Boston Herald

Leave it to the Boston Herald to use the recent tragedy of the Boston Marathon bombing for politics, the politics of transitional assistance also known as welfare. Say what? What does domestic terrorism and welfare have to do with each other?

Well, yesterday the legislature on Beacon Hill was debating a budget and Republicans are, once again, trying to use welfare as a wedge issue. Also yesterday, Chris Cassidy at the Boston Herald broke a front page news story that deceased Boston Marathon bomber Tamerlan Tsarnaev was a welfare recipient. Sounds bad, right?

Will Steve Lynch enter the contest for Boston Mayor? According to the Boston Herald, many believe that Steve Lynch will enter the Mayoral Contest to replace Tom Menino after the April 30th U.S. Senate Election.

Sour grapes at the Herald? With bonus gratuitous quote from some lawyer making accusations with no apparent facts behind them:

If he was a reporter on deadline and he's distracted and making phone calls and texting, then that's something that adds to his fault. You're not supposed to be distracted in a cab, you're supposed to focus fully on your job," said Douglas Sheff, a Boston personal injury lawyer and president-elect of the Massachusetts Bar Association.

Does the esquire have any proof the reporter was on deadline and making phone calls and texting right before the crash? If so, he and the Herald failed to produce 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.

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.

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.

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.

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?

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.

After rushing to Channel 25 to defend America from evil terrorist Muslim murals on the Greenway, the Flying Internet Truthiness Squad rushed back to the Herald this morning to defend America from evil terrorist Muslims out to get Christians, Sikhs and God-fearin' gun owners.

Four, John Carroll reports, adding that left the Herald no space at all to cover the Mittstakes out of London.

Margery Eagan is outraged beyond belief that Robert Kraft made that cheesy demo tape to help out his possible girlfriend. Why, why, why, she sputters, the horny ol' goat has demeaned his children and his saintly late wife.

Not that some rich guy needs any help, but how dare she.

Did Kraft abuse this woman? Did he solicit her in a men's room? Is this woman underage? A Russian spy? A known typhoid carrier?

I don't know anything about the Krafts, but if Myra Kraft was as good a person as she seemed in public, I'm going to doubt her last dying wish was that her husband crawl into a shell and never come out after she was gone. Based on what we now know, Robert Kraft didn't break any laws or commit any grave acts of moral turpitude. Is he being silly? Unseemly? Even if the answer is yes, so what? He's an adult, the woman in question is an adult and Margery Eagan is just some pearl clutcher who probably needs to carry around a vial of smelling salts to help her recover from all the horrid, horrid things she spies.

Peter Gelzinis has one common-sense observation in his column today - that hipsters who don't know where Roche Bros. is, let alone want to collect signatures there, pose little real threat to Tom Menino.

But not content to leave well enough alone, Gelzinis wraps that single thought in a giant blanket of old-coot "hey you kids, get offa my lawn!" grumbling about how whippersnappers who want to party until 5 a.m. are to blame for that poor Army vet's death in the Theater District and that if Boston weren't already so hip, people wouldn't be paying top dollar for "impish condos." Sounds like somebody needs a nap.

Seems that when a big convention is in town, the MBTA runs special Silver Line service to the airport straight from the convention center, rather than making people carry their bags on that long walk to the nearest Silver Line stop and crowding onto a bus there.

Are you outraged? The Herald is, to the point of displacing its long-running Indian Joke of the Day series from the front page, which today features end-of-world fonts to accuse the T of stealing "all" its buses to service fat-cat conventioneers. Who, the Herald grudgingly admits, pay their fares just like rest of us - but only after the paper's crack investigative unit did some undercover surveillance:

On Friday, a Herald reporter and photographer observed people at the convention center paying regular fares to board the nonstop airport-bound Silver Line buses. The drivers did not take normal Silver Line routes or make any Silver Line stops before dropping passengers at Logan Airport. A driver said the buses provide conventioneers with rides to the airport. A bus tailed by the Herald did not follow the Silver Line’s dedicated bus route, instead driving directly to the Ted Williams Tunnel.

The horror!

Ed. derail question: Why is the convention center stop so far away from the convention center?

The week's Bochwhoring Index stands at 2.

Yesterday, of course, the Gals mentioned Boch Jr.'s celebrity roast and then, today, they used an on-air tiff between the roast host and some DJ we're relieved to see is still alive to play up the Norwood resident's name (in the headline, in a reference in the column, in an accompanying photo and, online, a clip from the roast - hmm, so should that make the Index a 6?).

Production problems mean delayed delivery of the Boston Globe across the region today. The Herald is, of course, also affected. On Beacon Hill, residents faced their own existential crisis, as Emily Gullickson reports:

Sunday Times delivery is late, leaving everyone in Beacon Hill to drink their coffee without the paper.

The Globe Web site opened up free versions of its e-edition, but too many people took it up on the offer or something and www.bostonglobe.com crashed. Meanwhile, on Channel 7, Michaela Lynn informs us, a reporter alerted viewers:

The Globe says that you can read the Globe online, or just watch the news here.

Yes, of course, Ernie Boch Jr., we learn today from his house organ.

The Herald has completed its move to the South Boston waterfront.

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.

Ripped from today's Herald: Are 'Joe for Oil' ads lubricating Joe III's run?

Perfectly valid question to ask, but nowhere does the story suggest that Joe4Oil has suddenly ramped up his omnipresent ads now that his kid is thinking of running for Congress, although it does note he's been thanking the people of Venezuela on TV for years now.

The Herald issued a TERROR ALERT on the news.

John Carroll compares the Saturday coverage in our two dailies.

Blue Mass. Group notes the conflict in a column by Holly Robichaud, who doubles as both scribe and political consultant:

How does a freshman state representative get mentioned as a "serious threat" to Democrats looking to retain the Congressional seat being vacated by Barney Frank? Seventeen grand should do it.

Thing is, Robichaud failed to note the consulting fees, for which, of course, BMG provides the state records.

It was kind of striking yesterday: Around the same time, women in two separate neighborhoods were reporting being sexually attacked.

One of the attacks got played up extensively in the media, the other didn't. Naturally, it would be easy to assign bias to the fact that the news copters and vans raced to Wellesley to cover the attack by a bald black guy on a white teenager in her large suburban home, but couldn't seem to find Franklin Park on a map (with some exceptions).

A power outage at wherever it is the Herald gets printed these days (Chicopee?) means no Heralds for sale around here. The Dedham Square newsstand even has a "NO HERALDS" sign above the shelf where they'd normally be.