Testimony in the truly horrific 2010 Mattapan quadruple murder trial began this week, and the appearance of a key witness, Kimani Washington, played very differently in Boston’s local dailies.
From Page One of Wednesday’s Boston Globe:
Key witness testifies on Mattapan killings
When his friend told him he knew a drug dealer they could rob for cash and cocaine, Kimani Washington said, he was in.
Robbing drug dealers was a way of life, the key witness testified yesterday in the 2010 killing of a toddler and three adults on a Mattapan street.
“They played the same game that I played,’’ Washington said. “That was the only way we were going to make our living.’’
But when his friend, Dwayne Moore, told him that after the robbery he had shot everyone, including the 2-year-old son of one of the victims, Washington said, he wanted to find a gun “to kill him.’’
Washington has cut a deal to testify in exchange for a sentence of 16-18 years in prison, with no murder charge.
Globe money graf:
Lawyers for the defendants have said Kimani Washington is lying to save himself.
Cut to Boston Herald columnist Peter Gelzinis, who’s far more judgmental under the headline, “Massacre testimony riddled with holes.”
Money graf:
Defense lawyers will get their chance [Wednesday] to tear through the vagaries of Kimani’s testimony and perhaps ask him why so many people had to die so he could walk away with a $600 score.
Speaking of scores, Round One goes to the Herald.
Campaign Outsider 
This may sound like an innocent question … but how does the Herald get away with grafs like that? Do Herald higher-ups take over the reporters writings and operate on it like some sort of surgery? How can this pass off as being accurate, responsible, and impartial or do we just expect the Herald not to be any of those things? Just wondering. I couldn’t get away with writing something like that. Then again, I don’t work at the “Boston” Herald.
Two things, Christian:
1) The Herald’s a tabloid. That’s what it does.
2) Peter Gelzinis is a columnist. That’s what he does.
Well said. Didn’t know Gelzinis was a columnist. Got it.
I’m not sure why you’re comparing the Globe’s news story with the Herald’s opinion column. Of course they read differently; that’s the point.
I read the Globe’s news story and got the full, negative opinion of the guy, and thought to myself that this jury very well might vote not guilty because he was not a credible witness. You don’t need to use Gelzinis’s “thug” and other words to convey the same message.
That’s exactly the point, Mike – the Globe is mostly about information, the Herald’s mostly about opinion. Just wanted to illustrate it.
P.S. The Globe caught up on the opinion front with Yvonne Abraham’s Thursday piece.