Howie and the Herald

Published Mar 10 2006, 03:48 PM by webteam

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FRONT PAGEOk, so the Herald is having some real fun today letting Howie Carr talk tough to the gangsters who allegedly wanted to whack him. (Somehow this all feels like a promo for the return of the Sopranos, although obviously it's about book and newspaper sales.) To me, the noteworthy thing about this whole episode is that for the first time in a long time, Howie feels like an integral part of the Herald again.

For many years, Howie really was the Herald, its best known journalist and biggest personality. In recent years though, he's spent more time and energy on his more lucrative gig as a WRKO talk radio host and the phrase sometimes used to describe his Herald work was "mailing it in."  When the paper was making a series of painful newsroom cuts last year, there was even some buzz that maybe Howie would be cut loose -- something once unthinkable given how closely he was identified with the tabloid and his larger-than-life image as the paper's hack-bashing marquee columnist.

It's a marriage of convenience and it might not last long. But for now at least, Howie and the Herald are once again connected at the hip.

No White Knight Ridder

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12 Comments

• Sven said:

  Howie has always been more Boston than Barnicle or anyone else, smart to highlight him again.
  March 10, 2006 5:47 PM

• Frustrated said:

  "It's a marriage of convenience and it might not last long." As opposed to whom? Newspaper biz is a little shaky in general, is it not?
  March 10, 2006 10:20 PM

• Anthony Collito said:

  It's not a coincidence that all this "mafia Media Blitz" is coming right around the time the biggest water cooler TV drama of our time is coming back on the air.
  March 11, 2006 1:28 AM

• patrick said:

  Nice to see the Herald and Howie catch a break with the 60 minutes piece and the national coverage accompanying it. To Howie's credit, he's ridiculing Weeks' sensational claim more loudly than anybody.
  March 11, 2006 2:31 AM

• tony schinella said:

  I will probably wait for the paperback. :-)
  March 11, 2006 4:16 AM

• mike b said:

  "Sometimes"??? Who are you kidding? The Herald does not mean dick.
  March 11, 2006 7:28 AM

• Radio fan said:

  Mark, I'm curious. When you were hte flavor-of-the-month back when WRKO was looking for something to replace Gene Burns (something that has been unsuccessful for 10 years now)was there a temptation to save your best for the radio in the expectation that maybe you'd get the permanent gig or that there was more quid as a radio star than in being one out of many in print? (This slot went through a lot; Tom Leykis, Howie and some Brit named Jones that ended with Howie being fired, failed TV anchors, the Red Sox announcers during the '94 baseball strike, and presently a completely inarticulate boob). I'm not trying to fling insults; I thought that you were the closest to Burns of all they tried, but I'm wondering how much the lure of broadcasting bucks makes ink-stained wretches save their best stuff for when they're behind a mic or in front of a camera, especially considering the trend toward broadcasters using print people to pontificate. Asfor Howie, it's amusing to hear him rip "The Plagarist" while recycling his radio callers' comments into a column. Howie doesn't phone it in; he has it phoned TO him.
  March 11, 2006 9:55 AM

• Still here said:

  Wow, RF, I now know why Bostonians used to refer to it as the "Hub of the Universe". Leykis and Jones went on to bigger and better things, (if money is how you keep track and I'm told that's the metric in media). Methinks people who dislike Howie's worldview are infuriated by the money he makes. ("When you got the 50K, you got the 50K"-Jimmy Myers). The contents of this blog sure seem to wind up on "Beat the Press" a lot. So what? It's all talk on the street. As to Mark replacing Gene, they are in different businesses. Burns probably can't write as well as Mark does. Each has his niche.
  March 11, 2006 3:52 PM

• tonyschinella said:

  Well, "Still here," let's get things straight here: Leykis tried to use his wife as a fire place log after a night of heavy drinking at the company Christmas party. He later pled guilty to a lesser charge and skipped town - to syndication but later - smaller markets. Victoria Jones also moved around to smaller markets and now she works part-time for the Talk Radio News Network or some such thing. Neither hardly "went on to bigger and better things" especially when at the time, WRKO was the place to be in talk radio. Period.
  March 13, 2006 1:26 AM

• Still here said:

  Tony, I was apparently insufficiently specific about Jones and Leykis. I thought I said that ratings=money and most media people are unencumbered by ethics in pursuit of both. Say what you want; Howard Stern delivers numbers. The "Adult personals" at the top of this page are not there for free. You chose (I presume) to work in a (much) smaller market than the ones Westwood One presently sends Leykis to nationally, (Chicago, L.A.,San Diego, San Francisco, Phoenix, etc.). While you enjoy the beautiful "Live free or die state", he toils in lucrative misery in smoggy Hollywood. Everyone makes their choices. His misogynistic antics aren't my cup of tea but on a purely money-driven basis, (all the rage in big markets, I'm told), I'd rather swap for his W-2 form than yours, all due respect. I personally have no desire to listen to either Leykis or "Coffee Chat with Gardner Hill" but money talks and BS walks. Period.
  March 13, 2006 2:51 AM

• tonyschinella said:

  Is Leykis syndicated now? I thought Westwood One pulled his show a while back. If he is syndicated again, I stand corrected. The last I heard he was on in Seattle only. So, he did go onto more lucrative things. However, WRKO was the place to be at the time. It was what talk radio was - and was supposed to be. Jerry Williams was tops in drive time. Leykis on WRKO beat Limbaugh [on WHDH at the time] in his first book when he was on in Boston. They forced political change in the state. It was a great thing. Too bad he could keep his alcohol and domestic disputes in check. And too bad the programmers decided that talk about who you want to see naked on TV was more important than talk about NAFTA. As far as what I do, that has no relevance to this conversation or thread.
  March 13, 2006 1:10 PM

• Rico Tomase said:

  I am a fan of Howie Carr, but I have some reservations about his Boston credentials, and, by extension, his Boston mob stories. Carr grew up in Portland, ME; Deerfield, MA; and Palm Beach, FL. He went to UNC. When Connolly was testifying before Judge Wolfe, Peter Gelzinis was covering it for the Herald. Also, I haven't read the book, but what does Howie have in "Two Brothers" that wasn't in "Black Mass"? Howie seems to revel in telling stories about old gangsters, but it seems to me that he cannot get any closer to nailing Billy than the Globies did in "Black Mass."
  March 14, 2006 4:50 AM

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