Revenge of the Tabloid

The Boston Herald is getting trashier -- bigger headlines, shorter stories, more T&A. Sounds great to me, but Boston Phoenix media columnist Dan Kennedy says it?s a ?shame,? and at least one anonymous Herald staffer seems to agree.

Link via Romenesko.

Comments

[Ben]

Bah, the Boston dailys both suck. People who accuse the NYT of being partisan should check out the Globe some time.

[Russ]

Ben,

The NYT owns the Globe.

[tim]

Tim -- More details (and links!) about the e-mail exchange, please.

It was many years and several computers ago, so my memory is fuzzy. He wrote a column teaching web journalists what real journalism is all about, and I did a Hit and Run item mocking it. In his angry reply, he described Wired Digital (Suck, Wired News, Web Monkey, et al) as being part of the Conde Nast empire. I wrote in to correct him, since the web stuff-to my enduring regret-was not included in the sale to Sy, and in the process I made some kind of snarky comment. That's where he descended into name-calling. I saw no point in continuing with that vulgar brawl, and so retired to my apartments for brandies and conversation with some of my chums from the Diogenes Club.

[Ben]

Russ -- yup, I'm aware of that; doesn't mean they're run the same way. For all of its flaws, the NYT is still far less partisan than the Globe.

[Russ]

Yes, the Globe does seem to have more of a "connection" (wink) to Boston politics, than the NYT does to NY, at least from an outsider's perpective.

I haven't been to Boston in over a year, what is the deal with the Boston Metro? Is this paper much like Chicago's Red Eye and Red Streak papers? (Two gossipy rags published by the two major dailies, The Sun-Times one actually has news in it compared to the Tribune version).

[Matt Welch]

As a matter of fact, Russ, I wrote about all them free tabloids a few months back!

http://mattwelch.com/NatPostSave/tabloid.htm

The Boston Metro, like its Philly cousin, is owned by the Swedish Metro chain, which has around 20 papers in five continents (also, they used to be Maoists!). The Herald's tabloidization is in part a response to the success of the Metro, "success" being circulation & readership numbers (which skew young & female).

[tim]

Addendum: My "snarky comment" was that it was just j-school basics to know the ownership situation of the publications you're writing about (Wired News had been included in Kennedy's sweep). I regret the phrasing, since anytime anybody says "j-school" it sounds really supercilious, self-satisfied and jerk-offy. But to give Kennedy a fair shake, that's about the whole of our exchange as I remember it.

Make sure you reread that HAR issue, though. I completely forgot about my interview with Wendy Weir. Those were the days:
http://www.suck.com/daily/99/06/17/

[Anonymous]

The Boston Globe is just the NYT dumbed-down for drunken Boston Irish.

[tim]

Addendum 2: The fit-for-a-family-publication portion of my exchange with Kennedy is actually saved in the Fish page:
http://www.suck.com/fish/99/07/01/
(The fucking worm part occured later in the conversation; for the purposes of the letters page I kept it as a standard 1-2 exchange.)

[joe]

The Boston Globe is the best newspaper in America - though it does have some partisan bias.

The ownership of the Globe by the NYT has not had much of an impact. They seem pretty content to let the local people continue to publish in their own way.

[Russ]

Matt,

I read that when it was posted on H&R previously. I think I recall posting at that time that the two Chicago "red" papers were essentially devoid of what most people would call "news", although the Red Streak does make some attempt from time to time. The really disappointing thing is that the original announcement of the Red Streak was that it was going to be an afternoon tabloid of news (which is exactly what I wanted), not a scandal sheet. It isn't as much of a scandal sheet as Red Eye, but it comes out in the morning so it's kind of redundant and therefore pointless for me.

I'm all for a little sleaze in my newspaper, If I'm not in the mood for it I can just skip over those pages. In the case of Red Eye, that's 100% of the thing, the 2 or 3 news blurbs in there are even shorter than a TV or Radio report. The Red Streak is slightly better, so I was curious about the content in the other cities' cut-price tabloids. The print edition of the Onion is available in Chicago and is more newsy than the "Reds".

When I'm in Boston I usually get the Herald cuz it's easier to read on the T. But if the news is cut to the bone, then all you're left with is a print edition of E! Does each city really need a localized paper of national gossip?

[Anonymous]

1. Line bird cage with Herald.
2. Wrap fish with NYT
3. Wash hands of dirty printer's ink

[tim]

Dan Kennedy is a prissy prig whose only moment of true genius (and insight) came when he called me a "little fucking worm" in an email exchange.

[tim]

Also, the Herald is, I believe, the only paper in the country that still carries Flash Gordon in its comics page-though not on its web site, unfortunately. For that you have to go to King Features.

[joe]

1. Remove Sports section.

2. Line bird cage.

[Matt Welch]

Tim -- More details (and links!) about the e-mail exchange, please.

[Philip Elliott]

I clicked on the link and couldn't find the T&A, but I'll keep looking...

[McClain]

The Herald's not sleazy enough to be a real tabloid. It's just aimed at the Dunkin Donuts crowd, while the Globe caters to the Starbucks types.

[Reddy Lokesh]

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DATE: 12/10/2003 11:27:33
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[Scheller Nicole]

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DATE: 12/21/2003 01:49:30
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