This week’s Great Boston MediaWatch Dogfight saw the Boston Herald’s Press Party 
addressing “[t]he media’s handling of a scathing audit claiming the state has handed out more than $2 million in welfare benefits to dead people . . . ratings for MSNBC dive as support for the Bruins rises. Plus the #mediafail of the week.”
Not surprisingly, the Herald chinstrokers whacked the Boston Globe for downplaying the welfare story, and lionized the feisty local tabloid for playing it up.
Crosstown, WGBH’s Beat the Press (full disclosure: blah blah blah) had a segment headlined “Boston Herald Spotlights Welfare Fraud” and also discussed – well, we’re not sure, because all the website says is this:
Sometimes a dog with a bone is a good thing, a case in point
being the Boston Herald’s persistent coverage of welfare abuse and EBT card fraud. This week, the state auditor released a report validating the Herald’s reporting.
Oh, yes – and this:
Ugh! We are having a temporary problem with our video compression server. We hope to have the video posted soon. Sorry for the inconvenience.
Yeah, ditto.
Campaign Outsider 
You mean you don’t watch Emily and Dan in real time?
There goes your annual Christmas card from them.
I sure do miss listening to Calley though. Best part of the show.
Actually, Mudge, my Xmas card was Xed out years ago.
________________________________________
Beat the press is posted to the comcast On demand section (Local-Local networks–wgbh–) on the same night is is broadcast.
Only Dan Kennedy noted that the rate of fraud is actually pretty low. But even he joined in general consensus, ie. that overplaying a story about welfare (to the point of falsifying it, in my opinion) is praiseworthy because the Herald is a TABLOID and that’s what TABLOIDS do. The bigotry of low expectations.
Thanks, Bob. Actually, the show without a link just isn’t blogworthy. Call me superficial, but there it is.
________________________________________
The real question is: when will somebody audit the state auditor’s work? According to the governor, her report is full of lots of mistakes, i.e., people she thought dead but who are alive and qualify for those benefits.
Even if most of the auditor’s cases turn out to be bogus — which I doubt — will the feisty tabloid throw in the towel? Of course not, because theirs is journalism by anecdotal evidence, not by thorough investigation. All it takes is one fraud case for the Herald-istas to declare the welfare system corrupt.
There’s a fair amount of skepticism out there, Mike – see Adrian Walker’s Globe column last week for a representative sample.
But you’re right – that will never stop the Herald Excess (sorry, Express). ________________________________________