Date: Sun, 21 Sep 2003
Subject: #277 The Boston Herald’s Prejudiced Reporting
THE BOSTON HERALD’S PREJUDICED REPORTING
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DrugSense FOCUS Alert #277 September 21, 2003
Below are the stories covering the Boston Freedom Rally as presented
by The Boston Globe and The Boston Herald. One would have a hard time
believing that the reporters were at the same event. Let’s look at the
differences.
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ORIGINAL ARTICLE
Pubdate: Sun, 21 Sep 2003
Source: Boston Globe (MA)
Copyright: 2003 Globe Newspaper Company
Contact: letter@globe.com
Author: Ron DePasquale
RALLY URGES RELAXATION OF POT LAWS
There may have been a haze in the air, but organizers of the annual
Freedom Rally on the Boston Common clearly saw their goal, to
decriminalize marijuana and allow medicinal use.
As the smell of pot mixed with incense, and the band onstage competed
with numerous bongo players and guitar strummers, organizers from the
Massachusetts Cannabis Reform Coalition spoke of their confidence that
marijuana will be decriminalized in the state. They cited the
non-binding results of votes last November in 20 districts where
citizens, by an average of 2-to-1, instructed their state
representatives to decriminalize pot. No bills have made it out of
committee, but that has not discouraged MassCann president Bill Downing .
“We expect very soon to see Massachusetts decriminalize marijuana,”
Downing said. “It will probably have to be done through the initiative
process, because legislators are reluctant to pursue it unless they
are forced to do so.”
About 45,000 attended the festival, Boston police said. At least 45
arrests were made on drug-related charges, police said. An organizer
said attendance appeared to be down from last year.
Canada’s decision to decriminalize possession of less than two-thirds
of an ounce of marijuana also encourages MassCann, Downing said, along
with the case of Ed Rosenthal , a Californian who was deputized by the
city of Oakland to grow marijuana for medicinal use and convicted in
January in federal court of cultivation and conspiracy to grow more
than 1,000 marijuana plants, after a raid on his home.
A judge sentenced Rosenthal to a one-day prison term and said he had
already served it after he was arrested. The activist has since become
a symbol of the movement and spoke twice at yesterday’s Freedom Rally.
“The government did in six months what I’ve been trying to do for 35
years,” said Rosenthal, coauthor of “Why Marijuana Should Be Legal”
and author of 12 other books about marijuana. “The whole legal
situation has catapulted me into being a spokesman for the movement,
and I really appreciate their help.”
Rosenthal is appealing his conviction, while federal prosecutors are
appealing his sentence.
Rachel, a 34-year-old government worker in Rhode Island who did not
want her last name used, called Rosenthal “courageous” after buying
two of his books.
“I’m glad to see people getting together on the issue,” she said.
“Most people walk around and don’t express an opinion, because they’re
afraid of persecution. But the numbers here speak for themselves, when
you look at everyone who’s come here.”
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Good reporting by the Boston Globe. Covered what happened well. Worthy
of a pat on the back Letter to the Editor.
But what did the Boston Herald write?
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ORIGINAL ARTICLE
Pubdate: Sun, 21 Sep 2003
Source: Boston Herald (MA)
Copyright: 2003 The Boston Herald, Inc
Contact: letterstoeditor@bostonherald.com
Author: Jules Crittenden
UP IN SMOKE: POTHEADS UNITE: 45 ARRESTED AT ANNUAL PROTEST
Police arrested 45 pot smokers on Boston Common yesterday as
protesting hempheads called for an end to the war on drugs and a
diversion of billions of anti-drug dollars to the war on terrorism.
“Fight terrorism! End prohibition,” yelled Joe Bonni of MASS
CANN/NORML, the pro-weed lobby that organized the event. Citing the
transfer of narcotic agents to terrorism duty after 9/11, Bonni said,
“Imagine how safe we’d be if they had been on home security in the
first place. We need to make the nation a safer place, and one of the
ways to do that is to end the war on drugs.”
Thousands of cannabis enthusiasts along with anti-reefer activists
descended on the Common for the 14th annual Freedom Rally, where pot,
politics, tie-dye styles, head-banging punk rock, Christian evangelism
and fried dough converged in a big, sweaty, sun-baked mass yesterday.
Clouds of marijuana smoke wafted across the green, and by 5 p.m.,
undercover officers had arrested 45 people for possession or
distribution of marijuana.
A reporter’s approach made one 50-year-old pot smoker
jump.
“I’d have some explaining to do,” said the Waltham man, who identified
himself only as “Joe.” He estimated that he had been smoking pot for
at least 32 years, and said he considered it a crime that it is still
illegal.
“The penalties people get for smoking pot are ridiculous,” Joe
said.
Where two main paths crossed, a series of activists with placards
angled for the attention of passersby. They ranged from an evangelist
beseeching sinners to change their ways, to a pot proponent protesting
NORML for proposing legislation rather than fighting a court battle on
constitutional grounds.
An earnest young law student clutching a hefty tome argued the issue
with him. Another man nearby simply held up a store-bought utility
sign that said, “Keep Off the Grass.”
A blue-haired, black-clad youth said he came because he thought the
Freedom Rally would be a patriotic event featuring punk rock bands
like Scissorfight.
“I think pot should not be legalized. I’m a born-again Christian. Why
do you think I wear this stuff?” he said about his “Abortion is
Homicide” T-shirt.
But Joyce Walsh, 73, a former Beacon Hill resident now retired in
Savannah, Ga., said, “I think it’s way overdue to legalize it.’
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What kind of reporting is this?
Arrests are the most important, lead paragraph?
“UP IN SMOKE” “POTHEADS” “hempheads” “pro-weed lobby”
???
Only “thousands” – not 45,000?
Where is the coverage of what happened on the stage, the messages from
well known activists? Instead we get “Where two main paths
crossed….”
Well, you can all see the differences. Thankfully the Boston Globe is
the far larger newspaper, with a strong Sunday readership throughout
the New England states.
The clear bias exhibited by The Boston Herald is a tradition for the
paper. Reporter Crittenden was most likely told the kind of story he
had to write. Where does a Boston Herald reporter go to advance his
career? The supermarket tabloids?
Please also consider writing a Letter to the Editor to the Boston
Herald about their biased reporting.
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CONTACT INFO
Source: Boston Globe
Contact: letter@globe.com
Source: Boston Herald
Contact: letterstoeditor@bostonherald.com
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TARGET ANALYSIS:
With a Sunday circulation of 704,926, The Boston Globe is the #1
circulating newspaper in the six New England states. Sunday
circulation for the Boston Herald is 156,234.
The body of the average published letter in The Boston Globe is 176
words in length. But well focused and written letters as long as 330
words have been published.
The Boston Herald prints only short letters, averaging 117 words, with
the largest about 170 words – probably preferring to give more space
to their prohibitionist polemics.
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Prepared by: Richard Lake, Sr. Editor, DrugNews, www.mapinc.org
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