The Mobster and the Tipster

By Chris Daly 

More reasons to enjoy life in one of the last remaining two-newspaper cities in America. The Globe and the Herald continue to bash each other (as they should), sometimes at the risk of sounding silly.

A brief re-cap: The Globe began this round with a major piece on Sunday about mobster Whitey Bulger. The Herald, acting in reflexive opposition to its bitter rival and perhaps in a bit of pique about not having done that story themselves, let fly on Monday with what looked like a news story in which the FBI expressed its shock (shock, shock, shock!) over the Globe’s decision to divulge the identity of the tipster who led the FBI to Bulger. Since then, it has been back and forth all week with each newspaper using news articles, columns, and editorials to dump on the other.

Here are today’s updates from the Globe and the Herald. As a public service, I am also providing a link to the FBI statement that both papers are bickering over. It is a head-spinning experience to read all three documents in quick succession.

FWIW, here’s my take: The FBI is trying to tell each paper what it thinks they want to hear. Each paper is interpreting the same material in a way that conforms to its own gloss on the story. And on it goes.

In this case, it is not hard to imagine each paper working up just as much outrage over the opposite set of facts. Once a newspaper war breaks out, there are no neutrals. The winner (if any) will be the one that gets more readers out of it.