Globies Hit With More Bad News

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If the Boston Globe is really such an essential component of life in Massachusetts, as John Kerry and his elitist cronies would have us believe, then why aren’t readers rallying to its defense?

Faced with the impending threat of closure by The New York Times Company, the Globies held a rally last week, attracting few beyond its own staff and union hacks with a vested interest in its survival. Missing from the equation, however, are readers- they’ve continued to abandon the paper.

According to newly-released data comparing March 2009 to the same period last year, the Globe has seen print circulation drop by nearly 14%, now down to 302,000 average copies. That’s a decline of roughly 40,000 daily, just since March 2008.

Sure, we’ve all heard the argument that readers have migrated to the Internet and additional data released today indicates visitors are lingering a a few minutes longer at Boston.com. But that actually means little: short-term traffic surges usually depress that figure, while declining visits cause it to rise.

Why? It’s simple: temporary links from other sites, such as Drudge, lead to huge increases for brief periods. As opposed to hard-core daily fans of a site, they read one story and move on elsewhere. That pushes down the average time spent viewing number.

Conversely, during a month where there aren’t many inbound links, only regular readers remain at Boston.com, sending this number back up. At the end of the day, as one-shot tourists disappear, the core readership is most important.

As with radio and television ratings, there’s obviously more to this than a body count: how long someone remains with a program or an article has a significant role in setting ad rates. Next, we’ll look at how this affects Boston talk radio.

UPDATE: the Globies are attempting to spin this news as “at least we weren’t down as much as the Herald”.

But the comparison may not be valid: since the latter paper shut its presses and outsourced production, the number of copies sent to newsstands has been cut sharply, which appears to be intentional. It has become much harder to find a Herald in many shops, especially later in the day. There is a deliberate attempt to sell every delivered paper without leftovers.

Another point: while the Herald is run on a shoestring budget, the Globe has tremendous overhead, yet the latter’s circulation (300,000 vs the Herald’s 150,000) isn’t big enough to make up for those extra costs.

Nonetheless, I do believe it is time for the Herald to consider beefing up its Sunday edition, which is too expensive at $2.00 for what little is provided. Sunday circulation has now fallen under 100,000, underscoring the need for improvement. Either cut the price or add something extra to the paper, before this deteriorates further.

The Finne-felon Seeks Bush Pardon

No, I’m not making this up, nor is it an early April Fool’s joke. WRKO’s resident morning show felon and former Democrat House Speaker Tom Finneran has actually got the nerve to petition President Bush for a pardon!

Apparently, the fact that Tommy Tune Out was caught red-handed committing perjury is irrelevant, the Bay State’s Hack-In-Chief has enlisted the support of four ex-governators in his appeal to the outgoing president.

From The Globies:

Former House speaker Thomas M. Finneran, seeking to cleanse the stain left by his 2007 conviction for obstruction of justice, is angling for a last-minute pardon from President Bush and has lined up a group of former Massachusetts governors to back his request.

Finneran submitted an application for a presidential pardon last month, and the four governors – Democrat Michael Dukakis and Republicans William F. Weld, Paul Cellucci, and Jane Swift – followed up with a letter to the White House praising his integrity.

Finneran has already been “severely punished,” the governors wrote, citing the loss of his state pension, the suspension of his license to practice law, and his firing from a lucrative private-sector job.

“And he has suffered daily taunts and ridicule of those who believe that every elected official is the equivalent of a common thief,” the governors told the president in their letter, a copy of which was obtained by the Globe. They assured Bush that Finneran has “seen the error of this episode” and is truly sorry.

How could Team Swifty really believe The Felon was punished? Other than ridicule in the local press, he hasn’t suffered a bit. Despite tiny ratings, he makes a fortune as WRKO’s failed morning show host. They had to shut down the entire newsroom in order to pay his bloated salary!

Did he spend time in prison? Who are we kidding here?

Though I’m not surprised Tommy would try to pull this stunt, why were these former governors willing to help? He certainly doesn’t deserve it.

Take It Out On The Globies

Let’s face it: we’re stuck with corrupt, one-party Democratic Party rule. Demented voters have been conditioned to believe that the best way to get revenge on Bush is to vote for Democrat crooks here at home.

But what those who are furious over Friday’s massive toll increases ($7 just to leave the airport?) can do now is to take it out on their enemies at the Boston Globe.

The Globies have backed Corruptocrats, smeared Republican opponents and fought Question One, which would have eliminated our state income tax. Voters did what they were told and have now been rewarded with a massive tax increase anyway. Suckers!

Even this morning, they’ve failed to give prominent space to the toll fiasco on their website.

The Globies work to undermine their readers seven days a week, focusing on conditioning the public to believe in high taxes, massive government and crooked politicians (who need only have a “D” after their names).

Are you still buying the Globe? Advertising in it? Somehow supporting it in some other manner? End that relationship NOW.

Have you undermined your Globie enemies yet today?

Foreign Leaders No Match For Arrogant Boston Liberals

World leaders, you have met your match: the sheer arrogance brought upon by single-party rule in New England.

What else explains the disgusting sense of entitlement that exists within the Bay State’s corrupt politics-media ruling class?

With today’s revelations that WTKK’s Jim Braude tried to interfere with Prime Minister Gordon Brown’s motorcade, the libtalker has revealed just how overconfident Boston’s politically-connected hacks have become.

From the Boston Herald:

State police Sgt. Steven Godfrey said he was at his post for two minutes when his lieutenant radioed that the escort was leaving the library. It was then that Godfrey heard a “car horn blaring” and saw a black SUV “traveling northbound in the southbound lane” on Morrissey Boulevard.

Godfrey then saw the SUV making an illegal U-turn.

“I don’t know whether this is a terrorist or an aggravated driver,” Godfrey recalled yesterday. “Had they continued to go all the way around the U-turn . . . they would have been heading in the direction that the escort was coming.”

Godfrey said he ran into the roadway, arms flailing and yelling, to get the driver’s attention.

“This was a potential life-and-death situation for this person and/or one of us,” Godfrey said. “Had he continued to drive in toward the escort, he could have put his life in peril. He could have been shot. The Secret Service doesn’t take this stuff lightly.”

The driver, who turned out to be Braude, pulled over and began yelling at Godfrey out the window, according to the sergeant.

“You people don’t know what you’re doing,” Braude said, according to Godfrey. “You people are screwing up traffic. There’s people that need to get places. I demand to know what’s going on.”

(Braude said he never demanded anything.)

Godfrey told him the “only demand that would be met” was his demand for Braude’s license and registration. Godfrey mailed Braude a citation for wrongway operation and illegal U-turn.

“This was a situation that could have become an international incident,” said Godfrey, a 20-year veteran of the force who didn’t know the media personality. “This guy just had that demeanor of entitlement.”

Especially troubling is not just the fact that Braude feels justified in fighting his citation, but that there are 100 other local hacks who would have behaved the same way in those circumstances.

And why didn’t we find out about this until now? The incident occurred in April, when the PM was here to suck up to the Kennedy family.

Did The Globies cover this story at all, or are they protecting a local establishment figure, as they usually do?

This astounding level of self-importance is what happens when checks and balances are removed from the political process. Because Massachusetts is ruled by Braude’s friends, laws don’t apply to him, they’re for serfs.

As I mentioned earlier this week, Eagan and Braude’s ratings have been sliding like crazy recently, with the most recent figures showing Rush Limbaugh now beating them.

And with stupid “topics” such as bickering over sandwiches and burritos in the studio, why would anyone be surprised?

Braude image: Ted Fitzgerald, Boston Herald