The Herald is dead. Long live the Herald

Kudos to Joe Keohane for keeping the light on Boston's other daily newspaper, the Boston Herald, in a Boston Magazine article.

Sure the Herald voice sounds shrill at times, but it still covers the fire and crime beat better than the Boston Globe.

And, as Keohane said, the Herald is a scrappier paper, more fervent to knock the big shots off their posts than the Globe.

About a year ago, the Herald lost a libel lawsuit to a judge, and then one of the paper's reporter's followed that judge to a racetrack in New York. (Sorry, this is way out of context and I don't have the links to support it yet)

Also, during a journalism conference, I heard from the Herald's lawyers that reporter had thrown out his notes, which would have been a crucial bit of evidence during the libel trial.

Anywho, here's a transcript of the judge's lawyer talking to Keith Olberman of MSNBC:

OLBERMANN: Tell her to get over it. Six words about a 14 year old rape victim attributed to a superior court judge by a Boston newspaper, then broadcast nationwide with righteous anger and calls of termination by Bill O‘Reilly. The outcry cost the judge his health and his career and put his life in danger, even though he never actually said anything of the sort. Our third story on the COUNTDOWN, the paper has been held responsible for libel.

So why isn‘t Bill-O likewise liable? Superior Court Judge Earnest Murphy (ph) won a two million dollar libel suit upheld now by the Massachusetts Supreme Court against the “Boston Herald,” and its reporter Dave Wedge, who not only falsely quoted the judge, but then served as stooge for Bill-O‘s on-air crusade.

In the words of the court ruling, quote, “the press is not free to publish false information about anyone, intending that it will cause a public furor, while knowingly, or in reckless disregard of, its falsity.”

A law was not only ignored by Mr. Wedge, but was also ignored and continues to be ignored by Bill O‘Reilly. Hence the reason why Mr. Wedge‘s appearance on The Factor in March 2002 actually became evidence at the trial.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BILL O‘REILLY, FOX NEWS ANCHOR: Are you absolutely sure that Judge Murphy said that the rape victim should get over it?

DAVE WEDGE, “BOSTON HERALD”: Yes. He said—he made this comment to three lawyers. He knows he said it. Everybody else that knows this judge knows that he said it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

OLBERMANN: Such an exchange prompting the Supreme Court to write that, quote, Wedge‘s comments on the O‘Reilly Factor were made with actual malice.

Joining me now, judge Murphy‘s trial counsel, Howard Cooper. Mr.

Cooper, thanks for your time.

HOWARD COOPER, TRIAL COUNSEL FOR JUDGE MURPHY: Good evening.

OLBERMANN: How important was Mr. Wedge‘s appearance on O‘Reilly‘s show to the success of your libel case?

COOPER: I actually think it was critically important and critically important to the jury. The story which was originally published in mid February of 2002 really was a local or at most a regional story about a judge‘s alleged intemperate and indeed, as portrayed, outrageous comments. When Mr. O‘Reilly go ahold of it, about two weeks after the initial publication, it really created not just a national furor, but really an international furor.

The judge received hate mail from overseas, from California. Mr.

O‘Reilly really picked up the ball and ran with it quite a bit.

OLBERMANN: Does Mr. O‘Reilly bear at least as much responsibility as Mr. Wedge, at least for those death threats? And to the degree that he‘s responsible for anything that happened to the judge, why was there no action pursued against him?

COOPER: Well, the original publication was by the “Boston Herald” and David Wedge, and as I‘m sure you‘re aware, the standard for bringing a public figure defamation claim is quite high. I think it‘s fair to say that the jury found Mr. O‘Reilly was responsible for republishing the statement and creating a situation which caused enormous damage to Judge Murphy. But again, that was attributable to the original publication by the “Boston Herald” and David Wedge.

When asked why wasn‘t he named as a party in the lawsuit, a decision really was made on a practical basis. You have someone who we thought would have welcomed the opportunity to continue to use his regular appearances before a national television audience to excoriate the judge and we didn‘t want to give him that opportunity. Yet, his television shows were a major presence in the courtroom.

OLBERMANN: A couple of quick factual questions, did O‘Reilly ever apologize to the judge?

COOPER: He has never apologized. He has never taken his reporting back. There is a very prominent lawyer up here in Boston by the name of Ed Ryan, who runs a committee for the Mass BAR Association designed to help judges protect themselves, because, after all, judges really can‘t respond publicly about pending cases. After the jury came back, Mr. Ryan made a personal demand on the O‘Reilly Factor that they correct the reporting and that he allowed to go on and assist in that effort.

He never heard from them. More recently, in May of this year, when the Supreme judicial court unanimously affirmed the jury verdict, which by that time was about 3.4 million dollars, with interest, Mr. Ryan again reached out to the “O‘Reilly Facto,” in writing, through email, and said I really want you to correct the story and I‘m prepared to go on and help you do that.

I spoke with Mr. Ryan this afternoon. He confirms that he still is waiting to hear from the “O‘Reilly Factor.” And it‘s a shame, because an apology is in order here.

OLBERMANN: With the increasing threats of violence against judges in general, is there not—maybe it‘s not a legal case, maybe it‘s not a private suite, but the crusade against a judge for saying something controversial that he never said, doesn‘t that rise to a more deplorable crime than just libel? Doesn‘t it border on reckless endangerment?

COOPER: Well, let me say this: these stories, these campaigns have real consequences for real people. Judge Murphy experienced having death threats slipped under the door of his judicial chambers, where he was by himself, without protection. Somebody took the front page of the “Boston Herald,” drew a target on his forehead in red ink, and said get over it, you bastard, you‘re dead. And someone really needs to think through the accuracy of their reporting before launching one of these campaigns.

OLBERMANN: Well, you‘re not obviously going to get that from Bill O‘Reilly. So, on behalf of the television industry, you can please send the judge my apologies. I think that‘s not going to do him much good, but it‘s the best we can do under the circumstances?

COOPER: It‘s a good start.

OLBERMANN: Howard Cooper, the trial counsel for Judge Earnest Murphy, thanks for joining us tonight.

COOPER: Thank you.

The ugly worm of race-baiting

This week, Barack Obama responded to anonymous rumors that could only be described as libelous because they appeal to an anti-Muslim bias, that has run rampant in this country.

I don't know which is sadder, that false allegations about a candidate's religion could turn voters away from him, or that a national newspaper would give validity to those rumors in a front-page story.

These rumors have reportedly circulated by e-mail since at least October.

Because these false allegations rely on religious bias in order to have a negative effect on the Illinois senator, they reflect badly on the country as a whole.

In somewhat related news, the MSNBC panel said they were taken aback by the way race was injected into the South Carolina race by former President Bill Clinton.

MSNBC played a clip where Clinton took a question about his questionable tactics and turned it around to talk about how another black presidential candidate had won South Carolina more than 20 years ago.

Do the Romney

I showed up a couple days late to this Internet sensation, and it wasn't quite as hilarious and awkward as I pictured it, when I first heard about it.

This video was billed as: Mitt Romney sings "Who Let the Dogs Out" to an all black audience on Martin Luther King Junior day.

And that does happen, depending on your definition of singing.

"Who Let the Dogs Out" was a pop rap song recorded a few years ago by The Baha Men.

But the actual footage turned out to be less damning than what I had imagined.

Still, it shows Romney, in his element, as the ever-changing, always-faking, smiling no-matter-what candidate.

Through the course of the MLK jr. Day video Romney goes from strangely reciting Baha Men lyrics while posing for a photo, to telling people in jackets they are going to catch cold - while he wears a light shirt- to Romney admiring the "bling" on a baby.

Almost everyone in the video is black.

And then there is Romney latching onto outdated stereotypes, more in tune with a cruise-ship DJ than black Southern voters' concerns.

But I don't think Romney treated the South Carolina parade crowd any differently than he has treated crowds across the country.

Romney tried to relate to the black crowd by adopting an almost-10-year-old rap song and a word made popular by rap artists years ago.

That sounds familiar.

During his short tenure in government, Romney has repeatedly stereotyped his constituents.

Romney stereotyped Massachusetts as a state that believes in equal rights and the right to choose before he ran for governor there.

Then he stereotyped the Republican party as a gay-bashing, immigrant-hating, male-centrist party, when he ran for its nomination.

Republicans across the country have done the same, but Romney has bought full into it, sort of like the late-comer to a music scene, who fakes it by buying all the albums, and putting posters up on his walls.

Now here are your videos, Romney on the national holiday for Reverend King, and The Baja Men, with their hit song - back to back.

Smoky back rooms on the horizon?

If The Politico's Ben Smith is right, the Democratic primary could end with some back room negotiations at the DNC in Denver, Colo.

Though Hillary Clinton won the popular vote in every contest except Iowa, Barack Obama has kept pace and now has (1) more delegates than her going into South Carolina.

And John Edwards has 18 delegates, just behind Clinton's 24 and Obama's 25.

After Obama won Iowa, I thought it would come down to Super Tuesday, Feb. 5, when the majority of states vote for their nominee.

But now, I'm not so sure.

Now it seems as though the contest will run past Super Tuesday, possibly up to the convention, when the delegates will get to decide who the nominee will be.

According to Smith, that might give Edwards the power to sway his delegates toward a particular candidate, if he can get 15 percent of them into his camp.

The Republican race seems just as uncertain.

While John McCain and Mike Huckabee in Iowa have won the major races in Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina, Mitt Romney has swept up the leftovers, in Michigan, Wyoming and Nevada.

Romney leads the field with 24 delegates; Huckabee follows with 18 and McCain comes in third with 10.

Of course, without strong showings in Super Tuesday, none of the candidates will have a chance, but now it looks like those campaigns might stretch beyond that day.

All of my delegate numbers came from Slate.com's excellent poll and results coverage.

Mitt catches hardball question, spins, throws it back

Space Invaders?

Could there be a link between this story, about UFO sightings in Stephenville, Texas and this story about a milky white, alkaline rain that fell on the Silver City, N.M. Monday night?

Just in case, I'm going to keep my photon ray-gun handy.

Two soft spots for Obama campaign

Second choice votes were key to Barack Obama's victory in the Iowa primary, as the Chicago Sun Times noted, so Hillary Clinton's win over him in New Hampshire should not have been surprising. While the Iowa results showed that Obama has a smart and organized group of people working for him, it was not the conclusive win it was made out to be.

Now that Bill Richardson and Chris Dodd have dropped out of the race, Obama has a chance to once again claim those candidates' second-choice votes. But while rumors circulated (denied here) about Richardson sending second-choice votes to Obama, it remains an open question who Richardson or Dodd supporters will now move toward.

I think the Richardson folks will probably go to Clinton's camp, because both those candidates touted their experience in government.

Now, if John Edwards drops out, his supporters would probably split between Obama and Dennis Kucinich. Edwards has given Clinton such a hard time during the debates that it seems unlikely many of them could continue to hold a candle for Clinton.

But it seems even less conceivable that Edwards would drop out before Super Tuesday on Feb. 5, when a more conclusive victor will probably emerge.

After the Democratic party does choose I winner, I think Richardson has the best chance at being picked as a running mate, but more on that later.

It isn't easy being Dean

Watching some live C-Span coverage just now, I heard Howard Dean, chairman of the Democratic Party, do a riff on something Barack Obama said last night after winning in Iowa.

I'm not sure if Dean intentionally mimicked Obama, but the result was pretty funny.

My approximation of what Obama said in his victory speech:

"There are no red states and there are no blue states, these are the United States."

And here's what I heard Dean just say:

"There are no red states, there are no blue states, there is America; purple states."

Reversi

I wouldn't call it a mistaken identity, but while reporting a story about a robbery, a store owner (actually the husband of the owner of a salon) asked to see some credentials to make sure I wasn't the thief.

I was at the wrong place, the robbery happened down the road, but the man said he had heard about it and the police had passed out fliers about it, so I asked for a copy of the flier.

That's when he asked to see my ID.

Company policy at my newspaper disallows me from writing a blog associated with it, and I'd rather not mention the town name, but it's an outer-suburb of Boston, with very few people my age (mid 20s) living there.

Anyway, it seems a guy basically fitting my description for height, age and race has been sticking up local businesses over the month or two.

As a white man (about 5' 10", 5' 11"), the idea of being a mistaken suspect has always been an abstract concept to me.

Overwhelmingly across the US, it is black men or Asian men, or Latino men, who are picked when police are looking for someone else.

In this case, the man in the salon, was only being careful - there have been three robberies in the area in under 30 days - but it was still disconcerting.

I can still only imagine how it must feel to be hauled off, put to trial and then thrown in prison despite never having committed the crime.

For the record, I didn't do it, and based on what the last robbery victim told me, the alleged robber is capable of far more cruelty than I could over commit.

But you won't read about any of that on this blog.

Down the tubes

For a look at how bad things can become in a newsroom, before and after a big corporate takeover, read John Hockenberry's piece in Technology Review.

He left NBC and Dateline after parent company GE decided he wasn't best for shareholder value.

Hockenberry compared the GE corporate mantras to Maoism and decided NBC could not keep up with changing technology long before he left the network.

It's a long article, but worth it.

Hockenberry works for the MIT Media Lab now.