Beacon Hill Confidential
There's an interesting contrast between two stories in today's
Globe and
Herald.
Both deal with the indictment yesterday of Beacon Hill resident Earl McBride Jr., for mailing threatening communications to unnamed Beacon Hill restauranteur. These communications were pretty creepy. Here's how Globe reporter Shelly Murphy describes them:
The threatening letters arrived throughout 2006 and 2007 at two of Beacon Hill's most popular restaurants. They came with photos of gun-toting men and taunting messages for the owner of both eateries, a successful businesswoman who was born in Iran, came to the United States decades ago, and is an American citizen.
more stories like this
A photograph of an Israeli soldier brandishing a machine gun was tucked inside one letter, while another contained an image of actor Dustin Hoffman, lifted from the 1976 movie thriller "Marathon Man," pointing a gun directly at the viewer.
"See you at the Taj!" the writer taunted in a letter sent last June, two days before the owner was to present food from her two eateries at Taste of Beacon Hill, a local restaurant fair hosted by the Taj Boston Hotel.
Both papers say that the woman, who was identified by her initials in the indictment, asked them not to name her. But here's the catch: while the Globe doesn't name her restaurants, the Herald does. They're Lala Rokh and Bin 26 Enoteca. And when you Google "Lala Rokh Bin 26 Enoteca," the first thing you come up with is...the woman's name.
Honestly, I don't know which paper got it right. With its multiple references to an anonymous woman's anonymous restaurants, the Globe story feels excessively vague. On the other hand, whatever protection the Herald provided by not publishing the woman's name was definitely undercut by ID'ing her establishments.
One final twist: while the Globe article identifies the woman as a Muslim, the Herald only says she's Iranian.
