Mark Jurkowitz takes a break from packing long enough to express outrage that a tabloid newspaper would use puns in headlines and that you can often tell from photographs of women that they have breasts.

For a couple weeks there, our Professional Media Critic was back to his old routine of only covering things happening hundreds of miles away ("For those who care, here's a piece from LA City Beat casting a very jaundiced eye on New Times honcho Mike Lacey's plans for the newly acquired Village Voice" - yawn).

But now, whoosh, hold onto your fedoras, because Mark Jurkowitz has discovered that newspapers still exist in Boston. Why, he even had something bad to say about the Globe.

Alas, all good things must come to an end: Jurkowitz is leaving the Phoenix to become associate director of the Project for Excellence in Journalism in Washington.

Sorry, I can't think of a witty way to link to my newspaper disclosure today.

The Professional Media Critic reads about a newspaper controversy in a Third World country 99.9% of Americans could not locate on a map if their lives depended on it. Instead of marveling that said country now has enough freedom of the press to even allow a newspaper controversy, he concludes from the story that American journalism will go to hell in a handbasket if newspapers here actually give readers what they want to read.

My standard newspaper disclosure.

Sean McCarthy writes for the Herald, so you might expect him to care about goings-on at that paper, but he does raise an interesting question about Boston's own Professional Media Critic: Does Mark Jurkowitz realize the Globe isn't the only daily newspaper published inside Rte. 128?

Since Dec. 28, Jurkowitz has posted 14 items about newspapers on his Media Log. Eight mention the Globe. Three mention the New York Times. One mentions the Lawrence Eagle-Tribune. None mention the Herald. He wrote fairly extensively about how the Globe changed its front page during the miner disaster without once mentioning how the Herald did the same thing.

Ah, well. I'd go back farther in the Media Log archives, but, um, there aren't any, at least none that are visible from the new Media Log page (also gone: the Atom feed and links to actual items from the Phoenix home page). Maybe I'll just go read his big Don't Quote Me piece this week that promises an answer to the question that's vexed us all: How will Boston survive without Maureen Dezell?

OK, so I'll head over to Johnny Bag O'Donuts for some in-depth Herald criticism, in this case an examination of today's Herald front page:

... Let's start with the biggest story, "Violent muggers stalk hub." They're coming to get you! Fearmongering is in the house. The story details muggings in Dorchester, JP, Charlestown and Hyde Park, but the picture behind the humongous headline shows Landsdowne Street, specifically Axis, for what I can only imagine is no reason at all. Even better, it's one of those pictures where a passing car looks like a trail of lights. What I think the Herald is getting at, which is pretty terrifying, is that The Flash is running around Boston, mugging people and then stopping off at Axis for some club drugs and high-speed dancing.

Better again, it looks a little bit like The Flash is running out of the bottom of a giantic Hillary Swank's dress. Hillary Swank, apparently, is extrememly fashionable whilst terrorizing Landsdowne street King Kong-style, and the Herald thinks this is very important. ...

My standard newspaper disclosure.

No more medialog_2. Now Mark's at thephoenix.com/medialog. First post: Optimism that the revival of Jack Williams at Channel 4 means Big Personalities are back at local anchordesks (hmm, does this mean somebody will be unfreezing Tom Ellis?).

Mad props to readers of The Professional Media Critic for trying to steer him back toward Boston. Yesterday, the Critic posted about some Chicago newspaper discontinuing a Metro-like edition. Not so fast, there, buddy. Bostonians are in the house - and they want to talk about the Herald's handling of the Dorchester quadruple murder - something the Critic himself has yet to discuss.

In fairness, he did post about the judge and the Herald and media reaction to the Damon situation - although interestingly, without mentioning the newspaper whose ownership also owns part of the Red Sox (plus, it's not like the other people who get paid to write about the media, the kiddies at the Dig, have mentioned the story).

Earlier:

Herald wrong in Dorchester slay story?
Should the cops take shortcuts to solve those murders?

Should I stop posting about the local papers so much?

The Professional Media Critic finally weighs in on Theogate. For the most part, Mark Jurkowitz's long piece tells you absolutely nothing you couldn't have read last week on, oh, Boston Sports Media Watch, although it could prove useful as a handout for new immigrants from Kansas or Mars who don't know why local sports fans keep cursing this Shaughnessy guy. Curiously, though, the one thought-provoking new idea comes all the way at the end, in the very last paragraph:

... How come with all the manpower devoted to covering the Red Sox from spring training through the playoffs, we never really got a whiff of the serious - and ultimately decisive - tensions between Epstein and Lucchino until the contract talks blew up? Isn't that something that journalists in regular contact with the team for more than six months should get wind of and make part of the ongoing coverage? These days, the exploits and activities of the Red Sox regularly make page one, the business pages, and even the gossip columns. Where were the city's aggressive sports media on what turned out to be the most important off-field story of the year?

But at least he did finally write about it. The other people who get paid to write about Boston-area media, the little tyros at the Weekly Dig's Media Farm, once again ignored the biggest media story in Boston, preferring instead to pick on silly headlines and quotes in the Herald and the BU student newspaper.

My standard newspaper disclosure.

Keeping his powder dry. In response to pleas to discuss Theogate and the role of the press, Mark writes, on his blog:

Is there anything cuter than two feuding journalists?

My standard newspaper disclosure.

Is it too much to ask that a Boston media critic know what's going on in the local media? Especially one who has basically been covering and working in the local media for years now?