Boston Globe

You'd think a man accused of crimes against humanity would have more to worry about than what the Boston Globe writes

adamg — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 17:32:06 +0000

Dan Kennedy gives us an overview of the Globe retraction of its story that former Liberian dictator Charles Taylor - who sparked three civil wars (one of them in a neighboring country) - worked for the CIA. The retraction apparently hasn't been enough to keep the former Bentley student and one-time guest of the Commonwealth (MCI Plymouth, before he escaped) from taking time out from his busy schedule of defending himself before a special UN court on charges of rape, murder and other war crimes.

Oh, H-E-double-hockey-sticks

adamg — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 18:00:21 +0000

Serious pearl clutching going on in Boston media circles today. In the Globe, one mother frets about her kids using the word "butt." In the Boston Business Journal, one father frets that his sons are now going to exclaim "suck" all the time now that they heard Tom Brady use the verb in his post-game interview:

Come on, Tom. You're better than that. For the rest of the evening my boys were going on about how Tom Brady sucked today. A bit disappointing, considering how Brady is usually a stellar role model and manages to set a great example and say all the right things. I guess I'll give him a pass on this one, surely he was caught up in the moment and was disappointed in his less than great game.

Go get 'em in the Super Bowl Tom, but remember it's not all about you.

H/t Amy Derjue for reading the Globe op-ed pages so I don't have to.

The Globe and the kissing sex offender

adamg — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 13:00:47 +0000

A Globe story about love among the occupods left out an interesting fact about the guy shown kissing his girl at Dewey Square. The Herald helpfully reveals the fact that the guy is a Level 3 sex offender - although not the one who's caused a ruckus at Occupy Boston meetings of late.

No more Chicopee Herald

adamg — Sun, 08 Jan 2012 19:56:37 +0000

The Teamsters have signed off on a plan under which ~~dogs will lie down with cats~~ the Globe will print a bunch of copies of the Herald and 50 union members will lose their jobs. Presumably, the deal, which means savings for the Herald and new income for the Globe, also means freak snowstorms will no longer stop the Herald presses, or if they do, the Globe will pick up the slack.

Verizon software didn't screw Massachusetts towns, Verizon employees did

adamg — Sat, 17 Dec 2011 18:04:04 +0000

A story in the Globe today has the following headline and sub-headline:

Verizon to pay $800,000 settlement
Phone company says cities, towns were overcharged because of software

But as Steve Garfield notes, that's wrong, because as the story itself says, the problem was that employees entered the wrong data into the software:

It's human error. The 'software' doesn't make the error, a human does.

Having newspaper headline writers write captions for stories about software is like having politicians write legislation about the internet.

The two-newspaper town, Occupy Boston edition

adamg — Sun, 11 Dec 2011 18:14:19 +0000

John Carroll compares the Saturday coverage in our two dailies.

Interesting story placement on the boston.com home page

adamg — Mon, 07 Nov 2011 17:01:07 +0000

Oh, those wacky, fun-loving Henrys, whose joie de vivre is just so darn infectious, City Hall can't help but give them great deals on city property! Wouldn't you?

Or, as dvdoff, who spotted this example of All Henry, All The Time puts it:

If anyone else needed proof that Boston.com is turning into the Onion ...

Delusional Globe columnist whines about the Red Sox

adamg — Fri, 14 Oct 2011 15:18:23 +0000

No, not Shaughnessy:

Brian McGrory really should never write about sports.

He really has no clue. He attempts to wax poetically about the time when the Red Sox were lovable losers, but can't even manage a decent impression of Doris Kearns Goodwin in this regard.

But ya know what? Time for something happy:

If anybody should be blamed for outing the Icelandic connection, it's the FBI

adamg — Tue, 11 Oct 2011 13:31:26 +0000

Dan Kennedy analyzes the Globe's explanation on how it found the identity of the woman who turned in Bulger and why it didn't put her at any more risk than she already faced - thanks to the FBI saying a few months ago that the winning tip came from Iceland and, really, how many Icelanders would Bulger and Grieg have run across in Santa Monica? Also, he recalls how the rampaging Herald kept mocking the Icelandic connection until it got showed up on basic street reporting (the Globe got the name by talking to neighbors, doh).

Think Shaughnessy has come down from his high yet?

adamg — Fri, 30 Sep 2011 12:48:00 +0000

Bruce Allen examines the delight the Globe - not just Shank - took in the collapse of the Red Sox.

New bonus for bostonglobe.com subscribers: Factually correct illustrations

adamg — Tue, 27 Sep 2011 19:47:41 +0000

The Globe today ran an op-ed piece by John Farrell arguing against Republican efforts to privatize Social Security and Medicare by highlighting the experience of Clarence Darrow, a noted smart guy who still lost everything in the Depression. The version on boston.com has an illustration that actually shows the bobbing head of William Jennings Bryan, Darrow's legal opponent in the Scopes Monkey Trial (photo of the two men). BostonGlobe.com readers, however, got a version illustrated with a photo of Darrow.

Tip o' the chilled monkey brains to the alert UHub reader who actually looks at both versions of Globe stuff.

The Dig gets results: Globe site aimed at younguns no longer explicitly whoring itself out to olive-oil makers and other advertisers

adamg — Tue, 20 Sep 2011 19:17:13 +0000

Last week, the Dig reported that a Globe site aimed at Millennials had a rather interesting page aimed at would-be advertisers: Give the kiddies enough money and they'd write about you, extensively, and ask for more.

That page has been replaced with a rather more sedate page that just lists who's in charge of advertising, so instead, we'll just have to content ourselves with exciting articles for Millennials on why they should avoid all of Dorchester at all costs if they want to make it to 25, except for maybe part of Savin Hill, how Louis Vuitton has become interested in art and how to become a Starbucks addict ("just start hoarding Starbucks-branded items").

Sigh. If only I were hip and young and smart, I might think to go to Google Cache and grab a copy of the old page and post it here:

Like, OMG, I have a shot at making the Globe's Most Stylish Bostonians list

adamg — Sun, 18 Sep 2011 16:10:02 +0000

One of this year's selections is Tim Love, an architect whose contribution to style is wearing untucked dress shirts and standing against walls. I do both all the time; in fact, as I type this, I'm wearing an untucked dress shirt (kidlet on seeing his photo: "But you're not wearing a white shirt"). I better start clearing a space on the mantel for the trophy (there's gotta be a trophy, right?).

In his house at F'enway, dead Shaughnessy waits dreaming

adamg — Fri, 16 Sep 2011 14:45:40 +0000

Dan Shaughnessy Watch reads today's gleeful, error-riddled column so you don't have to.

The new bostonglobe.com is here

adamg — Mon, 12 Sep 2011 12:16:41 +0000

My first impression: Nice. No more eye strain, no more need to kill all those zombie popups, no more waiting forever while the site builds all those popups. Huzzah!

It's a much more leisurely approach to the news; the kind of thing that harkens back to the old days, when people actually settled down with a cup of coffee and the morning paper. The kind of thing you'd expect to see in an ad for a iPad, if those ads showed people reading the iGlobe on the way to work on the iRed Line.

Is it worth $3.99 a week (what they'll start charging Oct. 1)? Hard for me to say, since we already get the Sunday paper, which includes online access (for only $3.50 a week; go figure). What do you think?