It’s Good to Live in a Two-Newspaper Town

Posted on August 30, 2009 by Campaign Outsider

I’ve often characterized the Boston Herald as a lively index to the Boston Globe, but on Saturday the feisty local tabloid absolutely blowtorched (I think) what it likes to call “the boring broadsheet.”

Globe headline:

EMC cofounder Richard Egan dies

Lede:

Richard J. Egan, the billionaire cofounder of information storage giant EMC Corp. of Hopkinton who served 15 months as ambassador to Ireland, much of that time in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, died at his Boston home yesterday.

Mr. Egan was diagnosed with stage IV lung cancer in May, his family said in an e-mailed statement last night that announced his death.

Herald headline:

Cops: EMC Biz Big Kills Self

(The Herald softened that online to “EMC Corp. co-founder Richard Egan dead at 73”)

But the lede for both is the same, and it’s a corker:

Richard Egan, the billionaire co-founder of EMC Corp. and the former U.S. ambassador to Ireland, died yesterday of a self-inflicted shotgun wound to the head, police and other sources confirmed.

As of 1 a.m. Sunday, the Globe hadn’t amplified and the Herald hadn’t clarified.

I don’t know which version is correct, but I do know this: Boston Globe, press release; Boston Herald, cops.

My money’s on the Herald.

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Ad o’ the Day©

Posted on August 29, 2009 by Campaign Outsider

Cable network USA – especially its award-winning program “Monk” – is totally in bed with the hotel chain Sleep Inn.

Exhibit A: Mr. Monk and the UFO.

To paraphrase: I have seen the future of television, and it is product placement.

Ugh.

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Penn Inc.

Posted on August 29, 2009 by Campaign Outsider

Political consultant and PR flack Mark Penn has long been campaign consigliere to both Bill and Hillary Clinton, most recently in Hillary’s disastrous 2008 Democratic presidential primary run, which was a flameout of historic proportions.

And Penn’s penalty for concocting the worst political campaign strategy, well, ever?

A biweekly column in the Wall Street Journal.

(Hey, Journal editors: I haven’t mowed my yard all summer – doesn’t that at least get me a monthly spot?)

Anyway, Penn’s WSJ column this week touted what he’s dubbed “glamping:”

[W]elcome to the early stages of the era of “glamping” — glamorous camping.  It’s a visit to the outdoors, but updated and upscale. While it’s just starting to take off, it’s likely to grow significantly based on emerging travel and vacation trends.

Penn proceeded to promote the potential of this microtrend:

[T]he big hospitality chains are missing out on an opportunity to go mass market.  Demand is growing for this kind of vacation . . .  A company like Embassy Suites, which caters to family crowds, would be an ideal candidate to extend glamping to the middle class. But all of the major chains could get involved.

And Penn’s employer, PR giant Burston-Marsteller, tried to make that happen by distributing Penn’s WSJ column to potential clients. Snarky-but-sometimes-reliable website Gawker outed Penn and the Journal and called their defense of the promotional play “pathetic.”

Cut to the New York Times, in which Journal deputy managing editor Alan Murray said:

“[I]f anyone is touting their business interests in our columns, that is a problem, and that’s what the conflict-of-interest agreement deals with.”

Actually, Mr. Murray, it’s someone touting their business interests with your columns.

Maybe you need a policy about that.

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Boston Globe: No Comments?

Posted on August 29, 2009 by Campaign Outsider

The hardworking staff at Campaign Outsider thought we should check on yesterday’s Official Campaign Outsider Prediction™ that the Boston Globe was gonna get a lotta mail off its editorial with the lede, “Ted Kennedy was not a great man.”

So naturally we looked for the online comments attached to the editorial. Except there weren’t any. Nor, apparently, could anyone comment on news reports about Kennedy’s demise.

Help us out here, splendid readers: Does the Globe accept comments as a matter of course? Is the Ted K coverage an anomaly? Or what?

Thank you for your support.

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Ad o’ the Day (pat. pending)

Posted on August 28, 2009 by Campaign Outsider

As part of its effort to make a buck wherever it can, the Boston Globe ran a house ad on Thursday with the headline, “Moms who rock are moms who bowl.”

The ad promotes a new bowling league, organized by Boston.com Moms and Kings bowling emporium, called 10 Pin Mamas.

Are you a mom looking for a few hours of fun with other moms at a place where the kids will be safe and entertained?  This fall, Boston.com Moms is teaming up with Kings for a new bowling league for mothers – 10 Pin Mamas – where moms can strike up new friendships, rekindle old ones and enjoy friendly competition on the lanes every Tuesday from 11:30 AM to 1:30 PM, September 15-October 20.

The cost? Fifty bucks for what turns out to be 12 hours of bowling, which seems pretty reasonable. Of course, it’s a classic loss leader for the Globe, which hopes to leverage Mommy bowlers into real money.

Ditto for the Globe’s mothership New York Times, which ran a house ad – also on Thursday – with this headline:

Get the laundry off the treadmill! Bob Greene is coming to About.com

The Internet, it goes without saying, is as close as any of us will get to Greene, who’s Oprah Winfrey’s fitness guru. The ad in the Times (which owns About.com) sort of rubs it in:

Can’t afford a private session with Oprah’s personal trainer? Visit him at exercise.about.com.

The site includes features such as “Exercise for Obese People” and “New Review: Daisy Fuentes Pilates for Nintendo Wii.” (Consumer alert: Not all that great.)

Between the bowling and the exercising, though, one newspaper-survival strategy is clear:

Let’s Get Fiscal!

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Boston Globe’s Grate Ted K Editorial

Posted on August 28, 2009 by Campaign Outsider

Official Campaign Outsider Prediction™: The Boston Globe’s gonna get a lotta mail off Thursday’s Edward Kennedy, 1932-2009 editorial.

The lede: “Ted Kennedy was not a great man.”

Yes, well, tell that to . . . you’ll find out.

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Ad o’ the Day®

Posted on August 27, 2009 by Campaign Outsider

This  syndicated quiz show runs a Clue of the Day ad in the New York Times Arts section.

Please phrase your answer in the form of a question.

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“Shut Up, He Explained”

Posted on August 27, 2009 by Campaign Outsider

(Hat tip: Ring Lardner)

New York Times Op-It Girl Maureen Dowd’s Wednesday column chronicled the Internet adventures of an Australian model who fought to unmask the anonymous blogger who called her a “skank” and a “ho.”

In discussing her own encounters with the flogosphere, Dowd quoted her BCF (Best Column Friend) Leon Wieseltier, literary editor at The New Republic and frequent star of the “Sentences We Never Finished” feature in The Weekly Standard.

“The velocity and volume on the Web are so great that nothing is forgotten and nothing is remembered,” says Leon Wieseltier, the literary editor of 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.”

Here’s my guess: Wieseltier, who’s a gasbag of NStar-esque proportions, has never even seen the inside of a “blue-collar bar in Boston,” never mind been there at closing time.

Inevitable conclusion: Leon Wieseltier should maybe, you know, shut up.

And Maureen Dowd should maybe find some better sources.

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Paterson’s Pathetic Play, Part 3

Posted on August 27, 2009 by Campaign Outsider

Gov. David Paterson (D-New Yikes!) has come up with a new strategy for explaining away his race-card-monte complaint that the negative news coverage  of his increasingly inept administration is racially motivated.

As Wednesday’s New York Times reported:

Gov. David A. Paterson attempted to distance himself on Tuesday from comments he made last week suggesting that some in the news media who are critical of him and other black politicians are motivated by racial bias.

Call it the Groucho Marx gambit: Who you gonna believe – me, or your lying ears?

While Mr. Paterson said he regretted the distraction his comments had caused and hoped he could put the episode behind him, he denied having insinuated that race was a factor in criticism of his leadership. That denial — which is contradicted by what he said in two interviews — made for an odd exchange with reporters on Tuesday afternoon.

Campaign Outsider Official Prediction™: Paterson’s going to have a lot of odd exchanges with reporters before he ultimately leases space in the dustbin of history.

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“Why She Walks Like A Woman But Talks Like A Man”

Posted on August 27, 2009 by Campaign Outsider

(Hat tip: The Kinks)

The story of the gender-tossup South African track star/let just keeps getting stranger.

Female sprinter Caster Semenya “handily won” (as the New York Times reported) the 800 meters race at last week’s track and field championships in Berlin. Problem is, lots of people think Caster Semenya is a man.

The victory came just hours after international track officials said that Ms. Semenya, a muscular, husky-voiced 18-year-old, needed to undergo sex-determination testing to confirm her further eligibility.

Unfortunately, Ms. Semenya didn’t help her cause with this post-race statement:

“I took the lead in the 400 meters and I killed them, they couldn’t follow. I celebrated the last 200 because I knew, man.”

Girlfriend! Never say man.

Also not helping, this detail from the Times:

Ms. Semenya, who attends the University of Pretoria, has been described as “traumatized” by the row over her sex. But she has been suspected of being a male before. “Boys used to tease her all the time,” said her great-aunt, Martina Mpati. “Sometimes she’d have to beat them up.”

Girlfriend!  Never beat up the boys.

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