Boston Herald Outsources Its Gardner Heist Coverage

March 1, 2022

The hardreading staff was captivated – as no doubt you splendid readers were – by the latest Gardner-Museum-Chasing-Its-Ghosts tale that played out in the local dailies yesterday.

Let’s start with the redoubtable Shelley Murphy’s Page One piece in the Boston Globe.

Investigators suspect a link between the Gardner Museum heist and an execution-style murder in Lynn

On a February night in 1991, James Marks had just returned from Maine and was unlocking the door to his Lynn home when a gunman crept up behind him and opened fire, killing him with two blasts from a shotgun, according to police.

The killer fled on foot, leaving a few footprints, but the case remains unsolved, although a mob associate who died years ago has been implicated.

Some authorities now say they suspect there may be a link between the execution-style murder of Marks — a hustler and convicted bank robber — and one of Boston’s most famous unsolved crimes: the 1990 theft of masterpieces valued at more than $500 million from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum.

(That’s “Anthony Amore, the security director of the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum . . . reflected in the empty frame that held the painting ‘The Concert’ by Vermeer,” for those of you keeping score at home.)

Crosstown at the Boston Herald – actually it’s no longer crosstown since the Globe barely occupies its stately State Street headquarters and the Herald newsroom is couch-surfing at the Lowell Sun – the new Gardner revelation was also a big story.

 

 

Except check out the byline.

That comes as no surprise given this post we published a few months ago.

Boston Herald Publisher Moonlights at Hartford Daily

Kevin Corrado is the publisher of the Boston Herald, as the feisty local tabloid duly – and daily – notes on its masthead.

But now Corrado, who in his spare time is also Regional Publisher at MediaNews Group:Northeast Cluster: Massachusetts & New York, is expanding that expansive portfolio to include the Nutmeg State.

According to Stephen Singer’s piece in the Hartford Courant, its publisher and editor-in-chief Andrew Julien – a 30-year veteran of the paper – is switching teams to become executive editor of Tribune Publishing’s New York Daily News.

Meanwhile . . .

MediaNews Group Regional Publisher Kevin Corrado will take over business operations at the Courant on an interim basis and begin the search for a new editor in Hartford.

“Andrew has been a wonderful steward for the Courant, and while we’re sorry to see him go, our loss is New York’s gain,” Corrado said.

To call that eyewash is an insult to saline solution everywhere . . .

Meanwhile, the flimsy local tabloid’s Incredible Shrinking Newsroom is bidding adieu to Erin Tiernan, who has blissfully decamped to MassLive.

Here’s guessing the filching local tabloid will feature plenty more out-of-town bylines in the days and weeks ahead.

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Herald Hitches Carr to Globe

June 9, 2013

Apparently Boston Herald columnist Howie Carr has run out of ways to milk his presence on Whitey Bulger’s witness list, which would presumably keep him from covering the mobster’s trial in person.

So the feisty local tabloid has followed in the Boston Globe’s footsteps and asked the court to let their Howie go.

jacobs_howie_3-6288449Herald wants columnist in courtroom

The Boston Herald filed a request in federal court Saturday to exclude the newspaper’s columnist Howie Carr from a sequestration order that would prevent him from sitting in the courtroom during the trial of James “Whitey” Bulger, the notorious gangster who has been the subject of countless Carr columns and several books.

The motion came a day after US District Court Judge Denise Casper granted a similar request from The Boston Globe to exclude veteran journalists, reporter Shelley Murphy and columnist Kevin Cullen, who wrote a book together about Bulger, from the same sequestration order. “The Boston Herald and Mr. Carr respectfully submit that the reasons supporting exemption of those journalists similarly require exclusion of Mr. Carr from the sequestration order,” the newspaper’s lawyer, Elizabeth A. Ritvo, said in the filing Saturday.

 

Funny thing is, that report appeared in the Globe. Nothing in the Herald about it.

The hardreading staff is checking with our Walt Whitman desk for clarification.

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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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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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