New York Times
This morning's boston.com ran this headline and subhead describing yesterday's Presidential appearance at the Republican Congressional retreat in Baltimore:
Obama, GOP exchange scoldings in rare debate
President Obama denied he was a Bolshevik, Republicans denied they were obstructionists, and both sides denied they were to blame for toxic politics. (New York Times)
Here's the headline and subhead on nytimes.com describing the same event:
Off Script, Obama and the G.O.P. Vent Politely
By PETER BAKER and CARL HULSE
President Obama attended a House Republican retreat for a robust debate on policies and politics with the opposition, a rarity in the scripted world of American politics.
Seems Mary Tripsas, a Harvard Business School professor, accepted a free flight to 3M's headquarters, then wrote about how wonderful its "innovation" center in her New York Times column. Only problem, as NYTpicker points out, The Times says freelancers aren't supposed to accept free trips from companies they write about. Prof says she was invited because she teaches at Harvard, not because she writes for the Times, so everything's cool.
Via Shots in the Dark.
Sara Rimer, who chronicled Boston's monied class and intelligentsia for the Times, was laid off today, along with a couple dozen other Times writers.
The Times published a nice obituary for Brother Blue the other day - three weeks after his death. And, of course, this being the Times, they couldn't rely on other media accounts of his death: "The death was confirmed by his wife, Ruth."
Via eagle-eyed John Carroll.
The Times itself reports the paper is planning a San Francisco edition featuring local news - as is the Wall Street Journal:
In addition to planning a San Francisco edition, The Times is exploring the prospects for regional editions based in other cities.
Via John Carroll, already wondering whether the Times would unload the Globe, then promptly launch a Boston edition (then again, anybody remember when the Times tried a New England section?).
Who knew New York Times columnists were so sensitive? Thanks to Chris Faraone at the Phoenix, we now know that Mo Mo doesn't read what people write about her on the Internet because it would hurt her feelings. So what does she do? She hurts our feelings, by quoting some pointyheaded douche from the New Republic:
The Internet is like closing time at a blue-collar bar in Boston. Everyone's drunk and ugly and they're going to pass out in a few minutes.
Dude, of course, went to Harvard, so I'm figuring him to be the model for that blowhard in "Good Will Hunting" who lost the girl to the guy from Southie.
Globe columnist Cullen likens relationship between Globe and NYT Co. to that between debtor and loan shark. Overall, it reads like a resigned realist, laying it out.
This installment of the loansharking metaphor is relatively free of violence, but tune in for the next exciting episode.
The Times stereotypes Boston natives as quivering in fear of giant metal birds that belch smoke losing yet another local institution to sophisticated New Yorkers. The Outraged Liberal shakes an ox bone at the metal beast explains why it's just more proof of how out of touch the Manhattan Overlords are:
... I personally think we're over the "faraway headquarters" angst -- something the faraway owners of the Times should have recognized awhile ago, if they paid attention. BankBoston, John Hancock, Gillette. That's so 20th Century.
In fact, we've adapted quite well to Google and Microsoft entering our midst to provide employment for folks with an affinity to MIT, that other major Cambridge institution whose name does not begin with an H.
No offense to Perez-Pena, but the assignment seemed as if it were described as "find out why those people are so upset." The folks in charge in Manhattan seem to be totally out of touch with the reality of Boston today. ...
Ed. note: Also, the reporter was obviously relying on outdated clips, because he thinks the Filene's building is still standing.
He won't talk to the Globe for its weeklong eulogy, but he will talk to the New York Times:
... He considers unnecessary what his son Representative Patrick J. Kennedy of Rhode Island calls "the premature eulogizing," or what Mr. Biden terms "a bordering on an obituary," that has accompanied his life in recent months.
"Obviously I've been touched and grateful," Mr. Kennedy said in a phone interview Friday from the rented home in Miami where he has spent most of the winter. "Beyond that, I don't really plan to go away soon." ...
Via the Outraged Liberal, who wonders what sort of discussions went on among Globe editors today as they picked up their copies of the Times.
http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200901/new-york-times
...It could sell The Boston Globe-or shutter it entirely, given what the company itself has acknowledged is a challenging time for the sale of media properties. It could sell its share in the Boston Red Sox, close or sell various smaller properties, or off-load About.com, the resolutely unglamorous Web purchase that has been virtually the only source of earnings growth in the Times Company's portfolio. With these steps, or after them, would come mass staffing cuts, no matter that the executive editor, Bill Keller, promised otherwise...
What would Boston look like if our daily newspaper option was the Boston Herald? What if the Boston Phoenix was the best source of news in the city? I guess the folks over in Newton would be spared having to share their content with Boston.com as well. Speaking of, Boston.com as a name must be worth quite a bit, how much would it be worth and who would be willing to pay for it?
And based on his four years here, concludes he knows Boston well enough to condemn it for all time - and then bolsters his all-knowing conclusion with a book about stuff that happened when the Red Sox were owned by people who haven't had anything to do with the team for years, because they're dead.
Via Jeff Egnaczyk.
So instead it devotes front-page space to detail how Deval Patrick isn't a Third-World tyrant bending the state legislature to his will, while failing, as the Outraged Liberal notes, to pick up on the possible ethical questions being raised about Sal DiMasi.
Still, as Dan Kennedy writes:
If you're the governor of Massachusetts, this is not how you want to be featured on the front page of the New York Times. ...
Charley on the MTA notes the Gray Story didn't tell us anything new and got some stuff wrong, but wonders why Patrick is so completely invisible away from the State House (and no, Mr. Governor, DevalPatrick.com doesn't count):
... He doesn't get out to town hall meetings; he doesn't hold events with the general public to take the temperature of the body politic; in other words, he has indeed lost his political touch. ...
Jay Fitzgerald continues to make the case that DiMasi's casino victory was of the Pyrrhic variety.
Meanwhile, over at the local broadsheet, Joan Vennochi proves her mastery of Lexis/Nexis: She devotes an entire column to pasting in examples of politicians caught in lies over the past decade, then concludes with two sentences that set a new bar for stating the obvious - that presidential candidates get in trouble when they get caught lying. O RLY?
Harry at Squaring the Boston Globe also wonders whether Clinton was caught in another lie - by a college student.
Michael at the AIDS Action Committee writes:
Hello, New York Times ... HIV isn't making an alarming comeback; it has never gone away. It never stopped infecting and affecting our communities. It never stopped taking our friends and loved ones. What happened is that HIV has moved from the front pages of our newspapers, from the screens of our televisions, and from the forefront of many minds, and ultimately from the pens of funders. ...
The Gray Lady interviews Mike Torrez (about how the Yankees could still stage a comeback this year). Redsock notes Torrez got some things wrong and the Times failed to correct him - specifically, about Bill Lee and Bobby Sprowl.
Every June, the New York Times travel section writes about some marvelously chic little Boston neighborhood it's discovered. Last year, it declared the South End almost hip. This June, it pronounces Southie tamed, i.e., the streets are no longer lined with beefy hooligans waiting to shiv anxious-looking New Yorkers (obviously, the story was written before recent events). It's even illustrated with an ICA photo (surprise!) that's captioned:
The Institute of Contemporary Art sits on the HarborWalk, designed to reconnect the South Boston waterfront to the rest of the city.
Because, you know how difficult it was to get to Southie before the HarborWalk was completed, which, well, er, um, it hasn't been, but no matter, because until the ICA opened, a trip to Southie meant rushing in in a convoy of armored Escalades with plenty of bodyguards:
... While a few factories were converted into artists' lofts over the last two decades, it remained a seedy place. ...
Via MetaBoston
John Daley finds it interesting that a story that ran in the Times about cities gaining populations of young people didn't have a paragraph about loser cities - which include Boston - but that the paragraph did run in other papers that carried the story.
Mark Jurkowitz wonders if that 17% ownership of the Olde Towne Team is affecting the Times' editorial judgment, what with giving the Sox more ink over the offseason than either the Yankees or Mets and now with giving the Sox opener at Fenway better play than the Yankees opener at Yankee Stadium.
Note to Mark: It is possible to grow up in New York, indeed, to have achieved the highest goal a New York Mets fan could ever hope to accomplish (i.e., go to a game in the 1969 World Series) and still become a Red Sox fan after moving to Boston. Just open your mind and let the loooove flow into you.
Bonus disclosure fact: The checks for my Globe column actually come from the Times.
More