PLAYING FAVORITES
5 years ago
April 25, 2003 | Brent Kendall analyzed how a presidential candidate’s declared “favorite book” can affect his campaign chances.
“The 2000 election demonstrated precisely how candidates' book choices play right into the media's preconceived storylines--for better and for worse.

CROSSING OVER
5 years ago
April 18, 2003 | Dan Kennedy discussed what he thought was “perhaps the most astounding media story to come out" of the Iraq War.
“This past Sunday, Jules Crittenden, the Boston Herald reporter embedded with the Army’s Third Infantry Division, described how he ‘went over to the dark side.

CONFESSIONS OF A SMUGGLER
20 years ago
February 5, 1988 | Nancy Roosa wrote of her experience as a smuggler in Asia.
“The offers were almost too good to pass up. For simply carrying items from Hong Kong into Thailand or Taiwan, as we did, handwritten signs promised US $50 to $100. Even more common are ‘milk runs,’ where a group of milk-fed innocents are led by a smuggler on a five-to-six-day trip through Customs of three countries: South Korea, Japan, and Taiwan, carrying items that are limited, prohibited, or expensive in each country.

Today’s Globe features a front page, above the fold story about Mayor Menino’s plans to make Boston more bike friendly (titled “Pedal Pushing,” ugh. Did someone’s grandmother think up that headline?). It’s serendipitous timing since, as I was biking to work today I: a) was nearly hit by some dude in a black two-door of some sort, who sped past me to get to the um, red light.

The Weekly World News may be dead -- long live the Weekly World News -- but who needs it when we've got Boston Herald covers like this one? We were reminded today that the WWN -- bless its putrid, beautiful soul -- perished not because its niche shrank, but precisely because the opposite happened: its practice of fabulism, shameless hyperbole, and proud, profound disdain of anything so mundane as "the facts" metastasized into general practice for the mainstream media.

"Hosts offer the use of their couches, bathrooms, kitchens, and spare beds.