Today's Boston Herald tried to deal with it in a joke, or more accurately, a
riddle.
But it's a big deal when a paper breaks with tradition to sell its first ad (a Sovereign Bank spot) on the previously sacrosanct turf of page 1. There are a few telltale signs in today's Herald story on that milestone that the paper is a bit defensive about the move.
a) There is no reporter's byline on the story, just a generic "Herald staff" notation.
b) A healthy chunk of the eight-paragraph story is devoted to how many other papers do the same or similar things.
Given the Herald's precarious financial position -- and the lingering speculation that Pat Purcell may be preparing to either sell it or make it a freebie -- it's hard to get in a moralistic huff about this. If this helps keep the paper alive and in local hands, so be it.