Media

News folks at other stations in town are fuming over the way WCVB's Susan Wornick got first dibs on video from an interview with Tom Menino at Spaulding Rehabilitation Hospital. As one newsie at another station tells us (on condition of anonymity, natch), Channel 5 didn't score some great scoop - the mayor was just gracing them for its live coverage of the annual lighting of the Christmas tree on the Common.

This newsperson says Channel 5 at first told other stations it had the video and said it would provide a copy as part of a "pool" arrangement - common with stories where stations share video due to limited space, for example, at courtroom hearings.

Which you can't do. Pool video has to be talked about ahead of time. Then they said the mayor's office was giving Channel 5 the exclusive for 6 p.m. and then other stations, the Globe and Herald could have it. 5 said the mayor's office was holding it back and the mayor's office said, "because of their partnership with Channel 5, and the tree lighting."

They been giving stuff to Channel 5 for a long time and screwing everyone else, but yesterday was the worse! The Globe was crediting WCBV last night for the video - not WCVB. Wonder if it's a error or deliberate.

A concerned citizen on Beacon Hill complained after the Boylston trolley accident this afternoon:

Is the helicopter circling for the T accident really necessary?? I don't think so... it's not medflight just the news being overly obnoxious. Not safe for it to fly over heavily populated areas. I thought there were safety regulations?

The city quickly closed the case:

The city of boston does not have jurisdiction over media helicopters in the area. i believe permission is granted through the federal aviation administration.

John Carroll reports.

No, not this one, alas. Open Media Boston has a couple of openings for stringers with some journalism experience.

We know $50 [per article] isn't much money. So we're looking for people that can crank out news content fast. People that don't mind having their work edited, but whose work doesn't need much editing. Because they know what they're doing. Which is, like, a virtuous circle. We want people who can take an assignment - or offer one of their own - go out in the field, cover something, go home, do follow-up work, write up a story, and submit it.

Not that we have any evidence he's thinking of it, but it's good to know one-time protege Pat Purcell would have options for his scrappy little tabloid under a proposal to allow cross ownership in the nation's 20 largest TV markets. You may recall how Uncle Rupe had to decide between Channel 25 and the Herald back in the days when he and Ted Kennedy didn't get along.

BostInno to become sib of the Journal (also, Parade).

The Globe reports Editor Marty Baron is leaving the Globe for the Washington Post.

UPDATE: File this under: Hello, Sweetheart, Get Me Rewrite. The headline on the online version of the story, which is what set me off, is "New T manager underwent professional counseling in Atlanta," which has a much different tenor than the print headline: "T's pick for chief faced scrutiny."

Read the lead story in the Globe today and you're left with the impression that the Globe is like: OMG, we just hired a crazy lady to run the T!

What the Globe only sort of explains, though, is just what sort of counseling the Business Psychology Company LLC does. Fortunately, even on a Sunday morning, any joker with an Internet connection can use the Googles for research. And here's what one joker found:

Beantown Mom, "a start-up luxury/glossy print magazine for moms in the Greater Boston area," is looking for a managing editor.

How luxe? It'll be the sort of pub that assumes its readers would be interested in a $3,500 acrylic crib, explains why you shouldn't feel guilty about spending $1,000 on a Bugaboo stroller ("When you splurge on a Bugaboo, you are certainly not buying into the price tag") and alerts you that Linda Pizzuti Henry's Second Baby Bump (is) Growing Beautifully.

Yeah, losing hurts and sometimes all you can do is lash out at the people around you. Adults can make a learning experience of it, though, Holly.

Wicked Local Somerville reports: Drunk man yells at Somerville cops.

The BBC's World Have Your Say has rented out Old South Meeting House today and stuffed it with "U.S. voters" who are supposed to be answering the world's questions about the presidential elections. The show airs live tonight on BBC World TV, 8:10 p.m., our time.

H/t Sarina Tracy and Ami Chitwood.

BostonHerald.com is now powered by Drupal. You go, you crazy open-source-loving fiends, you! But, um, the site (hosted by the Burlington-based Acquia, whose founder came up with Drupal) is lapsing in and out of consciousness this afternoon as they work out the kinks in their new cloud-based Drupal server farm.

Such as the one of the city you cover.

Or as media wags would say: Thank God We're a Two-Newspaper Town (tm). Yes, the latest circulation figures are out.

The Globe says God, we're awesome - our numbers are so strong it's like we took a double dose of Cialis.

OK, OK, yeah, technically, dead-tree circulation continued to drop like a rock tied to an anchor, but, hey, digital subscriptions count now, and they're up, and we're up, so knock it off. Real shame about the losers over at the Herald, the Globe adds:

The Boston Herald's daily circulation fell below 100,000 in the period. The tabloid's circulation declined by 14.9 percent to 96,860, compared to same period a year ago, according to the bureau. The Herald's Sunday circulation was 77,764, down 9.4 percent.

Over at New Wingo Square, though, the Herald advises the Globe to shut the frick up: Herald sees readership spike:

The reach of the Boston Herald is greater than ever before as the brand of its quality journalism is showing strong growth across digital platforms.

The numbers tell the story: Print readership up 15 percent daily over last year to nearly a half-million. A whopping 47 percent growth in weekly e-edition readers. An impressive 2.6 million unique visitors a month to bostonherald.com, an 18 percent spike over last year.

The scrappy tabloid adds:

The shift in the media landscape has the Herald counting broadcast and digital platforms as top competitors in the new marketplace as opposed to the Boston Globe, which dropped 11 percent of daily readers in Scarborough Research comparisons.

Yes, it's bad out there - Ed Harding at Channel 5 just put his glasses on.

On Channel 5, Bianca de la Garza just advised people not to go down to the beach to look at the angry sea - right after John Atwater checked in from Scituate, where he stood by a seawall, looking at the angry sea.

The Dorchester Reporter reports the demise of the South Boston Tribune, the Hyde Park Tribune and the Argus-Citizen. The Jamaica Plain Gazette notes the end of the Jamaica Plain Citizen, part of the same group.

The Herald, natch, loves it some schadenfreude over a spat between Dennis Lehane and the Globe over a review - which the Globe corrected - that originally took Lehane to task for portraying a character in a new book as a magical Negro, when, in fact, the character is white.

Boston Sports Media Watch dissects the latest column by a Globe sportswriter about how those damn kids have no respect at all, not like in his day.

Last week:
The Globe writer who hates bloggers.

Take a jab at finding the similarities here.

A roving UHub correspondent thought there was something familiar about today's Herald front page, which featured a gloved hand holding a syringe to illustrate an end-of-the-world headline about state oversight of that fungus-infested Framingham pharmacy. Sure enough, he rummaged around and discovered the Herald had used the same exact stock photo a year or so ago to illustrated a front-page, end-of-the-world headline about people selling themselves as human guinea pigs for drug tests. Only today's version didn't feature the white-coated guy holding a fistful of dollar in the other hand.

Hmm, what could the Herald use Needleman for next?

We think we'll go for a walk, Phoenix declares, in response to some Salon body collector.

The Friends Booksale has Portuguese Books! Get them while there here!

Daniel Wagner surveys Kevin Paul Dupont's hatred of bloggers, counters that Dupont is just a bitter old ink-stained wretch unable to research his assertions.

The Herald reports on a couple of guys who did a video about the sort of people who live in Boston, which the Herald identifies only as "Mass -----" because apparently "Massholes" would send countless numbers of Herald readers into fainting spells.