Some murder cases are more equal than others
On Friday, the front page of the Globe's City & Region section featured a color photo of Neil Entwistle crying and a long story about how distressed he was to see video of his dead wife and daughter (the online version has video for you to enjoy).
You had to turn the page to see one-paragraph rewrites of press releases from the DA's office about a former Army sharpshooter being convicted of first-degree murder for shooting a man outside a Fenway bar and about a mistrial for two guys accused of killing a woman (and shooting out the eye of her companion) in Dorchester.
Over at the Herald, Peter Gelzinis today compares the stop-the-presses coverage of the Entwistle case with the almost non-existent coverage of the Calvin Carnes case (only some guy who is charged with gunning down FOUR PEOPLE in a Dorchester basement) and the case of Rodrick Taylor, accused of killing a young woman from Milton, then taking her body to Franklin Park and burning it:
Regardless of how despicable or merciless the crime, it is easier to numb ourselves when it happens "over there," in those places police classify as "hot zones." There are no manicured front lawns, no entrances secured with push-button combination alarms, no two-car garages.
The irony, of course, is that a pair of overlooked inner-city human dramas now unfolding in two Boston courtrooms have far more to do with murder as it actually exists, day in and day out, than the made-for-TV-movie playing out in Woburn.
Hmm, wonder what the Powers that Be at the Herald think of this column? Might be kind of hard to ask them, though, since they seem too busy filing Entwistle dispatches every 10 minutes ("We all got to see Dan Bennett, assistant district attorney, in action as he rolled out Neil's eBay wheeling and dealing. I'm sure he has juicier Web work to come.")
Um...
Regardless of how despicable or merciless the crime, it is easier to numb ourselves when it happens "over there," in those places police classify as "hot zones." There are no manicured front lawns, no entrances secured with push-button combination alarms, no two-car garages.
He has a point, in terms of the us-and-them mentality of the public, but his example falls flat, since it makes it obvious that he clearly hasn't spent much time in residential neighborhoods in Dorchester and Roxbury. Upper-middle-class homes with manicured lawns and two-car garages and combination locks are certainly not unheard of in Dorchester and Roxbury -- they just aren't the norm as they may be in Hopkinton. Indeed, the really intriguing thing about Boston is that it's so geographically small and so Balkanized that there are many places I frequent where one street is full of broken windows and overgrown lawns and tagging, but then the next street over has homes of similar age and architecture that are immaculate. I've often wondered how and why this happens. There are some streets where there's a row of maybe 10 freshly painted and nicely landscaped homes, but then the next 10 houses for whatever reason didn't feel the pressure to keep up with the Joneses (or even keep up with the laws about not having a yard full of hazardous waste containers and rusting car parts).
He was probably just trying to make a point
Because I think Gelzinis is probably the only metro columnist now working at either paper who actually knows his way around Boston without a map.
But, yes, you have a point about the diversity of Boston neighborhoods.
Dorchester's manicured lawns
The fanciest street in Dorchester, Wellesley Park, is just two blocks from Bourneside Street. That area isn't the ghetto, by any standard.
Leaving aside this quibble, Gelzinis is spot on. I'd like to learn a lot more about the Bourneside murders, and especially about what motivated the murderer.
I for one am much more
I for one am much more interested in the story behind the horrific Dorchester murders than the overblown Entwistle case.
There's a bit more on the
There's a bit more on the Carnes trial here:
http://www.mass.gov/dasuffolk/docs/5.19.08.html
http://www.mass.gov/dasuffolk/docs/5.20.08.html
http://www.mass.gov/dasuffolk/docs/6.6.08.html
You get the same thing in
You get the same thing in England - "appealing" victims get mega-coverage, the rest are ignored. Also, you rarely get follow-up to headline stories no matter what the issue. "The News" is a constant to sell novelty - a standard trial just isn't a new story, it's just cleaning up the details.
the 'powers that be'
...heheh, are really just a very enthusiastic reporter with a blog and a middle-America made-for-tv sensibility who has been swept away by the Entwistle intrigue. And who I think would be flattered to be characterized as a power that is. I think if Gelzinis were inclined to have a blog you'd see both perspectives in action. But blogs are a lot of work (again, heheh) for no extra remuneration over there, so you're seeing what the squeaky wheel wants to show you. And of course the Entwistle stories do pull down the hits, so that figures in--but (unfortunately) not in a powers=that-be kind of way. System's just not that organized.
OK, it's just a blog
But these things do not happen in a vacuum. Somebody at the paper has to decide how much coverage to allocate to A and B and C, and somebody at both papers has decided Entwistle is more worthy of coverage than poor people getting offed in Boston.
that's true
in theory. but the treatment of this specific case was determined more, I guess I would have to say, by default. I don't disagree with your larger point. It's just that this case came along at a particular time, caught a wave. I wouldn't be surprised to see a crime blog on the site, a Gelzinis-style blog, something focused on the city instead of on the movie of the week. I don't think there would be resistance to that if a champion came along who was willing to take it on. I don't know that that person would be the same one who is working on this case.
Accused killer husband epicenter
Good to see the Herald is keeping us up to the minute on allegedly loathsome husbands.
Because, really, who cares about the deliberations in the quadruple basement murder in Dorchester?
To be fair ...
if ongoing, unfinished jury deliberations result in newspaper stories, you'll have a mistrial.
I'm not asking for much
Just a simple update that the jury's still deliberating or whatever on the worst multiple murder in Boston in years. Surely newspapers that can send editors out to Woburn can at least have an intern call the DA's office.