Tag: Boston Herald

Judge Murphy’s latest money grab

Is there no end to Superior Court Judge Ernest Murphy’s greed? Apparently not. Murphy is now suing the Boston Herald’s insurance company for $6.8 million merely because it allowed the paper to defend itself against the judge’s libel suit, and then allowed an appeal of the jury’s $2 million-plus verdict (Globe story here; Herald story here). Absolutely incredible.

Murphy had already managed to squander nearly all of the goodwill he’d garnered as a victim of the Herald’s sensationalistic, flawed reporting about him — first by sending bizarre, threatening letters to publisher Pat Purcell, and then, more recently, by trying to grab a disability pension to which Gov. Deval Patrick rightly concluded he wasn’t entitled. Now this.

When this all started a few years ago, I was sympathetic to Murphy, though not to his lawsuit. As a public official, he had the platform he needed to speak out and defend himself against charges he believed were unfair and inaccurate. No need to turn it into a libel case.

Unless, that is, he saw this as a chance to cash in right from the beginning.

Darkness falls

Ugh. I’ve already made my thoughts known about Rupert Murdoch’s acquisition of the Wall Street Journal, both here and in the Guardian. So I’ve really got nothing new to say now that he’s finally pulled it off. (Indeed, this has gone on so long that opinion-slingers like me have run through our ammo two or three times already.) But the Journal is well on its way from being a great, independent paper to a very good paper with a grasping, interfering owner.

I love Eric Alterman’s take in The Nation. Alterman argues that because the Journal’s news pages will be seen as less serious under Murdoch, so will its nutty right-wing editorial page. Alterman writes:

The silver lining of this takeover is that when Murdoch destroys the credibility of the Journal — as he must if it is to fit in with his business plan — he will be removing the primary pillar of the editorial page’s influence as well. In this regard his ownership is a kind of poisoned chalice.

Locally, meanwhile, let the outsourcing (and selling?) begin. Last week, the Globe’s Steve Bailey reported that Herald publisher Pat Purcell — who bought the Herald from Murdoch, his old mentor, in 1994 — would look to strike a deal for the Herald to be printed at a Dow Jones-owned plant in Chicopee should the Murdoch deal succeed. (Dow Jones is the Journal’s parent company.) Purcell confirmed his interest in a Herald story two days later the same day.

The Herald’s current property, next to the Southeast Expressway, is worth far more than its crumbling plant. A printing deal would presumably enable Purcell to sell the property and reduce his costs by vast sums, and might even ensure the long-term financial health of his paper.

Today the Globe reports that the Globe itself is in negotiations to print the Patriot Ledger of Quincy and the Enterprise of Brockton.

Now, follow the bouncing newspaper owners:

  • The Globe, of course, is owned by the New York Times Co., and Murdoch’s Journal is likely to emerge as the Times’ principal competitor nationally. If the Globe’s main print rival, the Herald, is getting help from Murdoch — well, I have no idea what to say except that it’s interesting.
  • Dow Jones, Purcell’s possible savior, owns several community dailies in the area through its Ottaway division, including the Standard-Times of New Bedford, the Cape Cod Times and the Portsmouth Herald. The Patriot Ledger and the Enterprise are owned by GateHouse Media, which also owns about 100 papers, mostly weeklies, in Eastern Massachusetts. So there’s an additional rivalry.
  • Except that Murdoch might sell off his community papers, which don’t seem to fit any grand strategy. And the most likely buyer would be GateHouse. Does it matter that James Ottaway positioned himself as Murdoch’s not-so-mortal enemy? Damned if I know.
  • Which would leave Community Newspaper Holdings Inc. (CNHI), better known as the Alabama state teachers’ pension fund, isolated and alone on the North Shore and in the Merrimack Valley. CNHI owns the Eagle-Tribune of Lawrence, the Salem News, the Gloucester Daily Times and the Daily News of Newburyport. And guess what? Michael Reed, chief executive of GateHouse, used to be chief executive of CNHI.

Murdoch’s victory could be just the beginning for local newspaper readers.

Oh, my. Jim Cramer, the screaming loon of CNBC, hopes Murdoch will push the Journal so that it finally matches the relevance of, yes, the New York Post business pages. By the way, the Post’s business coverage is quite good. But come on.

The Globe’s stunning omission

I’m stunned that the Globe failed to report that Middleborough voters, shortly after approving the agreement with the Wampanoags, turned around and rejected the casino itself. Despite publishing two stories (here and here) featuring four bylines, the paper somehow couldn’t find an inch to include that crucial fact. The Globe managed to do better in its online coverage yesterday. And as I’ve already noted, the Herald gets it right in its own Sunday story.

So, for that matter, does The Standard-Times of New Bedford, whose deep reporting on yesterday’s proceedings shows that this fight is a long way from being over. First, consider this, from Steve Decosta’s story:

After casting their votes on the agreement and before the final tally was announced, the body, on a hand vote, ironically rejected a nonbinding question to approve casino gambling in town. Only about half the voters remained on the high school athletic field for that tally.

“I don’t think that’s a true indication of how people feel, because so many people had left,” said Marsha Brunelle, selectmen chairwoman.

Asked if that outcome tainted the vote on the agreement, Mr. Marshall [Glenn Marshall, the Wampanoag chief] said: “It’s the end of a hot day, people get tired, people leave. The true number is the one that got counted.”

But casino opponents would not minimize their victory.

“That’s the root question,” said Jacqueline Tolosko, president of the anti-casino group Casinofacts. “We’re really encouraged. The town just said it doesn’t want a casino. How can that not have weight?”

Think about the cluelessness of Brunelle’s comments. Only 25 percent of the town’s registered voters took part in approving the agreement with the Wampanoags. As has been meticulously and widely documented, turnout was held down because of the midsummer heat and humidity, which kept elderly residents and people with health problems away. People who had to work or who couldn’t find child care were kept away, too.

As for people leaving, well, town officials all but told people to leave by staging a disgraceful signing ceremony with the Wampanoags as soon as the agreement was approved, but before the casino itself was put to a vote. [Well, no. See correction, below.] That action in itself ought to be the subject of a legal challenge on the grounds that it was a ruse aimed at making people think the meeting was over.

Even so, the vote to reject the casino was a legal (if non-binding) vote on a warrant article properly put before town meeting. Officials have no right to pretend that vote never took place. Again, think about Jacqueline Tolosko’s remarks: “The town just said it doesn’t want a casino. How can that not have weight?”

The second Standard-Times story, by Steve Urbon, expands on Sabutai’s report about improper influence on the part of casino proponents. Look at this:

Another opponent, Richard Young, pointed to Bill Marzelli and his dozens of orange-shirted casino backers and complained that while they were allowed to wear the T-shirts and white hats that read, “Vote YES for Middleborough’s future,” the police confiscated his side’s yellow leaflets, which explained a few opposition talking points. “I’m not allowed to give you anything to read,” he said.

Do I need to point out that the town’s two police unions have endorsed the casino? This strikes me as sufficient in and of itself to throw out the results of yesterday’s vote. No wonder police didn’t want the media watching.

Let me expand on something I wrote earlier. No doubt some people voted “yes” on the agreement because they would genuinely like to see a casino come to Middleborough. But there were others — plenty of others, I suspect — who voted “yes” because they were told, repeatedly, that the casino was coming whether they wanted it or not, and that they might as well negotiate the best terms that they could.

Last week, New England Cable News’ “NewsNight” program devoted a half-hour to the Middleborough debate. In the first segment, Ted Eayrs, a town assessor and former selectman, debated Greg Stevens, a casino opponent. In the second, I debated town planner Ruth Geoffroy, who favors the casino.

If you watch both segments, you will see that Eayrs (an opponent until recently) and Geoffroy each talked repeatedly about the supposed inevitability of the casino as a reason for approving the agreement. Let me share something else with you that you will not see in these segments: As we were leaving NECN, Eayrs told me that though he favored the agreement as the best way of protecting the town’s interests, he hopes the state will step in and stop the casino from ever being built.

Well, gee, that’s exactly how Middleborough residents voted yesterday, isn’t it? “Yes” on the agreement, “no” on the casino itself.

Gov. Deval Patrick will have a major say in what happens next. Without his wholehearted approval, a casino will not be coming to Middleborough. The governor needs to consider the fact that voters yesterday said “no” to the casino. Patrick should say no, too.

Update: This is really incredible. The Globe runs a slideshow of supporters and opponents of the casino — and the first two are of supporters wearing orange shirts! The message is cut off, but the first guy is also wearing a white cap that says “Yes to Middleborough’s Future.” Remember, the opponents’ leaflets were seized by police.

Update II: NECN gets it right. This report is particularly good on how opponents were marginalized and shunted aside. It also mentions the “no” vote on the casino itself.

Correction: According to this story, in the Cape Cod Times, the vote on the casino itself was held while the ballots on the casino agreement were being counted. WBUR Radio reports it the same way. That’s a significant difference, and I regret the error.

Is Botsford in trouble?

The Herald’s Laurel Sweet reports that Gov. Deval Patrick’s nominee for the Supreme Judicial Court, Superior Court Judge Margot Botsford, has some pretty close political ties to the governor: Her husband, Boston lawyer Stephen Rosenfeld, was so enthusiastic about Patrick’s gubernatorial campaign that he donated three times the legal limit.

Botsford is well-qualified and progressive, but this has the aroma of a quid pro quo. You could argue that she’s not responsible for her husband’s political donations, but come on. As a judge, she can’t make political donations anyway. (Or at least she shouldn’t.) And why didn’t someone at the Patrick campaign flag the excess donations and return them?

Rosenfeld was a top aide to Michael Dukakis when he was governor, which gives Herald columnist Howie Carr an excuse to stroll down memory lane.

This strikes me as being on the line. It could go away quickly, or it could blow up into yet another Patrick kerfuffle — especially if the Globe’s new metro editor, Brian McGrory, is upset enough about getting beat on this.