Shelley Murphy – Media Nation

Whitey Bulger plays unfavorites in the press

A few days ago we learned that Whitey Bulger had named Boston Globe reporter Shelley Murphy, Globe columnist Kevin Cullen, Boston Herald columnist Howie Carr and former Globe reporters Dick Lehr and Gerard O’Neill as possible witnesses in his federal trial.

Today we learn the likely reason: the five, all of whom have written books about Bulger’s murderous ways, might be barred from attending the trial if Judge Denise Casper rules that potential witnesses must be kept out of the courtroom.

Murphy writes that her paper has asked Casper to allow her and Cullen to attend the trial on the grounds that they are the Globe’s leading experts on the Bulger case, having covered it since the 1980s. She reports that prosecutors have called Bulger’s witness list a ploy to keep out certain media and non-media witnesses.

In the Herald, Laurel Sweet quotes Assistant U.S. Attorney Brian Kelly as saying, “It’s not a real witness list. He’s just putting names on there in order to keep them out of the courtroom.”

Let’s hope Judge Casper refuses to go along with this travesty.

Shelley Murphy talks about her Whitey Bulger book

Update: This, by Northeastern’s Matt Collette, is much better than my tweets.

Shelley Murphy has been chasing the notorious gangster James “Whitey” Bulger since she was a young reporter at the Boston Herald. Now a Boston Globe reporter, she and Globe columnist Kevin Cullen are the authors of a new book, “Whitey Bulger: America’s Most Wanted Gangster and the Manhunt That Brought Him to Justice” (Norton).

Murphy, who graduated from Northeastern one year after I did (I won’t say when), spoke on campus today before a packed room in Snell Library. She shared some great stories — some funny, some harrowing. I live-tweeted the event, and offer some of what she said below.

https://twitter.com/dankennedy_nu/status/311870223370293248

https://twitter.com/dankennedy_nu/status/311871180791492609

https://twitter.com/dankennedy_nu/status/311871905764368384

https://twitter.com/dankennedy_nu/status/311872240541126656

https://twitter.com/dankennedy_nu/status/311872735984881664

https://twitter.com/dankennedy_nu/status/311873657674797056

https://twitter.com/dankennedy_nu/status/311874171837763584

https://twitter.com/dankennedy_nu/status/311874616530440193

https://twitter.com/dankennedy_nu/status/311874863616901120

https://twitter.com/dankennedy_nu/status/311875282128736256

https://twitter.com/dankennedy_nu/status/311875896795611137

https://twitter.com/dankennedy_nu/status/311876370634506240

https://twitter.com/dankennedy_nu/status/311877377313607680

https://twitter.com/dankennedy_nu/status/311877749247725568

https://twitter.com/dankennedy_nu/status/311878209052504065

https://twitter.com/dankennedy_nu/status/311878699102384131

https://twitter.com/dankennedy_nu/status/311879072173150208

https://twitter.com/dankennedy_nu/status/311879413358813184

https://twitter.com/dankennedy_nu/status/311879757354659842

https://twitter.com/dankennedy_nu/status/311880287174942720

https://twitter.com/dankennedy_nu/status/311881484703236096

https://twitter.com/dankennedy_nu/status/311882202449321984

https://twitter.com/dankennedy_nu/status/311882756315545601

https://twitter.com/dankennedy_nu/status/311883065712594944

https://twitter.com/dankennedy_nu/status/311884104545214464

The Globe turns up the heat on Carmen Ortiz

Given The Boston Globe’s past favorable coverage of U.S. Attorney Carmen Ortiz, I’m heartened to see how aggressively the paper is covering her conduct in the investigation of the late Internet activist Aaron Swartz.

Today the Globe fronts a story by Shelley Murphy about some repulsive tweets posted by Ortiz’s husband, IBM executive Thomas Dolan, in which he defended his wife and lashed out against Swartz’s grieving parents. Dolan’s Twitter feed has since disappeared, but BuzzFeed posted what I can only hope is the worst of them Tuesday.

Murphy’s story follows an angry piece by Globe columnist Kevin Cullen on Tuesday. Cullen wrote:

The argument about whether prosecutors should have been insisting that Swartz, who had written openly and movingly about his struggle with depression, serve at least six months in prison is not an academic question. It is a question about proportionality and humanity, and on both fronts the office of US Attorney Carmen Ortiz and the prosecutors who handled this case, Steve Heymann and Scott Garland, failed miserably.

For too long Ortiz has led a charmed existence, using and abusing the power of her office in order to burnish her law-and-order credentials. In 2011 The Boston Globe Magazine went so far as to name her its “Bostonian of the Year.”

Ortiz is not to blame for the suicide of a young man who had long struggled with depression. Nevertheless, her insistence that he serve prison time was absurd given the nature of his offense. Now we’ve lost a brilliant, creative thinker whose greatest contributions were yet to come.

Correction: Updated to fix Thomas Dolan’s name.