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January 20, 2005

Metro executives’ slurs seen jeopardizing merger plans

Yawu Miller

If anyone doubted that Boston Herald Publisher Patrick Purcell is opposed to the New York Times’ proposed acquisition of a 49 percent interest in the Metro’s Boston edition, the headlines in the tabloid last week easily cleared up the misconception.

The Herald plastered allegations of racism at the free publication in bold letters next to images of angry black ministers.

The Herald picked up the story after MediaChannel.org, a web log run by journalist Rory O’Connor, revealed that Metro executives had told racist jokes using the n-word during company conferences in 2003.

While newspapers seldom report on allegations of discrimination at other news outlets, the Herald reported on two Massachusetts Commission Against Discrimination complaints against the Boston Metro.

In the following days, the Herald continued to publish the allegations, along with reactions from a handful of black clergy and activists, several of whom called for a boycott of the free publication. “Black leaders call for action,” read a sub-headline on the cover of the Thursday edition.

Boston Association of Black Journalists President Howard Manley, who serves as a columnist at the Herald, echoed the call for a boycott in a Wednesday column.

“Leave it in the hands of those grossly underpaid hawkers standing in front of the subway stations and let them return their bundles back to their ignorant owners,” Manly wrote.

The Herald’s bid to expose racism at the Metro comes after Purcell announced he has asked the Justice Department to investigate the Times’ merger with the Metro as a violation of antitrust laws. A partnership between the Times corporation and the Metro could significantly weaken the Herald by providing the free paper with better content, observers say.

Both the Herald and Metro have tabloid formats that make them easier to read on public transit than a broadsheet newspaper.

While the Herald spoke to half a dozen people their reporters termed “black leaders” for the story, not everyone contacted by the Banner was supportive of the paper’s bid to block the merger.

“It’s really the pot calling the kettle black,” said Horace Small, executive director of the Union of Minority Neighborhoods. “It’s ironic that the Herald is playing the race card when all they ever do is race baiting.”

Small pointed out columnist Mike Barnicle’s Thursday rant against juvenile cell phone use, in which he blasted Boston public school children for sending illiterate text messages on their cellphones.

“I’m not a gambling man,” Barnicle wrote, “but I would be willing to bet a fair amount that more kids leave school with cellphones than books necessary to do homework. Just a hunch.”

Small said charges of racism could easily be leveled at all of the city’s mainstream media.

“People in the African American community need to sit down with the Globe, Herald and the Metro and talk about their editorial content and their hiring,” he commented.
In the black community, the Herald is well known for its conservative op-ed page, featuring writers like former columnist Don Fedder, who angered the city’s Puerto Rican population with a 1998 column berating “immigrants” from their island, which is a US territory.

While the Boston Metro has had a decidedly more progressive tone, the local affiliate has no people of color on staff. That lack of diversity is reflected in Metro International, notes Robin Washington, a former Herald columnist now editorial page editor for the Duluth (Minn.) News Tribune.

“The larger issue is staffing,” he said. “If there had been a black person at that meeting, the comment wouldn’t have been said in the first place. And if it had, we certainly would have heard about it long before.”

As it turns out, some of the white Metro staffers in the room did talk about the slurs, but journalists in the know were slow to come out with the story. Globe columnist Alex Beam said he pursued the story, but was met with denials by Metro officials.

Rory O’Connor, who had the story for more than a year, sat on it until he caught wind of The New York Times corporation’s bid to aquire a share of the Boston Metro.

“No one would have known anything about any of this if it weren’t for a fight between two white companies,” noted state Rep. Byron Rushing.

Rushing said the calls for a boycott which aired in the Herald last week probably won’t amount to much.

“I think black people should organize,” he suggested. “No one should try to decide what the community should do by themselves. We should have a meeting. Anyone who’s interested should discuss what we should do. You can’t call for an action if you don’t know what your goal is.”

Evidence of boycott activity was scarce last week as bus passengers in the Dudley bus terminal — the black community’s busiest transit hub — clutched copies of the tabloid en route to work.

 

 

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