Herald to Boston: We’re Still Here
Boston’s third-favorite daily rag indulges in a little self-congratulation today in honor of the 25th anniversary of its rebirth. Herald publisher Pat Purcell waxes nostalgic on the front page of the tabloid, but things really get interesting when hero fetishist Joe Fitzgerald describes his memories of that fateful day in December, 1982. To Joey Fitz, happiness is a warm muffin, and a two-newspaper town.
A hodgepodge of various old newspapers, the modern Herald was put up for sale by the Hearst Corporation in 1982. Just when things looked at their bleakest, some guy named Rupert Murdoch purchased it.
It was understandably a joyful day for the daily’s staffers, especially for a young Joe Fitzgerald.
The edition sitting on this desk, dated December 4, 1982, is a personal treasure.
Like Rocky rising from the mat, its headline declared in brazen red letters, 120 points tall: “YOU BET WE’RE ALIVE!”
To look at it now is to vividly remember the night it rolled off the presses, warm as a muffin coming from an oven; indeed, it’s to once again feel the hugs and see the tears and hear the cries of joy that filled this room that night.
A . . . muffin?
We love freshly-baked breakfast carbohydrates as much as the next person, but that’s not how we’d describe the feeling of keeping our jobs. Perhaps you felt the emotional warmth of the moment like seeing a long-lost friend. There’s always the old parallel between the rebirth of the paper and the birth of a child. But unless the tabloid’s printing press can magically produce muffins at the same breakneck speed it prints the paper, we don’t see the connection.
Regardless of how Fitzgerald remembers that day, we’re glad the Herald is still here. Not only does it have amazing cover art, but it can out-scoop and out-write the stodgy Globe, and keep us all on our toes. Here’s to another 25 years of sensationalist news, cringe-worthy columns from Howie Carr, and the most accurate horoscopes in the local media. If you want to celebrate today, Joe, the muffins are on us.
