For the record, today’s Globe coverage of the race for mayor is more balanced than it was earlier this week. There’s nothing on the front page. Today’s offerings:
- In Metro, a page B1 story about John Connolly meeting with gang members, and a page B4 story reporting Marty Walsh’s meeting with arts advocates and releasing his arts plan, and a separate item on Walsh’s environmental plan. So the Connolly story gets better placement, but to be honest, the story is a more interesting one.
- On the opinion page, I’d describe Derrick Jackson’s piece noting Walsh’s admiration for Maryland Governor (and former Baltimore Mayor) Martin O’Malley as pro-Walsh (it doesn’t mention Connolly at all).
- Lawrence Harmon’s weird op-ed piece describing Walsh as “Boston’s minority candidate,” on the other hand, strikes me as distinctly pro-Connolly – and also, at the end of the day, disrespectful to the leaders who are supporting Walsh. I think it’s worth picking this one apart a bit. Harmon notes the strong backing that Walsh has gotten from “elected officials and leaders in Boston’s communities of color.” But he also seems to think that those leaders are being short-sighted for backing Walsh rather than Connolly.
Particularly odd is Harmon’s treatment of John Barros, who has endorsed Walsh. Barros, Harmon says, “actually seems a better fit with Connolly” because “both are policy wonks with Ivy League diplomas [Barros went to Dartmouth for college] and young families. And each is an unapologetic supporter of lifting the cap on charter schools.” But none of that makes any sense at all. Obviously, whether your diploma has an Ivy League school’s name on it should have zero to do with which candidate you support, as should the age of your children. And saying that both Connolly and Barros are “policy wonks” while Walsh is not is little more than an unfounded slam against Walsh. It’s also frankly unfair to Barros, whose policy wonkery exceeds that of either mayoral candidate. As for charter schools, Walsh supports lifting the cap, just like Connolly does. WTF.
So why, in Harmon’s view, does Barros support Walsh? Well, he says, “Barros favors Walsh’s disposition, sense of urgency, and leadership style. He likes the candidate’s collaborative skills and is put off by Connolly’s combativeness.” OK, fine. But when it comes to actual policy, Harmon clearly thinks Barros doesn’t get it (even as he praises Barros’s “grasp of complex policy issues”). “Barros said that many minority leaders were turned off last October when Connolly unveiled a plan to change the city’s student assignment plan…. But that criticism doesn’t stand up…. The simple truth is that Connolly — like Walsh — would knock himself out to do right by Boston’s communities of color, and especially for the city’s poor.”OK, so what, in Harmon’s view, is really happening with Barros and the others? Harmon says that Walsh’s and Connolly’s “approaches do differ. And in that regard, the flood of endorsements for Walsh makes good sense. Just a few months ago, hopes were high in many quarters of the city that Boston would elect its first minority mayor. That’s not happening in 2013. But Walsh fulfills that desire for a bigger share of the action in a way that Connolly does not.” And then Harmon notes that Walsh helped Barros increase the share of jobs that went to “minority workers” in the construction of a community center in Dorchester.
Connolly, Harmon says, “works in a different time frame” than Walsh does, and, he says, “[i]f successful, the impact of Connolly’s education plan would dwarf Walsh’s approach.” His conclusion: “Connolly represents a richer future. Walsh represents a more favorable present. And the city’s leaders of color aren’t in the mood to wait.” It’s fascinating how Harmon simply assumes, without apparently feeling the need for discussion, that Connolly’s plan is obviously the superior one that represents “a richer future” for Boston.
So Harmon’s bottom line appears to be that the folks backing Walsh are doing so because they see him as the ticket to more goodies, not to a better city. Nice.
boild down to his hardcore belief in the benefit of blowing up BPS. The piece states “IF” successful – and what happens “if” not successful? How does that leave our city? Thanks a bunch for another condescending piece. The way the Globe coverage is going I am just about ready to cancel my subscription.
I appreciate your recent attempts to monitor the balance of coverage in this race. Frankly, I’ve been fed up with the Globe’s coverage of just about everything for years. I love the “they’re both Ivy Leaguers” as the basis of why Barros is misguided. So Globe. Why not just write a column about why he believes Connolly’s ed. policy is superior? I guess that would probably require him to actually understand their positions. It’s one thing to analyze Barros’ motivation, it’s another altogether to prescribe what his motivations should be.
But, David, surely you understand that minorities have been “infantilized” by government largess to the point that they no longer care about anything other than securing “more goodies.” Obama phones, food stamps, welfare … you know, all those things that good, god-fearing, white citizens never have need for.
Just to be clear, I meant to include a snark tag but accidentally put it in angle brackets, so it disappeared.
What does a snark tag look like?
I know what snark is, but I never knew it had a tag.
Accept on BMG, you have to use something other than the angle brackets … maybe {snark}.
I thought the angle brackets would be safe in the Title field … apparently not. So just imagine the word “snark” in between angle brackets.
The story that caught my eye in today’s Globe was Tea Party wing of GOP unbowed by shutdown debacle: Still gunning for the health care law. This absurd garbage (again co-written by Mattias Gugel) begins:
It goes downhill from there.
This isn’t news, and it isn’t analysis. It’s plain old-fashioned Tea Party cheerleading, and has no place on the front page. It keeps alive all the tired talking-points, and it’s primary purpose seems to be to prolong the delusions of Tea Party supporters.
The reality is that the GOP and Tea Party lost big in this episode. They lied, they abused their offices, and they hurt virtually every American. They accomplished none of their stated goals, and those goals have been rejected many times by the voters, the congress, the courts, and the people.
This sorry excuse for a newspaper is, in my opinion, spinning faster and faster as it swirls towards the drain and then the sewer.
It is par for the course for the Globe…
I don’t have a problem with the paragraph you quoted. Based on my understanding that seems to be exactly what is happening. That is, the tea party has vowed to keep going and does seem unchastened. I agree with your commentary about what happened as well, but it does not directly contradict the quoted paragraph. The tea party is by definition divorced from reality, but that is not the fault of the Globe.
If the piece had been buried on page A-35, I would have no objection — especially if it had an “Analysis” subhead. As a front-page story, presented as “News”, it’s biased and dishonest.
“Truth” is sometimes different from “fact”. Consider this anecdote from Peter Gomes:
Both were factual. The latter was not “true”. Putting this story on page 1 is a distortion similar to the First Mate’s log entry.
Both guys really overcame a lot growing up.
Connolly had to figure out how to be both the QB of the football team and get good enough grades to get into Harvard.
Walsh had cancer, and few thought he would live.
Pretty much balances out on that front I’d say.
(paywall on both stories)
“Every Roxbury Latin boy is expected to play sports, and Johnny — his family still calls him that — quarterbacked the football team for two years. He’d come home, books piled high, so exhausted from football that it was a battle to make it up the hill to the house on Cerdan Avenue.
“He broke down and cried and cried and cried,” says his father, Michael. “He said, ‘I can’t do it.’ ”
Then it turns out teaching is too much for him, too. A pattern emerges.