marblehead-raised comedian/actor/writer recently got real on Twitter, opening up about his family’s first Christmas since the passing of his toddler son, Henry, in a series of emotional posts.

“Our first Christmas without Henry came & went,” he wrote. “The day itself was okay, maybe because there were so many horrible, painful days leading up to it; we must have hit our quota or something. We talked about him a lot & included his memory throughout the day.”

 

Boston Globe Lames – sorry, Names – item yesterday.

Rob Delaney shares experience of first Christmas without son

The day after Christmas, Rob Delaney tweeted about what the holiday was like without his son Henry, who died at age 2½ earlier this year. The “Catastrophe” actor and Marblehead native wrote that he talks publicly about Henry to help “destigmatize grief” for other families who have experienced loss. Henry was diagnosed with a brain tumor in 2016 and died in January.

“Our first Christmas without Henry came & went,” Delaney wrote on Twitter Wednesday. “The day itself was okay, maybe because there were so many horrible, painful days leading up to it; we must have hit our quota or something. We talked about him a lot & included his memory throughout the day.”

 

The daily Herald costs two bucks. The Sunday Globe costs five. You tell us which is worth your gossip dollar.


Boston TV Dress Coda: Ties Clipped at NECN/NBC10

October 22, 2018

Well the hardreading staff was perusing the Sunday papers yesterday when we came across a startling sartorial item in the Boston Globe’s Names column, which actually recycled the story so we’ll reference Kevin Slane’s original piece on Boston.com.

A local TV station just got a new dress code

If you’ve been watching NECN recently, you may have noticed something missing. Male anchors in the studio have done away with the tie, a longtime staple of business attire.

The new dress code, implemented by NECN news director Ben Dobson, officially went into effect last week. Other NBC-owned stations in the region, including NBC10 Boston and Telemundo, plan to adopt the tie-less look, too.

 

Loosen the knot graf:

“Dobson said the move to ditch the neckwear is an effort to mirror its viewers, whom he believes are less likely to wear ties on a daily basis thanks to evolving workplace dress codes.”

Seriously? So maybe doctors should wear jeans and Patriots jerseys? Or lawyers could wear Lululemon to court? What the hell.

Back in the 1920s and ’30s, the BBC made radio announcers wear dinner jackets. In the U.S. at that time, announcers and performers wore tuxedos and gowns. It was a sign of respect for the listeners, even though they couldn’t see the broadcasters.

But that’s so old school. It’s clearly better to be personable than professional now, according to Audrey Mansfield, visual stylist for NBC-owned stations. She told Slane, “On set, they’ll still be wearing a nice shirt and full suit. They’ll still have a very nice collar, and be very well-groomed. It is one piece of clothing we are taking away.”

Except it’s more than just a necktie. At least to some of us old fogies.


Boston Globe Redesigns Nameless Names Column

September 6, 2018

As you splendid readers might – or might not – have noticed, former Boston Globe Names stalwarts Mark Shanahan and Meredith Goldstein were deleted from the sort-of gossip column several months ago. Last known sighting was June 18.

 

 

After that, the column had this stripped-down look.

 

 

Until yesterday, that is, when Names got a bit of a facelift.

 

 

Most of the content has been outsourced to Boston.com writers, chief among them Kevin Slane. Nice chance to make a name for himself.

Meanwhile, memo to Boston Herald Track Gal Olivia Vanni: Now’s the time to hit up your bosses for a fall makeover, no?


Boston Globe Wantonly Flogs Globe Columnist’s Book

April 11, 2018

Before any of you splendid readers get all shirty on us . . .

It’s not that the Boston Globe is running endless ads for Names columnist Meredith Goldstein’s new book, Can’t Help Myself.

 

 

And it’s not that the Globe is running endless ads for Goldstein’s Love Letters podcast.

 

 

It’s that the Globe is allowing her to promote her book in her own Globe column.

 

 

Can we at least agree that’s a plug too far?

Or is the hardreading staff just hopelessly out of date.

(To be sure graf goes here)

To be sure, anyone who’s hopelessly out of dates will likely have a different opinion.


Hark! The Herald! (Both Sides No Edition)

November 6, 2017

As the hardreading staff has noted on numerous occasions, the Boston Herald has consistently failed to grasp the distinction between news and promotion.

Exhibit Umpteen: Today’s edition of the selfie local tabloid, which devotes half a page of its ever dwindling newshole to a talk Herald columnist Adriana Cohen gave yesterday at a Harvard student conference.

 

 

Just nuts graf:

“No one has a monopoly on smart,” Cohen said [at the event]. “There are good and smart people on both sides of the aisle and across demographics. When some people only want to hear one side of an argument, or one narrow set of ideas, they’re doing themselves a great disservice. We can all learn from one another.”

 

That’s rich, given that Cohen – a charter member of the Trumpettes – has demonstrably never met a knee she wouldn’t jerk.

Just as the Herald has never met a PR event it wouldn’t dress up as news.

(To be fair graf goes here)

To be fair, the Boston Globe has lately done its share of self-promotion as well. There was all the hubbub in the newshole last month over the paper’s HUBweek festival, and this wet kiss for “Globe Live” in the Names column last week.

 

 

Never say we don’t give you both sides.

Two-Daily Tune bonus track:

 

 


BG’s Mark Shanahan Stiffs Another Local Journo

May 16, 2017

As the hardreading staff has noted on multiple occasions, Boston Globe Names columnist Mark Shanahan regularly, er, re-curates the work of other Boston journalists.

Exhibit Umpteen: The Dennis Lehane/Emerson College Commencement Rumpus.

Monday’s Names column featured this Lehane interview with Emily Sweeney.

Representative sample:

What are some of the places you miss out here in Boston?

Oh God, I miss everywhere. I miss everywhere. The list is truly endless. I get jealous when my friends call me and bitch about [expletive] weather. Just the list of places is just too long to go into. I miss everything about that city.

Well, we miss you, too.

Aaaaw . .

 

But this Boston Magazine Daily piece by Spencer Buell yesterday presented a very different portrait of Lehane.

Dennis Lehane Apologizes for Using the N-Word in His Emerson Speech

“I should have known better.”

Author Dennis Lehane has apologized after receiving backlash for his use of the n-word during his Emerson commencement speech Sunday.

“Hurting people with the use of that word, of all words, was about as far from my intention as one could get, but I take ownership of the result,” he says in a statement. “I should have known better.”

In the speech, which cautioned against romanticizing the past, Lehane told a story about growing up in the 1970s during Boston’s busing crisis, when racial divisions in the city spiked over school desegregation.

He described driving with his family in a car through a swarm of protesters on Broadway in South Boston. The demonstrators had “hung effigies” of federal judge Arthur Garrity Jr. and Massachusetts Sen. Ted Kennedy, and were “lighting them on fire with torches,” he recalled. He added, “They were screaming, ‘N—s out.’”

 

That’s all well and good: Two different news outlets with two different news angles. Business as usual.

The problem comes today, with this no-attribution follow-up from Shanahan.

Dennis Lehane apologizes for using racial slur in Emerson speech

Author Dennis Lehane has apologized for using a racial slur during his commencement speech at Emerson College Sunday. Lehane, a Dorchester native best known for his novels “Mystic River” and “The Given Day,” used the N-word while talking about the protests in South Boston during the busing crisis of the 1970s.

“I will never forget this for the rest of my life. We were trapped in the back of a car,” Lehane told graduates. “We couldn’t move. We could just be buffeted down the street. And they had hung effigies of Arthur Garrity, who was a judge at the time, of Teddy Kennedy, and they were lighting them on fire with torches. And they were screaming, ‘N—s out.’”

There were apparently complaints after the speech because Lehane issued a statement Monday morning apologizing for using the slur.

 

Here’s our complaint: Once again, Shanahan has cribbed material from another reporter without attribution.

Google News time check around midnight Monday:

 

 

C’mon, man – be a mensch and give credit where credit’s due, yeah?


Boston Globe ‘Names’ Column Stiffs Boston Herald

April 28, 2017

From our No Credit Where Credit’s Due desk

It’s one thing for the Namesniks at the Boston Globe to rip off the hardreading staff. It’s quite another to xerox the Boston Herald without attribution.

From today’s Names:

 

 

Only one thing missing from the piece – acknowledgement that the firsty local tabloid’s Jessica Heslam had the story two days ago.

New honcho at 5 generates static

‘Move it’ mandate miffs on-camera staff

There’s a new “move it, move it” mandate being preached by Channel 5’s top newsroom honcho — but some miffed reporters don’t want to dance along.

Paige Harrison, who took over as WCVB-TV’s news director in January, has laid down a harsh edict demanding reporters get expressive during every TV live shot and stand-up.

 

Hey, Globies – maybe you could be more stand-up, eh?


Boston (Globe), We Have a Houston Problem

June 9, 2016

There’s a gossip gap regarding the late lamented Whitney Houston in today’s Boston dailies.

Start with this Boston Globe Names item about Houston’s parasitic partner Bobby Brown, who’s currently flacking a new book.

Brown: ‘I’ve had some crazy situations’

Screen Shot 2016-06-09 at 1.03.53 PM

Bobby Brown will say what he wants, weird as it may be. That’s his prerogative.

In an interview to promote his new memoir, “Every Little Step,” the Roxbury native and cofounder of the ’80s boy band New Edition told Robin Roberts on “20/20” Tuesday that he had sex with a ghost.

“I bought this mansion in Georgia. This was a really, really spooky place,” he said. “But yes, one time I woke up and, yeah, a ghost. . . . I wasn’t high.”

 

Uh-huh. Then there’s some other stuff in the item that’s entirely unremarkable, as Brown himself tends to be.

But it was a whole nother story from the Boston Herald’s Inside Track Gal, Gayle Fee.

Bobby book blames Whitney’s death 
on lack of acceptance for BFF lovers

Bobby Brown, the Roxbury R&B star who was married to the late Whitney Houston for 14 years, reveals that the mega-pop star had a lesbian love affair with her best Screen Shot 2016-06-09 at 1.17.33 PMfriend and longtime assistant Robyn Crawford, adding that if the two were still together, Houston might never have died.

“I really feel that if Robyn was accepted into Whitney’s life, Whitney would still be alive today,” Brown told Us Weekly. “She didn’t have close friends with her anymore.”

 

With grave robbers like Bobby Brown around, though, she’ll never really be gone.


Boston Globe Keeps ‘Spotlight’ Off Its Own Reporters

March 16, 2016

As the hardreading staff has previously noted, Boston College spokesman Jack Dunn – among others – vociferously protested the portrayal of him in the movie Spotlight. As Boston Globe columnist Kevin Cullen wrote last November:

After seeing the film at the Loews theater across from Boston Common, [Dunn] stepped onto the sidewalk and threw up.

The movie sickened him because he is portrayed as someone who minimized the suffering of those who were sexually abused, as someone who tried to steer Globe reporters away from the story, as someone invested in the coverup.

 

Dunn’s lawyer subsequently “sent a letter to the filmmakers, demanding that the offending scene be deleted from the movie.”

Well, that hasn’t happened, but this has, as Mark Shanahan reports in today’s Globe:

B.C. dialogue fiction, ‘Spotlight’ studio says

Open Road Films, the studio that distributed the Oscar-winning film “Spotlight,” issued a statement Tuesday acknowledging that dialogue attributed in the movie to Boston College spokesman Jack Dunn was fictional.

When “Spotlight” was released last fall, Dunn expressed outrage, saying that he was depicted as someone who downplayed the suffering of people who were sexually abused by priests. He enlisted a lawyer to contact Open Road and demand the removal of a scene in the movie in which his character discusses whether previous administrators at Boston College High School were aware of sexual abuse there.

 

At issue was a scene depicting Dunn in a 2002 meeting with Globe reporters Walter “Robby” Robinson and Sacha Pfeiffer (played by Michael Keaton and Rachel McAdams). The topic: Allegations of sexual abuse at BC High. The offending dialogue from the character playing Dunn: “It’s a big school, Robby, you know that. And we’re talking about seven alleged victims over, what, eight years?”

The Globe piece includes this statement from Open Road Films:

“As is the case with most movies based on historical events, ‘Spotlight’ contains fictionalized dialogue that was attributed to Mr. Dunn for dramatic effect. We acknowledge that Mr. Dunn was not part of the Archdiocesan coverup. It is clear from his efforts on behalf of the victims at BC High that he and the filmmakers share a deep, mutual concern for victims of abuse.”

What the Globe piece does not include is Robinson’s and Pfeiffer’s previous backing of the movie version (tip o’ the pixel to splendid reader Ember2378 for the link). But the Boston Herald’s Jack Encarnacao helpfully fills in the details.

The [studio’s] statement comes after both the Globe’s Walter Robinson and Sacha Pfeiffer said the scene in the movie captured Dunn’s “spirited public relations defense of BC High” during their first Spotlight team interview with him in 2002 during the paper’s probe of clergy sexual abuse.

 

Robinson and Pfeiffer did not respond to the Herald’s calls seeking comment. We’ll see if anyone else has better luck.