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Memo to Globe: Ashmont is in Dorchester
By adamg on Wed, 10/13/2010 - 3:56pm
A Globe editor rejects accusations it only drops reporters into Mattapan when gruesome murders happen and cites three specific issues the paper has covered in the neighborhood. Gin Dumcius, a reporter for the Reporter newspapers, which cover Mattapan, suggests that covering three stories in two years is not exactly a glowing endorsement of the Globe's non-murder coverage, especially when one of those stories - screeching wheels at one end of the Mattapan trolley line - is actually an issue in Ashmont, which is in Dorchester.
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Comments
That's Why I
call it the New York Globe. Might as well be!
The Globe decided to be a
The Globe decided to be a regional newspaper long ago. As such, Mattapan has no more claim on coverage than does Rockland or Saugus. How much coverage do Rockland and Saugus get? If people were being murdered in those towns, it would get covered. The resulting coverage would be 'unbalanced.' There are lots of good people in Rockland and Saugus - I suppose.
People minding their own business and going to work every day is not news, and does not belong in a newspaper. Murder is news. If it wasn't covered, the same people would be complaining that their problems were being ignored. "If white children were being murdered in Wellesley, it would be in the headlines!" You know it's true - you've heard it before. The Globe is damned if they do, and damned if they don't.
Globe needs to invest in Boston neighborhoods
Boston.com has quite a successful local operation here in Somerville -- where it now competes with four other local news organizations. The Globe established this after Somerville residents complained about the loss of City Weekly. Shouldn't they try to replicate it in Mattapan and other Boston neighborhoods?
They finally are
There are now Your Town sites for several Boston neighborhoods, although not Mattapan or any neighborhoods that begin with "R."
Ed. note: The Globe does have a Mattapan site, and one for one of the two R neighborhoods, as Ron Newman notes below.
Boston.com/Roxbury and Mattapan
Are this and this brand new and still unpublicized? I just found them this morning after reading your reply.
Or I'm failing to keep up with the times, um, Globe
Thanks, didn't know those were up. So I should amend my comment to note the Globe still doesn't have a site for one neighborhood that begins with R.
Nothing wrong with being a regional paper
But revel in it, instead of citing a Dorchester story as an example of how you do a good job covering Mattapan.
screechy wheels
while the screechy wheels were directly affecting the neighbors of Dorchester's Ashmont station, it is known as the Mattapan trolley AND the Ashmont neighbors were insisting that the entire line be shut down till the screeching was solved, thereby leaving Mattapan without trolley service. So indeed, the story does have a Mattapan angle.
Somebody did a search on Mattapan
and the trolley story came up, not because it was about Mattapan, but due to the name of the trolley. That demonstrates the Globe is out of touch.
Ironically there was a T story the Globe ran
About how people in Mattapan are loving the new, longer buses on the 28 line (while people in Grove Hall remain pissed off at the T because they weren't told in advance about the new buses).
I wasn't aware
that Mattapan was it's own town...
Mattapan part of Town of Dorchester
Mattapan is a part of Dorchester. It was considered so for years, because it was a part of the Town of Dorchester.
For example, Mattapan residents attended the old Dorchester High School. Mattapan is part of the Dorchester District Court Area.
Map here:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/5c...
Ah, but by that logic ...
Jamaica Plain and Roslindale are still part of West Roxbury (as president of the Society for the Easily Amused, I like that West Roxbury District Court is in Jamaica Plain). Or going back even further, that West Roxbury is still part of Roxbury.
And yes, I realize Dorchester's claim to Mattapan is a lot more recent than West Roxbury's claim to JP (which I believe nobody still alive is making).