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Best question of the day
By adamg on Fri, 03/18/2005 - 11:56am
Marilora: Why must trees die so that the Herald can live?
She's upset by the Herald's latest Salvadoran gang story, which yet again paints East Boston as a gang stronghold:
... I don't know what their definition is of a "stronghold in East Boston," but I do know that Eastie had one of the lowest homicide rates in the city of Boston. Can you guess what the 2004 homicide rate was in a city considered the "stronghold" of a "brutal," "bloodletting" gang? 100? Maybe, 50? Nope. A big, whopping 2. That's right. I said 2! And what was my source for this wonderful statistic? None other than the Boston Herald. ...
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Comments
Oy.
Whenever I look through the Herald, I'm first astonished that they seem to get away with things like calling people killers who haven't been convicted of anything, using slurs to refer to people, and so forth.
But then I remember taking a course about libel. We had a discussion specifically about information sources such as the Weekly World News, or flyers about political issues that are handed out with no citation other than some random P.O. box if even that, and we were shown many examples of case law that have set a precendent that it's not libel if it's coming from a source that no thinking person would conisder credible.
One of the journalists who does critiques at the Society of Professional Journalists conferences often writes "SYIC" across blocks of text, meaning "see you in court." He emphasizes over and over that you're gonna get your ass sued if you either use terms that imply a conviction or judgment when there has been none ("killer," "rapist," "psychopath") or that imply an identity with which the person has not self-identified ("lesbian," "Mormon," "liberal").
I'm guessing these formalities don't apply to the Herald though (see "coming from a source that no thinking person would conisder credible" op cit).
The Herald should just quit
The Herald is little more than a gossip rag. Even the Metro is a better paper. There's a Herald dispenser on my walk to work and on the side of it is painted something about the Herald being "fair and unbiased" or some other such crap. I think not. It just likes to rile people up about nothing and call liberals dirty names. If only there could be some way to close it down.
Dissenting view
Yes, the Herald is often sensationalist and gossipy. Its editorial-page writers often appear to lack intelligence. But any number of times, it has reported important local news at least a day earlier than the Globe. Their reporters often understand the city better than their counterparts at the Globe.
That doesn't excuse stories like the one complained about here, but I'd rather live with the Herald's occasional excesses than have Boston join the ranks of America's one-newspaper cities.
but!
I'm not objecting to a dissenting view, I like debate. I just wish we could have an intelligent right-wing paper rather than the Herald. Or at least a paper that would keep actual front page material on the front page.
You could someday get your wish
You could someday get your wish, if this Globe article turns out to be accurate:
Boston Herald publisher looks to cut costs at paper
But if the Herald disappears, I, for one, will not celebrate.
take the Globe, too
How is that worse than the Morrissey Blvd. Times* getting people worked up over how 2 murders represents a return to gang warfare?
*In the interest of full disclosure, I feel it is my duty to mention that my parrot uses the Boston Globe for a toilet.