Boston Herald: Death to Taxes!

January 18, 2013

The feisty local tabloid continues its anti-tax jihad today from the very first page (via The Newseum’s Today’s Front Pages):

MA_BH

 

Inside the Herald puts a price tag on the tax hikes proposed by Gov. Deval Patrick (D-One Foot Out the Door) :

 

Picture 1

 

At upper right Howie Carr delivers yet another bulk-mail screed, while Michael Graham, Julie Mehegan, the editors, and cartoonist Jerry Holbert have a whirl on the opinion pages.

Flood the zone? This is more like Katrina.

Crosstown at the Boston Globe, meanwhile, the “moonbat gazette” (Carr) also front-pages the tax hikes (via ditto):

 

MA_BG

 

It may be true, as Carr alleges, that the Globe never met a tax hike it didn’t like, but at least the paper provides the details instead of just moaning.

 

18taxes1

 

Weep your heart out, Howie.

 

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Boston Herald Jumps the Shark (Taxachusetts Edition)

January 16, 2013

The front pages of today’s local dailies almost – but don’t quite – say it all in their coverage of a looming tax hike in Massachusetts.

The Boston Globe’s Page One (via the Newseum’s Today’s Front Pages) appears measured and slightly left of center, as usual:

MA_BG

 

The report itself is equally straightforward:

patrick-3151Patrick favors income tax hike

Broad-based levy vital to transit, education plans

Governor Deval Patrick is set to propose an increase in the state income tax as part of a multi pronged plan to raise new revenue for transportation and education, said a person with direct knowledge of the governor’s plan.

Patrick is expected to unveil the plan, at least in part, in his annual State of the Commonwealth speech Wednesday night. Many in and around state government said he is targeting the income tax because it is the only tax that would bring in enough money to fund his ambitious transportation and education agendas.

Those proposals, which he began rolling out this week, call for $1.5 billion in additional spending next year and $2 billion in annual spending in future years to shore up the state’s transportation system and expand early education programs.

Boosting the income tax from the current rate of 5.25 percent to 5.66 percent would raise $1 billion annually, according to a menu of revenue options the Patrick administration released Monday. The remainder of Patrick’s proposals could be funded through other fees or taxes.

 

The Boston Herald’s Page One (via ditto) is something else entirely:

MA_BH

 

The coverage itself is equally hyperventilating.

As indicated above, there are three – count ’em, three – columnists on the case, starting with Joe Battenfeld and Howie Carr in this double-barreled spread:

Picture 2

 

Cut to Michael Graham’s piece on the op-ed page to complete the chinstroker trifecta.

But wait – there’s also this editorial and this editorial cartoon:

holberts 01-16 cartoon

 

Before you say anything, that’s exactly how that cartoon appears on the feisty local tabloid’s website.

Just like the Herald, eh? Never the full picture.

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Dead Blogging the Boston Sunday Globe

January 14, 2013

The hardreading staff yields to no man in its respect for the journalism at the Boston Globe. But this Sunday’s edition struck us as a bit odd.

Page One, via the Newseum’s Today’s Front Pages:

MA_BG

 

The Medicare windfall piece?  Excellent.

Then there’s the Camp Menino feature, which reads like a really long press release from City Hall.

Not to mention this OCD graphic of Tom Menino’s rehab floor plan at the city-financed Parkman House:

parkman

 

Next up: This takedown of New England Law dean John F. O’Brien, which reads like a really long hit from . . . who knows?

Not too mention this drive-by graphic:

pay

 

And the icing on the cake: This advertorial for Geoff Edgers’ reality show, Edge of America, which occupied page one of the Sunday Globe Arts section:

Geoff Edgers silo2How I went from newspaper reporter to host of a TV show

I am standing in the alligator pit. This is not a euphemism. About 10 feet away, a dozen gators slowly swirl around an ankle-deep pool of swamp water. My job: Walk in, haul one of these critters onto a patch of sand, and tackle him before he flips me into the famed “death roll.”

At times like these, I have flashes of my real life — Boston Globe arts reporter, husband, father of two — and I consider the absurdity of the moment. I’ve wrestled with some elusive sources over the years, but never one who could bite my arms off.

 

What follows is essentially an infomercial for the show Edgers has produced.

The headscratching staff says:

Huh?

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Hark! The Herald!

January 9, 2013

In its Tuesday edition the Boston Herald – ever Whitmanesque – celebrates itself and sings itself yet again.

Page Two:

Picture 5

 

That upper right item:

 

Picture 3

 

Being one of the Newseum’s Top Ten Front Pages isn’t exactly winning a Pulitzer, but it’ll do until something better comes along for the feisty local tabloid.

 

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Boston Herald: Scott Brown for Governor?

January 2, 2013

Up until now, conventional wisdom in the Bay State held that Scott Brown (R-Tickle Me Grover) had first GOP dibs on the U.S. Senate seat soon to be vacated by John Kerry (D-So Long, Suckers), while Good (Next) Time Charlie Baker had same on the 2014 Massachusetts gubernatorial race.

Not so fast.

From Joe Battenfeld’s piece in today’s Boston Herald:

Scott BrownDems fear Scott may run for gov

While Democrats frantically try to block Scott Brown from going back to the U.S. Senate, there are also increasing fears he could pose an even bigger threat as the next Massachusetts governor.

Republicans close to the departing U.S. senator said he’s itching to go back to Washington to replace John Kerry, but Democrats are buzzing more about a potential Brown gubernatorial campaign in 2014. It may be tempting for Brown to run in a special election against a vulnerable Rep. Edward J. Markey, but he should reject the easy play and go for the job that really matters — running the state of Massachusetts.

“In the last week, there has been more speculation (about a Brown gubernatorial campaign),” one top Democratic strategist said. “He’d have a much better shot at (governor).”

 

Battenfeld says in a Senate race Democrats “will throw millions of dollars against him and use the same strategy they used last year for U.S. Sen.-elect Elizabeth Warren, trying to tie him to national Republicans.” The gubernatorial race would be an easier one to win.

[I]f you were Scott Brown, who would you rather run against, Ed Markey and the entire Democratic Party, or state Treasurer Steve Grossman or Attorney General Martha Coakley?

 

Good question.

One last question: What does Charlie Baker think?

Battenfeld doesn’t say.

UPDATE: Gotta add today’s overcaffeinated Page One (via the Newseum’s Today’s Front Pages):

MA_BH

 

Love that feisty local tabloid.

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Boston Herald: Gronkpocalypse! No, wait – Gronkmageddon!

November 19, 2012

Today’s Boston Herald is all Rob Gronkowski all the time.

Page One (via the Newseum’s Today’s Front Pages):

 

 

And just in case you haven’t absorbed the seriousness of the situation, here’s the back cover of the feisty local tabloid:

 

 

Oh, yes, there are also three – count ’em, three – stories chronicling the Gronkastrophe. Ron Borges’ column serves as a representative sample:

The only way to contain him

FOXBORO — There are matchup problems and then there are no-match-for-this problems. The latter is what Rob Gronkowski represented to the Indianapolis Colts yesterday.

To be fair, Gronkowski has been a problem for nearly every defense he’s faced since he first arrived three years ago. But there are problems like “A man gets on a train going 70 mph at 3 p.m. and travels north for three hours. What time does he arrive at the station?’’ and there are problems like “A man gets on a train going 70 mph at 3 p.m. and travels north for three hours before changing to a train going 63 mph and heads east for two hours, stopping for a brief lunch and a smoke. He then switches to a bus traveling at 60 mph but forgot his hat. What time does he arrive in Albany?’’

Rob Gronkowski was the latter to the Colts. Whether the tight end continues to be a nightmare for future opponents remains to be seen since the Patriots [team stats] fear the Colts did to him what he did to the Colts, which is to say broke him.

And etc.

As for the Boston Globe, how did they cover the Gronk out? Here’s the front page of today’s Sports section:

See it there upper right? It says, Gronkowski’s big game ends with broken left arm. C6.

No? It’s a Gronking shame.

 

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Elizabeth Warrin’ Front Pages

October 25, 2012

Page One of the local dailies reflect – wait for it – two different worlds. (Via the Newseum’s Today’s Front Pages.)

 

 

Start with the Globe piece, your standard-issue mash note.

Family long a bedrock for Elizabeth Warren

Early support helped shape views and career

Years before she became a distinguished Harvard Law professor, a nationally recognized consumer activist, and a presidential appointee, Elizabeth Warren was a working mother whose grasp on the first rung of the career ladder was slipping.

She had moved to Texas for her husband’s career and landed her first job teaching law school. But her toddler and 7-year-old had burned through seven child care arrangements in six months. Nobody was happy.

“My Aunt Bee had called me, and I started to cry,” Warren recalled. “And I said, ‘I just can’t do this. I think I’m going to quit.’ ”

Her aunt calmed her down and instructed her to wipe her nose, Warren recalled.

Then Aunt Bee told her, “ ‘Well, Sweetie, I can’t get there tomorrow. But I can be there Thursday,’ ” Warren said. “And she arrived with seven suitcases and a Pekingese and stayed for 15 years.”

The Herald piece, on the other hand, is more like a bash note.

Union bigs cashing in

But they back Warren, slam Brown for supporting the rich

Hub union bosses, including a prominent Democratic lawmaker, are getting six-figure salaries and perks such as SUVs and credit cards while slamming U.S. Sen. Scott Brown and Republicans for siding with the rich, federal documents show.

State Rep. Martin Walsh (D-Boston) earned $167,911 in 2011 as secretary/treasurer of the Building and Construction Trades Council, while also taking home his $67,000 legislative salary, according to Labor Department financial records submitted by the union group.

The Building Trades organization also paid for a brand new $38,750 Jeep for Walsh to use, documents show.

“I’m not part of that 1 percent,” Walsh told the Herald.

Uh-huh.

So, you might be wondering, where’s Scott Brown’s front-pager in the Globe?

Oh, he got that yesterday.

Modeling years gave Scott Brown an early boost

It was approaching midnight inside a throbbing Studio 54, New York City’s nightclub extra ordinaire and nocturnal epicenter of excess in the 1980s. As bartenders naked to the waist filled goblets of champagne, club cofounder Steve Rubell, famous for plucking favored guests from the surging crowd outside, was showing off his latest “pick.”

His name was Scott Brown. But Rubell, who recognized the 22-year-old Massachusetts man, who had recently won Cosmopolitan magazine’s 1982 “America’s Sexiest Man” contest and posed nude for its centerfold, promptly dubbed him “the Cosmo boy.” When Rubell spotted R. Couri Hay, The National Enquirer celebrity columnist and stringer for People magazine, he led Brown toward him, hoping his guest’s sudden renown might garner the club a mention . . .

Which candidate do you think is happier with the Globe right now?

 

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Kennebunker Mentality

October 13, 2012

The Maine event in today’s local dailies is the client list of one very busy Zumba dance instructor in Kennebunk.

Boston Herald Page One (via the Newseum’s Today’s Front Pages):

The inside story:

Maine town awaits list of clients eyed in hooker scandal

KENNEBUNK, Maine — With equal parts dread, gallows humor and gawking curiosity, residents of this bucolic seaside burg are sitting on the edge of their seats waiting to see if any of their neighbors are among the more than 150 men accused of paying a Zumba dance instructor for sex.

“You’re familiar with ‘The Scarlet Letter’? This is the same thing, only now it’s the letter Z for Zumba,” said Gisele Nedeau, who runs Ashby’s Deli with her husband, Mark.

Police yesterday had planned to publish the names of some of those summoned to court in connection with the alleged prostitution racket that authorities said was run by 29-year old Alexis Wright of nearby Wells, and her business partner, Mark Strong Sr., 57, of Thomaston.

But some desperate last-minute maneuvering by a lawyer for two of the men has delayed the release until at least Monday — the earliest the state’s highest court could hear the case.

The Boston Globe also features the story Page One – Metro – but with a much more subdued headline:

Zumba instructor prostitution story grips Maine town

KENNEBUNK, Maine — Most years at this time, when the tourists have left and the snowbirds are not far behind, this quaint coastal town begins to wind down for the winter.

But this fall, the pleasant, proper village down the road from the Bush family compound in neighboring Kennebunkport has been gripped in scandal. A scandal, shall we say, of prurient interest.

A scandal, if you must, involving a fitness instructor who is charged with running a prostitution operation from her studio. And a list, which in recent gossip-fueled days has taken on near-mythic status as “the list” of the Zumba teacher’s exten sive clientele.

“This is a very small town after the season,” said Elaine Nicholson, 54. “Except this year. This year, every body’s buzzing.”

The instructor, Alexis Wright, 29, pleaded not guilty this week to more than 100 counts of prostitution, while an accused associate, Mark Strong, pleaded not guilty to helping to run the business.

The Globe piece is more substantial than the Herald’s, but each has its unique attractions.

Such as the Globe’s inclusion of  Kennebunk’s town slogan:

In town, where a sign at the bridge hails the town as “the only village in the world so named,” the list of names and their uncertain fate was front and center.

And such as this photo in the Herald:

Oh, yes – and the comments in the Herald are more numerous – and more nasty – than those in the Globe.

 

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The Herald Heralds Itself . . . Again

October 4, 2012

From our Wave Those Pom-Poms! desk

It’s always instructive observing what the Boston Herald considers newsworthy, especially when it involves the paper itself.

Latest case in point: Today’s big news story about . . . That’s right: The Herald.

‘WARNING’ – Herald tops again!

Yesterday’s Herald Page One, advancing last night’s presidential debate, went national as one of the Newseum’s Top 10 front pages — the 11th time the prominent journalism institution has honored the paper this year.

The page, designed by Page One Editor Paul Keaney, was selected from hundreds of newspaper covers from around the world by the Washington D.C.-based organization.

 

Here’s the Newseum’s Top Ten feature from yesterday:

Rumble in the Rockies

How do you tell readers what they already know, that the two presidential contenders will debate tonight in Denver? Creativity is one way to do it, and it’s an approach shared by our 10 top front pages. If we had to pick just one for the pre-debate prize, it would be the Asbury Park Press with its “Rumble in the Rockies” reminder.

Close, Herald, but no cigar.

 

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Brown/Warren Debate and Ditch

October 1, 2012

Scott Brown (R-Clearly I’m Not) and Elizabeth Warren (D- Oh Yes He Is) have their much anticipated second U.S. Senate debate tonight. And since the debate is sponsored by UMass-Lowell and the Boston Herald, it’s also much hyperventilated in the feisty local tabloid, which devotes ten – count ’em, ten – pages to the bakeoff, including Page One (via the Newseum’s Today’s Front Pages):

Beyond the obligatory tale of the tape (which the hardsearching staff can’t find on the Herald’s website,) their are five – count ’em, five – thumbsucking columns. Chinstrokers Row comprises Joe Battenfeld, Jessica Heslam, Holly Robichaud, Kimberly Atkins and Andy Hiller of WHDH-TV, which will broadcast the debate.

PLUS . . . an editorial AND an op-ed by our BU colleague Tobe Berkovitz.

Whew!

As for the Boston Globe, they have exactly zero – count ’em, zero – mentions of the debate.

We’ll check back in when it’s the Globe’s turn to sponsor a debate.

 

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