February 8, 2015
At this point, it’s really Cryin’ Brian Williams, as the NBC anchor gets pummeled from all sides for fabricating a harrowing tale of danger during hisIraq war coverage in 2003. Typical of today’s coverage is this New York Times Wire Service pickup in the Boston Sunday Globe.
Some, of course, has been tougher, like Times Op-It Girl Maureen Dowd’s piece today.
NBC executives were warned a year ago that Brian Williams was constantly inflating his biography. They were flummoxed over why the leading network anchor felt that he needed Hemingwayesque, bullets-whizzing-by flourishes to puff himself up, sometimes to the point where it was a joke in the news division.
But the caustic media big shots who once roamed the land were gone, and “there was no one around to pull his chain when he got too over-the-top,” as one NBC News reporter put it.
But for our money, the toughest – and most damning – is this piece by Peter Gelzinis in today’s Boston Herald.
Brian Williams’ snub of vets no laughing matter
Back in the fall of 2006, long before Brian Williams confessed to “conflating” his helicopter adventures over Iraq, Neal Santangelo knew the NBC news anchor was a fraud.
Santangelo, a Boston firefighter, former president of Local 718 and a proud veteran of the Navy submarine service, served on a committee that brought the Congressional Medal of Honor Society to Boston that year for its national convention.
About six months before the society’s gala banquet at the Convention Center, Williams agreed to serve as master of ceremonies.
But when he arrived on Saturday, Sept. 30, 2006, Williams told committee members Tom Lyons and Neal Santangelo that a “pressing engagement” back in New York prevented him from doing much more than greeting the audience of more than 1,000 guests … and leaving.
That pressing engagement? Parachuting into that night’s Weekend Update sketch on “Saturday Night Live.”
“I … cannot believe that you left us for this,” Neal Santangelo wrote in a letter to Williams a week after the banquet. “In an act of egotistical, blatant self-promotion, you deceived the (Medal of Honor) Recipients, declined to break bread with them and disrespected them.
“You placed comedy before courage … Your conduct was irreverent, insulting, incomprehensible and shameful. You may attempt to ‘spin’ the issue to support your position, but that will do nothing but bring you further shame in my eyes.”
The three-page letter Neal Santangelo wrote out of pure rage and emotion was never sent.
Well, thanks to Gelzinis, it’s out there now.
1 Comment | 
Uncategorized | Tagged: Amy Poehler, Boston Globe, Boston Herald, Brian Williams, Congressional Medal of Honor Society, Cryin' Brian Williams, Maureen Dowd, NBC, Neal Santangelo, New York Times, Peter Gelzinis, Saturday Night Live, Seth Myers, Times Op-It Girl | 
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Posted by Campaign Outsider
January 26, 2015
From our One Town, Two Different Worlds desk
Well the GOP had its first 2016 Iowa Presidential Cotillion over the weekend and say, it was . . . swill.
All the GOP kids were there (but not the adults: Jeb Bush and Mitt Romney), including Sarah Palin (R-Drunken Brawl), who got this coverage in James Pindell’s Boston Sunday Globe piece.
Former Alaska governor Sarah Palin got a standing ovation for a speech in which she referred to President Obama as “a little boy.”
Versus this play in the Sunday Boston Herald, starting with Page One.
Then the high-priced spread inside:
Read it at your own peril. (But notice the do-me boots lower left.)
Just for scale, this New York Times piece by Ashley Parker and Trip Gabriel buried Palin in the 29th – and final – graf.
The gathering, called the Iowa Freedom Summit and held at the Hoyt Sherman Place theater, represented a return of the full political roadshow to the state. The forum drew more than 100 out-of-state journalists and a long list of Republican figures. On Friday, Sarah Palin ran into Newt Gingrich; his wife, Callista; and Mr. King in a hotel lobby, where onlookers quickly mobbed them.
Not to get technical about it, but Donald Trump got higher play than Palin in the Times. Draw your own conclusions.
Back in Boston, leave it, as often, to Herald columnist Kimberly Atkins to restore some sobriety to the tipsy local tabloid. Under the headline “Entry Trumps all silliness,” Atkins writes today that a Palin presidential campaign is only slightly less absurd than a Trump run.
[A]s absurd as a Palin candidacy sounds, at least her name has appeared on a national ballot. Not only has Trump never run a successful political campaign, his multiple corporate bankruptcy filings belie his claims of robust business acumen, which I assume would be his main presidential selling point.
Crosstown, the Globe’s Pindell has this follow-up story on the web (we couldn’t find it in our print editions). Apparently, the Palindrone won’t be stopping anytime soon.
2 Comments | Uncategorized | Tagged: Ashley Parker, Boston Globe, Boston Herald, Callista Gingrich, Donald Trump, Iowa Freedom Summit, James Pindell, Kimberly Atkins, New York Times, Newt Gingrich, One Town Two Different Worlds, President Obama, Sarah Palin, Steve King, tipsy local tabloid, Trip Gabriel | Permalink
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January 17, 2015
Only in the ditzy local tabloid could a character like Adriana Cohen have a regular column. But we’ll get back to that in a minute.
First, Page One of the New York Times:
Then, Page One of the Boston Globe:
Just for good measure, Wall Street Journal piece by Robert Lee Hotz (you can’t make this stuff up).
Now, back to Ms. Cohen’s piece today.
Glut of climate misinformation chilling
Is a thermometer a climate denier?
It must be because according to global-warming alarmists, the Earth is heating up, which will undoubtedly cause environmental “Armageddon.”
They demand our government (aka taxpayers) spend billions fighting climate change all while politicians pass job-killing regulations in the process.
And what’s her evidence? “My car thermometer registered negative 3 degrees last week! Pipes burst in homes and heating bills soared as the dreaded ‘polar vortex’ swooped down from the Arctic.”
Really. There’s ill-informed, and then there’s resolutely ignorant.
You pick.
2 Comments | Uncategorized | Tagged: Adriana Cohen, Boston Globe, Boston Herald, climate change, ditzy local tabloid, New York Times, Robert Lee Hotz, Wall Street Journal | Permalink
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January 3, 2015
From our Late to the Late Mario Cuomo desk
Mario Cuomo spoke in poetry, but lived in prose.
Exhibit A: His Hamlet on the Hudson forever fluttering.
Maybe that’s why the local dailies didn’t bother to compose their own obituaries of the former New York governor, but cherry-picked them from other news outlets.
The Boston Globe, on the one hand, plunked the New York Times obit on its front page.
The Boston Herald, on the other hand, plucked the Associated Press.
Hey – that’s show biz.
(To be fair, today’s Globe has this laudatory editorial and this less-so column by Michael A. Cohen. The Herald has this farewell from Ray Flynn.)
Leave a Comment » | Uncategorized | Tagged: Adam Nagourney, Associated Press, Boston Globe, Boston Herald, Hamlet on the Hudson, Mario Cuomo, Michael A. Cohen, New York Times, Ray Flynn | Permalink
Posted by Campaign Outsider
December 30, 2014
From our Late to the Parity desk
Local shoemaker New Balance yesterday saluted “each and every police officer, firefighter, first responder and service man & woman” in this full-page ad that ran in both – say it again, both – Boston dailies.
Truth to tell, the ad also ran in the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal.
But as the Heraldnix might say, why get technical about it.
Leave a Comment » | Uncategorized | Tagged: Boston Globe, Boston Herald, Heraldnix, New Balance, New York Times, Wall Street Journal | Permalink
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October 9, 2014
From our One Town, Two Different Worlds desk
Page One of today’s Boston Herald is downright ebollient.
The Page 6 story, predictably, is no less hyperventilating.
Airports step up checks for Ebola
But victims may lie, experts warn
Homeland Security agents will be screening passengers for higher temperatures at five major U.S. airports, but not at Logan, in a stepped up response to the Ebola epidemic that one expert warns won’t stop infected travelers like the man who died in Dallas yesterday from sneaking into the country.
The first Ebola patient to die in the U.S., Thomas Eric Duncan, a 42-year-old Liberian man, had come to Dallas in late September but did not display obvious signs of having the virus.
“Some people will have a disincentive to be perfectly honest about their prior exposure to the virus because they want to get into the U.S. for many reasons, but one might be that they are seeking treatment here and trying to stay alive,” said Andrew Price-Smith, adviser to the National Intelligence Council for Biodefense.
Talk about your mixed-up messages. (Note: That’s Thomas Eric Duncan, the first patient diagnosed in the U.S with Ebola, on the right. He died yesterday.)
Crosstown at the Boston Globe, Page One is – no surprise – more measured: The paper teases the story below the fold.
Inside, the Globe picks up coverage from the New York Times.
More light, less heat, eh?
Leave a Comment » | Uncategorized | Tagged: Andrew Price-Smith, Boston Globe, Boston Herald, Ebola, ebollient, Homeland Security, Liberia, Logan International Airport, National Intelligence Council for Biodefense, New York Times, Thomas Eric Duncan | Permalink
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August 19, 2014
When the Hillary Clinton Rock Star Diva story broke yesterday, the hardreading staff knew it would be mother’s milk to the feisty local tabloid. And today’s Boston Herald did not disappoint.
Inside, readers were treated to two Whack-a-Hill columns – one from Kimberly Atkins, the other from the inexplicable Adriana Cohen.
(Note the rare double Little Green Number that Clinton rates.)
Crosstown, today’s Boston Globe said nothing about Queen Hillary, not even in Tom Keane’s Hillary is inevitable no longer op-ed. (The paper does have a News Brief: Clinton to attend key Iowa fundraiser. No mention of how she’ll get to Indianoloa.)
In a Weekly Standard piece this week (Hillary Clinton’s Reputation), Jay Cost says “it’s better than you think” and reminds us that “what matters in the Beltway does not necessarily play in Peoria.”
That goes the other way around, too. Case in point: Queen Hillary didn’t make today’s New York Times, either. But stay tuned – Maureen Dowd is up tomorrow.
Leave a Comment » | Uncategorized | Tagged: Adriana Cohen, Boston Globe, Boston Herald, Hillary Clinton, Jay Cost, Kimberly Atkins, Las Vegas Review-Journal, Maureen Dowd, New York Times, Queen Hillary, Rock Star Diva, Sherman Frederick, Weekly Standard, whack-a-Hill | Permalink
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April 30, 2014
Start with full disclosure: The hardreading staff met Masterpiece Mystery man Alan Cumming at his Boston University Howard Gotlieb Archival Research Center Friends Speakers Series appearance Monday night and found him to be the sweetest guy ever.
Exhibit A: His Twitter feed that featured this selfie with his mum:
So we were a bit dismayed when we saw this Names item in yesterday’s Boston Globe.
The comings and goings of Alan Cumming
Alan Cumming spent a busy day in Boston Monday. The Scottish actor, who stars on CBS’s “The Good Wife” and is currently reprising the role of the lascivious emcee in “Cabaret” on Broadway, began the afternoon at WGBH’s Calderwood Studio, taping a series of intros for the new season of “Masterpiece Mystery.” Then it was off to BU’s Howard Gotlieb Archival Research Center, where Cumming talked about his life and work. The actor was adorable as ever, even if The New York Times, in its review of “Cabaret,” called him a “little softer around the jaw.”
(Fuller disclosure: The hardreading staff has numerous connections to the Gotlieb Center, which we’re happy to detail upon request.)
Not to get technical about it, but said Times review of “Cabaret” was a full-throated endorsement of Cumming’s reprise of his 1998 performance as the M.C.:
Alan Cumming, who won a Tony as the nasty M.C. in 1998, is back, offering a slightly looser, older-but-wiser variation on the same performance . . . Mr. Cumming’s M.C., who commandeered a part that Joel Grey would have seemed to own exclusively, has become the new model for most interpretations of the role . . .
So that Names item might have been a little soft around the jawboning, yeah?
2 Comments | Uncategorized | Tagged: Alan Cumming, Ben Brantley, Boston Globe, Boston University, Cabaret, Friends Speakers Series, Howard Gotlieb Archival Research Center, Liz Shannon, Mark Shanahan, Masterpiece Mystery, Meredith Goldstein, Names, New York Times, Vita Palladino, WGBH | Permalink
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April 23, 2014
Okay, so this full-page ad ran in Tuesday’s New York Times:
And okay, the liberal mainstream media might have given Warren a total pass on the Indian thing, as this piece by Tim Stanley in The Telegraph contends.
Elizabeth Warren’s ‘Native American’ claims: if she was a Republican, the media would call her a racist
Imagine if a Republican candidate claimed, confidently, that she was part Native American. Imagine if she had actually used that identity to have herself listed as a minority at Harvard, qualifying her for special treatment and celebration as proof of how diverse and progressive her department is. Imagine if, many years later, it turned out that her claims to Native heritage were dubious and, when pressed for proof, she offered her “high cheekbones.” Oh, and she once contributed a recipe to a Native American cookbook called “Pow Wow Chow” (that may even have been plagiarised).
Chances are, that Republican candidate would be hounded night and day by the press, branded a racist and probably be winding down her political career. Right now, she’d be sitting by the phone, praying for a call from the producers of Celebrity Apprentice (gotta pay the mortgage on that wigwam somehow).
The incredible thing is that all this has happened to a Democratic senatorial candidate called Elizabeth Warren. And not only has she been given a pass by her party, which normally treats race with the respect it deserves, but also by the mainstream media . . .
So Boston Herald Pow Wow Chowdahead Howie Carr:
Are you on this or what?
2 Comments | Uncategorized | Tagged: A Fighting Chance, Boston Herald, Elizabeth Warren, Howie Carr, Native American, New York Times, Pow Wow Chow, Pow Wow Chowdahead, The Telegraph, Tim Stanley, Your Fight Is My Fight | Permalink
Posted by Campaign Outsider
March 12, 2014
Chalk up another win for Dr. Evil.
From yesterday’s Boston Globe:
Ad attacks ‘radical’ backers of minimum-pay hike
In wage fight, echoes of the Cold War
Wellesley College economics professor Julie Matthaei is a Marxist living in a modern-day commune in Cambridge who has carved out an academic niche questioning the status quo. She is unapologetic about her beliefs, describing herself on her Wellesley Web page as a “Marxist-feminist-anti-racist-ecological-economist.”
But she was stunned recently when this description was used against her in a full-page advertisement in The New York Times by a murky pro-business group opposed to raising the minimum wage. Matthaei was among 600 academic economists who signed a petition supporting a minimum-wage increase, which the ad tried to discredit.
The Times ad:
The Globe piece noted that “[t]he Times ad, taken out by the nonprofit Employment Policies Institute in Washington, had a distinctly 1950s flavor, employing excerpts from quotes that used derivatives of ‘Marx’ four times, praised Soviet-style socialism, and questioned official accounts of the Sept. 11 attacks.”
It also noted this:
It is unclear who is funding the Employment Policies Institute; research director Michael Saltsman declined to name the businesses, foundations, and individuals who are major donors.
It might be hard to name “the businesses, foundations, and individuals who are major donors” of the Employment Policies Institute, but it’s totally clear who’s behind it: the Berman-industrial complex detailed here.
Hey, Globeniks: Get hip – Rick Berman is the King of Potemkin non-profits.
Helpful cheat sheet:
You’re welcome.
2 Comments | Uncategorized | Tagged: Boston Globe, Employment Policies Institute, Julie Matthaei, Marxist, MinimumWage.com, New York Times, Rick Berman, Wellesley College | Permalink
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It's Good to Live in a Two-Daily Town 