Gardner Museum Heist Investigation

Beat The Public

Boarden:
Hello, I'm Emory Boarden and welcome to a special edition of Beat The Public.

In this episode, we will be exploring coverage of the Isabella Stewart Gardner heist in the media, and the increasingly heated backlash to that coverage coming from small independent podcasts, like this show is now, as well as on social media platforms, like twitter.

And we're asking: Are there certain segments of the public that should be beat, or that can't be beat, over this clash in the twittersphere on the Gardner heist? Or is the whole thing just a tempest in a tweet pot?

Joining me are Ken "Book 'em" Dannohey of the Noreaster University School of Journalism and Joshua Beantin. of the Nieman Journalism Labrador. Also with us is Jon Still, whose television news segments, "Still At Large," can be seen on CMS. In addition, we have, coming from all the way over the Pond, from merry old England, a podcaster and arch critic of the Gardner heist investigation and the media coverage of it, Diesel Don Ennery.

Beantin: Wow we have Em-ory and En-nery. Are you Ennery the Eighth. Diesel?

Ennery: Ennery the Eighth. I am, I am. And you would no doubt be from the French House of Bourbon. Joshua a Fifth I believe.

Beantin: Haha

Boarden: Let's start with you Ken.

Dannohey: Wake me when they find the paintings.

Boarden: Seriously, on the one hand, some of these gripes seem valid, but on the hand, it's the FBI, the Gardner Museum, the Boston Globe, and their billionaire owners John and Linda Henry, we're talking about. I mean, what are we, stupid?

Dannahy: I think that's an excellent point, not in the sense that we're stupid, or not as the case may be, but just that in some instances, discretion can very much be the better part of valor. We in the media should ask ourselves if this isn't after all one of these cases. I mean, at the New York Times, I like Maggie Haberman, I really do, but mostly I'm scared to death of her.

Beantin: Emory… Ennery, and now the Henry's wow!

Boarden: We'll get to you in a second Josh. Have one of those gluten free cookies you were raving about.

Ennery: Or maybe hair of the dog.

Boarden: After we're done, Diesel. I've already reserved a virtual, corner table at Foley's. But tell us, for those of us who are not familiar with your far flinging media empire, on twitter and spotify, what has people so stirred up, in some cases on social media? What is this Gardner heist controversy on social media all about?

Ennery: Well, as someone who has been looking at and working on this case for thirty years, it seems that since around 2006, the FBI and the Gardner museum have been playing the public and the media like a two dollar banjo.

Beantin: Wow! Aren't you from England? It's amazing how you can do that currency conversion in your head like that, and on television. You must be obsessed with math AND the Gardner heist.

Ennery: Not really with either. There was a chimpanzee on BB4 last month, who could do some calculating that was even harder than that. And even Jim Jim, I believe his name was, could tell you that Robert Donati, George Reissfelder and David Turner had nothing whatsoever to do with the Gardner Museum heist.

Beantin: Hah. Tempest in a tweet pot. That's so cool.

Ennery: Disecretion is fine. But I am not seeing any discretion as Mr. Dannohey calls it, in the local, national, or international media in the reporting on this case.

Boarden: How do you mean?

Ennery: Well, to me, discretion would be for you to all shut your bloody pie holes about the Gardner heist until you actually have something relevant to report. But you don't. Instead you have this endless stream of pollution pouring into the heads of the public, like nothing I know of, except maybe the Great Stink of 1858.

Boarden: I've never heard of that before. Explain that. What happened?

Ennery: It was a time when so much raw sewage had been released into the Thames River, in London, that it became clogged. The whole city was up Shit's Creek without a plunger. The crisis got to the point that people were getting sick just from the stench of it.

You should be glad the stink of this Gardner heist effluent has reached your own nostrils, so you can address it for the public, but quite unsurprsingly, you are not. You don't want to hear or learn anything, about problems with legacy media, and their unholy strategic partnerships, unless it's from someone within legacy media, and so there you all are, sunbathing topside on the Styx, with your nasal passages as clogged as the Thames in 1858, and with roughly the same material.

Beantin: Boston had the Great Molasses Flood of 1919. I think I like that better than the Great Stink.

Ennery: All right, put it this way then, Boston's has had its second Great Molasses Flood. There was the one a hundred years ago, and now there is this second sickeningly sweet flood of goo, this one gumming up the news distribution channels, with misinformation about the Gardner heist, starting in about 2015, and continuing on to this day. And with no sign of stopping.

Boarden: Ken? Ken? Earth to Ken.

Dannohey: Yes.

Boarden: What do you think about what Diesel was saying.

Dannohey: Sorry, I was just blocking, our friend Diesel here, on that eddying cesspool of invective and hahf-truths, known as twitter, which I somehow can't seem to get away from. I actually think twitter is following me through my cell phone.

Beantin: Have you tried deleting the app?

Ennery: Nevermind about twitter. This is not twitter. This is a podcast we're all on here, a social media platform minus the annoying social part. A safe space where you can avoid people like me, and yet here I am.

I'm not knocking it, I have a podcast myself, but you asked Mr. Dannohey a question, Emory, and now he's ducking it.

Boarden: Any thoughts on what Diesel was saying about Boston's second molasses flood, Ken? What do you think?

Dannohey: I think it's just awful. People want to blame the media for everything. Donald Trump emerged as a political force, despite being from the media capital of the world, not because of it, yet some people have this idea, that it is the other way around.

Still: Indubitably.

Dannoehy: I'm reminded of a column written by Margaret Sullivan a few years back. I think it was called called "Margaret Sullivan Is Not Your Mother," something like that, and I don't agree with everything Sullivan writes in her column as ombudsman for the Washington Post, but I do like her, and I think she made an excellent point in this particular column, that all and all, the news media does a pretty good job. But the news media is not your mother, and neither certainly is Margaret Sullivan, nor mine, although I do look up to her quite a lot.

What's troubling is that people have somehow gotten the misimpression that media criticism somehow involves criticizing the media, and most of the time, nothing could be further from the truth.

Still: I agree with Ken. But I would say the exception is Big Tech. You can't depend on the big tech providers to give a rat's ass. Unlike the noble steeds of legacy media, Big Tech is going to go for the notoriety and the dough re mi, ever time.

This is where parents must take a more active role.

Danohey: Agreed Jon. Parents have to do much more in taking the lead and in making media choices for their children based on: Is the person telling me this "a talent"? Do they work in legacy media? Do they regulalry get juicy quotes from the rich and powerful? And finally, does what they say make any sense at all? And if the answer to the first three questions is yes, then almost by definition, or at least in the overwhelming majawrity of cases, the answer to the fourth question is yes as well.

Boarden: Jon?

Still: Well Emily, I frankly just fear for this Tik Tok-ing, big song and dance number viewing generation. Nomadically skipping along from social media platform to social media platform, a little Insta here, a little tumblr there, then over to AO3 for some quote unquote fan fiction, before texting some misspelled monosyllables to one of their friends, blissfully unaware of essential truths, the sometimes hard truths of institutional media, that only millionaires employed by billionaires can provide.

Ennery: Well if you're talking about the essential truths of the media when it comes to the Gardner heist case, the most polite thing I can say is, that's it's a bunch of bollocks, which, if you don't know, means testicles. I only offer a defintion because there doesn't seem to be much of a need for that term with any of its other meanings and connotations, in the current environment we now find ourselves in here with the Gardner heist news coverage.

Would any of you media experts and critics care to take an opposing view? Any wish to explain how Gardner heist news coverage, is not anything other than completely lacking in the areas of reason, truth, professionalism and courage?

Boarden: And now it's time for our media rants and raves.

Ennery: Hello? Hello? Anyone care to answer the question?

Boarden: Or mine anyway since we only have time for one rant.

Ennery [Singing Pink Floyd] Hello? Is there anybody in there? Just nod if you can hear me Is there any body home?

Boarden: I am so tired of what we hear virtually on every talk show these days.

Ennery [Singing Neil Diamond]: Hello again hello.

Boarden: Every time a Republican is brought on, the only thing they want to know is if they are going to disavow something that Donald Trump or another outspoken Republican had to say,

Ennery [Singing Lionel Richie]: Hello, is it me you're looking for?

Boarden: Rather than, actually, think what you will about Tom Cotton, he was actually very good on the Ukraine issues. And it was toward the end that George Stephanopoulos was pushing him on what Trump said. But it wasn't necessary, and once again giving Tom Cotton credit.

Ennery [Singing The Beatles]: I don't know why you say good bye I say hello.

Boarden: He was prepared for the question, he knew it was coming, and he repeatedly was saying: "I don't speak for other politicians."

[Ennery Singing Adele]: Hello from the outside At least I can say that I've tried

Boarden: And I think if everybody started saying that, maybe the disavowal game would end.

Ennery [Singing The Beatles]: Hey la, hey heela helloa, Hey la, hey heela helloa, Hey la, hey heela helloa, Hey la, hey heela helloa, Hey la, hey heela helloa, Hey la, hey heela helloa.

Hell-o-oh

 

 

 

by Kerry Joyce

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