In Like Flynn at the Boston Herald

November 14, 2014

Score one for the Boston Herald: Today’s feisty local tabloid beats its crosstown rival to a juicy local story.

Start at the top of Page One:

 

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The story inside:

 

New Flap in Bid to Honor Flynn

A panel headed by City Council President Bill Linehan is floating the controversial idea of naming the Boston Convention & Exhibition Center — a key landmark closely linked to the recently deceased Mayor Thomas M. Menino — after former Mayor Raymond L. Flynn.

The proposal, included in a press release yesterday by the Raymond L. Flynn Commission headed by the STON1922.JPGSouth Boston councilor, met with immediate resistance from longtime city observers who worked with both mayors.

“Ray Flynn and Tom Menino were both old friends and they both deserve recognition, but I was in the trenches when I represented the City Council in the late 1990s, and Tom Menino was the person who drove the construction of the convention center, there’s no doubt about that,” said Larry DiCara, a former council president.

 

Along with that piece the Herald includes the obligatory reader reaction and also – awkward! – this column by the paper’s occasional chinstroker, Ray Flynn himself.

It was always about serving Hub’s people

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At the outset, let me say I never wanted my name on any city building or billboard — not even a sign at a baseball field.

But I am humbled by the kind gesture of Boston City Councilor Bill Linehan and his committee in recognizing my service to the people of Boston over the years.

The honor of serving the city I love was always enough for me. Working hard every day and doing the best I could for the needy and those without a political voice was all I ever wanted to do.

 

And etc.

Linehan – as he so often does – started moonwalking as soon as his trial balloon drew the least bit of heat. Right now, we know something will be named after Flynn and something after Menino – details TBA.

Details also TBA in the Boston Globe, which at post time had nothing on the naming rumpus.

 

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Maybe the stately local broadsheet should give Ray Flynn a column, eh?

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Round 2: Globe Still Has Ad-vantage in Menino Tribute Ads

November 3, 2014

The memorial ads for the Tom Menino keep rolling into the local dailies. And today the Boston Herald gets back in the pool with a pair of full-page ads.

Page 9:

 

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Page 19:

 

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Crosstown, the Boston Globe has both of those, plus this one (full page A5):

 

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And this one (quarter-page A9):

 

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The Herald will never catch up to the Globe in this category, but at least today the thirsty local tabloid didn’t get shut out. That’s something, anyway.

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Ad-vantage Boston Globe in Tom Menino Tribute Ads

November 3, 2014

As the hardreading staff predicted the other day, the passing of Tom Menino has triggered a tornado of tribute ads honoring Mistah Mayah.

And it touched down in yesterday’s Boston Sunday Globe.

From front to back of the Globe’s A section.

Page One:

 

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Page Two:

 

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Page Five:

 

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Page Seven:

 

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Page Nine:

 

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Page 11:

 

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Page 13:

 

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Crosstown, the total number of Menino tribute ads in Sunday’s Boston Herald: Zero.

Big surprise, eh?

P.S. Amid all the Big J journalistic encomiums, here’s Tom Menino’s obit in the Globe’s real-people Death Notices.

 

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That also didn’t run in the Herald.

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Who Is Nick Varano?

November 1, 2014

In the wake of Boston-Mayor-for-Life Tom Menino’s death, there will be . . . ads.

Lots of them.

(Check today’s editions of the local dailies for further details. The hardreading staff certainly will.)

First out of the blocks, though, is one Nick Varano, who ran this full-page ad in yesterday’s Boston Herald.

 

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And this half-page ad in the Boston Globe.

 

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So who, exactly, is Nick Varano? Plug him into the Googletron and you get this.

Okay then.

UPDATE: Actually, no tribute ads in today’s locals. Check again tomorrow, yeah?

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Tom Menino, the Cartoon Version

October 31, 2014

As we have noted on numerous occasions, Boston is lucky to be not only a two-daily town, but a two-cartoonist town as well.

And both weigh in on the death of former Mayor Tom Menino in similar style today.

The Boston Globe’s Dan Wasserman:

 

MeninoObitToonHOLD-1072

 

The Boston Herald’s Jerry Holbert:

 

holberts 10-31 cartoon

 

Two for the road, yes?

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Boston Herald Subscription: Biggest. Waste. Ever. (IV)

March 16, 2014

As the splendid readers of Two-Daily Town might remember, the hardreading staff is one of 17 home subscribers (a.k.a. The Few. The Proud. The Idiots) the Boston Herald boasts.

Consequently, here’s the front page of the fusty local tabloid that hit our porch this morning (tip o’ the pixel to the Missus).

 

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Right: All sports, all the time.

By contrast, here’s the front page of today’s Boston Globe.

 

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Exactly.

A later edition of the Herald did feature this front page, but the corn was off the cob by then. 

 

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We can’t wait until the Globe starts printing its papers  – and the Herald’s – in Millbury (see Dan Kennedy’s piece here). At that point the Sunday Herald will likely roll off the presses sometime Friday afternoon.

Fusty, indeed.

 

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Boston Herald Rips Off CommonWealth Magazine (Part II)

March 3, 2014

As the hardreading staff noted last week, CommonWealth Magazine broke this story about Boston Mayor Marty Walsh reassessing yet another sweetheart deal for the Red Sox and Fenway Park.

Walsh reviewing Red Sox deal

Agreement makes permanent Van Ness Street arrangement

THE ADMINISTRATION OF Boston Mayor Marty Walsh said it is reviewing an agreement the city struck with the Boston Red Sox in October that formalized a long-standing arrangement allowing the club to close off Van Ness Street during Fenway Park events.

The agreement, signed by Red Sox president Larry Lucchino and Mayor Thomas Menino’s police and transportation commissioners, makes permanent what appears to have been an informal arrangement between the club and the city allowing the team to close off the section of Van Ness next to Fenway during games. The Red Sox typically used part of the street for employee parking, paying no fee to the city to do so.

 

We also noted that the story was Xerox-reported by numerous other news outlets – including the Boston Herald and the Associated Press – without crediting CommonWealth.

What we failed to note was this further rip-off by the Herald.

Reporter Colman Herman wrote this in his piece: “No other single private entity is allowed to close off a street in Boston on a regular basis.”

In Richard Weir’s Herald report, that sentence is placed in the mouth of Gregory Sullivan, “the former state former [sic] inspector general  . . . [who] dismisses the Sox’ arguments as ‘irrelevant and a smokescreen.'”

“This is another precious gem dropped into the Red Sox basket at the expense of the taxpayers,” Sullivan, the research director of the Pioneer Institute, said of the Van Ness Street contract. “It’s a public street owned by the city of Boston. And no private party should have exclusive rights to use it in this way without compensating the city. Period. … No other single private entity is allowed to close off a street in Boston on a regular basis.” [Emphasis added]

 

We have it on good authority that Sullivan contends he never said that last part.

Back to you, Boston Herald and Richard Weir.

 

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Boston Globe’s Big Wet Kiss to Tom Menino, Big Wet Raspberry to Boston Herald

January 6, 2014

Yesterday’s Boston Sunday Globe featured a five-page Stockholm Syndrome sendoff to hardexiting Boston Mayor Tom Menino.

Representative sample (graphic here):

 

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Don’t take our word for it: Check it out yourself and you’ll find up to zero percent negative information in the piece.

But you will find this slight:

Menino has had a complicated relationship with the spoken word. His first campaign, he warned he was no “fancy talker.” A tabloid dubbed him “Mumbles.”

 

A tabloid?

Might that be the Boston Herald?

The Menino Gazette will never say.

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Globe: No Problem with Walsh’s Koh Dependency

January 5, 2014

According to today’s Boston Globe, Mayor-elect Marty Walsh has named a “relative political outsider” who is “relatively young” as his City Hall wingman – and that’s all good.

Walsh announces his chief of staff

Andover native, 29, has worked in politics, at Huffington Post

Boston Mayor-elect Martin J. Walsh on Saturday named Daniel Arrigg Koh, currently the general manager of Huffington Post Live, handout_koh_metas his chief of staff — the first major appointment in the administration that takes over control of the city on Monday.

“I’m excited to have Daniel joining our administration and bring a fresh, new energy to the mayor’s office,” Walsh said in a statement issued Saturday afternoon. “He has broad experience about City Hall and a deep understanding of managing a large, fast-paced organization. We have great talent joining us, and I know Daniel will help me transform the way we do things in Boston.”

 

And nary a discouraging word after that.

Not so fast, says crosstown rival Boston Herald on today’s front page.

 

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Inside, the feisty local tabloid elaborates.

Walsh names neophyte to key position

Some say mayor-elect taking a risk

Picking a 29-year-old political unknown as chief of staff is a bold, unexpected move and a sign that Mayor-elect Martin J. Walsh’s 010414Walshjm03administration is shaping up to take a new direction in City Hall — although the hire also is not without risks, experts said.

Daniel Arrigg Koh — an Andover native who last worked as general manager of HuffPost Live and a former adviser through Harvard’s Leadership Fellow Program for Mayor Thomas M. Menino — represents a young, intelligent hire with an impeccable resume, said John Nucci, Suffolk University vice president for government affairs.

 

Or maybe this . . .

Daniel Koh might be too young and too green to navigate the pitfalls of City Hall politics effectively, said Thomas J. Whalen, a Boston University social science professor. Walsh should have compensated for his own inexperience in City Hall by hiring someone well-versed in the political landscape, he said.

“This is a huge job. You think you would have someone who is older, more experienced and more connected,” Whalen said, adding that Koh will have to tangle with the city’s union leaders. “You’ll need a tough guy who can knock heads together. Will they respect someone 29 years old?”

 

Well, we know at least one person who doesn’t.

Leave it, as usual, to Herald graybeard Peter Gelzinis to provide some historical perspective in a piece headlined Koh may be right-hand man, but not clear he’ll be a heavyweight.

In his fifth and final go-round as mayor, Tom Menino looked across the river to Harvard and installed whiz-kid Mitch Weiss as his chief of staff. A beloved old pol craved new blood. And yet the man he trusted to handle the day-to-day life blood of politics was an up-from-the-streets-Southie native, Michael Kineavy.

It was a kind of schizophrenia that just about everyone in City Hall came to understand. “Kineavy was the get-it-done on the ground guy,” one longtime veteran said. “He was the guy that made government work in a way everyone understood.

 

The Herald covered a lot of bases on this story. Presumably, the Globe will play some catch-up tomorrow.

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Did the Globe Give a Mulligan to Tom Menino on Boston Development?

January 5, 2014

Last Thursday, the Boston Globe ran this Page One piece by its highly respected architectural critic Robert Campbell.

For urban design, Menino era scores highs and lows

 

maeda_19MeninoBRA_biz1

 

In his 20-plus years in office, Mayor Thomas M. Menino began as the healer of Boston’s neighborhoods. Over time, he morphed into the commander of downtown development.

Of course I’m simplifying. But I think that’s the short story people will remember about this mayor and his impact on the architecture of the city . . .

The mayor was involved in virtually every decision about architecture and urban design during his tenure. He wasn’t a visionary thinker, nor was he strong on aesthetics. But he was a master of detail who always seemed to know everything that was happening. He won’t be remembered for any single grand urban gesture. Instead, he presided over a multiplicity of lesser projects that, taken together, have changed the face of the city.

 

For better and for worse, as Campbell’s piece makes clear.

Then yesterday, the stately local broadsheet ran this Page One piece (dead-tree edition headline).

Skyline bears his distinctive signature

Impact of Menino’s development calls still unfolding

When Mayor Thomas M. Menino took office in 1993, Boston’s downtown was in the grip of a recession. Construction had slowed to Screen Shot 2014-01-05 at 12.45.59 AMa crawl, retailers were struggling, and the elevated Central Artery still spewed exhaust onto a waterfront that was more gritty than glitzy.

Then, an improbable chain of events unfolded: The Big Dig, massive cost overruns and all, replaced the rusting steel of the artery with a series of parks; people and new stores began moving back into the city’s core; and developers created bold plans for North Station, Downtown Crossing, and the South Boston waterfront.

Today, those sparks of renewal are exploding in a historic spate of development, with more than 5,700 homes under construction and huge office, retail, and housing complexes rising from the South Boston Innovation District to Dudley Square. While he was not directly responsible for all of those projects, Menino played a central role in rebuilding a city that is now among the world’s top markets for real estate investment.

 

That’s a very different picture, yeah?

Yeah.

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