This is pretty small stakes as far as right-wing media bias goes (for a major offense of taking quotes out of context, see Josh Marshall today catching FoxNews in a flagrant example), but the Herald’s cover story on Mayor Menino’s ban on the Boston Fire Department Acappella Quartet (from performing at President Bush’s fundraiser today) is both silly and offensive. The paper juxtaposes photos of the firemen’s a capella group at the St. Patrick’s Day politician’s breakfast with the caption, “Sounds like Blarney to us” and a tag reading “The mayor has forbidden these singing jakes from performing for the president, but at the South Boston St. Patrick’s Day breakfast Sunday, the ‘nonpolitical’ Boston Fire Department Acapella Quartet, above, warbled for a bevy of the state’s solons…”
Does the Herald think we’re too stupid to understand the difference? Let’s cut to the article:
Lt. Richard Powers, who founded the singing group eight years ago as a way to promote the Fire Department, said, “We were asked to do President Bush’s fund-raiser, which would, obviously, be an honor, but we don’t do fund-raisers.
“I would love to sing for the president if he were here to honor a civilian (but) we’ve never done a fund-raiser - obviously we never will,'’ he said.
The mayor reminds city workers of a policy against participating in political fundraisers as city workers. The workers in question agree with that limitation and say they wouldn’t do a fundraiser anyhow. Where does the Herald find a scandal? The problem here is not in the reporting, which is a straight news story, but in the editing decisions for headlines and captions.
The sad thing is that the Herald has always combined its tabloid sensibility and conservative politics with rock-solid coverage on the local/state political beat, better than the Globe’s by far. But it seems that increasingly - perhaps because of changes in the newsroom - the former is really starting to impinge upon the integrity of the latter.
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