I'd like the panel to discuss the conflict of interest re: the New York Times Jerusalem Bureau Chief Ethan Bronner. Bronner's son serves in the Israeli Defense Forces and readers alerted the New...
Howie Carr bashes the Globe, Adam Reilly bashes back
posted by Ralph Ranalli on February 4, 2010
Our friend and guest panelist Adam Reilly has an intersting series of posts on his Don't Quote Me blog over at the Boston Phoenix about some careless Globe-bashing by the Herald's Howie Carr.
Globe-bashing has always been a key component of Carr's schtick. Repetition and low blows have usually been on the menu when he's taken on the "Boring Broadsheet," but at least you could say he usually got his facts straight.
But yesterday Reilly wrote that he couldn't find any references in the Globe to Scott Brown's supporters being "thugs" and "goons," an accusation Carr made in his Wednesday column.
Howie weighed in with a response, but Reilly wasn't buying in a follow-up post today.
According to the post, Carr said the term "goons" (his quotation marks) came from an Alex Beam column that mentioned "afternoon sports goons" supporting Brown, but Reilly says that column was clearing talking about sports talk hosts, not the 1.1 million ordinary voters who sent Brown to Washington.
Reilly writes that Carr then made an even more dubious claim that the term "thugs" came from the Globe's message boards. Web comments on newspaper sites are designed to be a wide-open public forum and there's been plenty of invective of both the anti-Brown and anti-Coakley varieties.
Oh, wait, now Carr has weighed in with another response. This could go on all week ...
Comments
Oh my. "If it's on boston.com, it's the same thing as being in the paper."? Because the Times moderates comments?
That's weak, even for someone with as low standards as Howie.
Great response, Howie. I wonder how long it took to craft. Let's take it bit by bit.
"A goon is a goon is a goon."
So an "afternoon sports goon" - thank you Alex Beam for that exquisite turn of phrase - is the same as a "machete wielding thug goon."
Go here then tell me how much sense that makes:
http://www.cbsnews.com/blogs/2009/10/07/crimesider/entry5368772.shtml
Thankfully, Mr. Carr is not running the judicial system or that parking ticket would get you 20 to life and we'd have a much higher casualty rate among meter maids, I suspect.
His next best argument is to criticize the Times for having a modicum of respect for the First Amendement. Beautiful.
Need we go any further? Pants on the ground. Case closed.
Wouldn't surprise me at all if the Globe moderator allowed postings on their website such as the ones Howie describes. I've mentioned before the random moderation that goes on over there.
If they're going to make an editorial judgment about what comments to allow and what comments to censor (full disclosure: I was heavily censored over there) then Howie is right. The Globe does indeed then take ownership of them.
For what it's worth, from my experience, the Herald message boards are far less random in their censorship.