Copyright © 1997 by the Boston Phoenix, Inc. All rights reserved.

This Just In: Media

The Globe buries the election

By Dan Kennedy

One might have thought it impossible to underplay last week's city council elections, virtually devoid as they were of drama or importance. But the Boston Globe succeeded in portraying them as even less dramatic and important than they actually were.

For the second time in a row, the Globe didn't even run a post-election story on the front page, instead publishing a teaser listing the highlights to be found inside. But at least in 1995 the teaser ran at the top of the page, with a hard-news headline: ROACHE IS NO. 1 AND O'NEIL IS SECOND. This time the tease appeared below the fold; if you were perusing your friendly neighborhood news box, you wouldn't even know there'd been an election.

The stories that did appear above the fold -- some not-particularly-scintillating developments in the Louise Woodward case and a luncheon speech by state higher-education chief Jim Carlin -- would have looked just fine in Metro/Region.

Inside the paper, the Globe's shortcomings were even more obvious: approximately two-and-a-quarter pages on election results in the city and around the region, versus four in 1995. Gone was the tabular data from elsewhere in Massachusetts, a staple in years past.

Though the Globe's rival, the Boston Herald, didn't cover itself with much glory either, it did manage to squeeze in a story above the nameplate on the front, with a straight-to-the-point headline: DAPPER, DAVIS-MULLEN SURVIVE RACE.

An unintended bit of irony neatly summarizes the Globe's coverage. In a story on the city's miserable 28 percent turnout, Zachary Dowdy wrote that "for many, voting seemed less an exercise in civic responsibility than an inconvenience."

Clearly that's how the Globe's editors saw the election, too.