SCANDAL! (SORT OF!)

By MEDIA FARM

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YOU REALLY CAN'T blame the Boston Herald for succumbing to its desires. The paper lusts after stories with the perfect elements: Sex!, Corrupt Pols! (so Howie Carr doesn't stretch his brain muscles too hard writing his column), Killer Cons!, Good Cops!!

So is it any surprise the paper shot its wad on the story of state Rep. Gloria Fox visiting Darrell Jones? Jones, a lifer at Old Colony Correctional Center, is an activist campaigning against youth violence and abusive prison guards. The Herald cited two anonymous "prison sources" who claimed Fox used her visiting rights as a legislator to also get Joanna Marinova, an activist who's worked with Jones, into the prison.

Using her State House-issued, all-access prison privileges, Fox, 67, visited convicted murderer Darrell Jones in the high-security segregation unit of the Old Colony Correctional Center with a woman the Roxbury Democrat claimed was her "best aide," two prison sources told the Herald.

... But Fox and the woman were bagged by a vigilant guard who recognized the "aide" as Jones' girlfriend—a woman previously written up for engaging in prohibited "sexual acts" in the visitor room with Jones.

In a follow-up story with the headline "Killer Con Rips Prison Visit Story" (maybe she should have titled it "Who're You Gonna Believe, Me or This Guy?"), Jessica Van Sack wrote about Jones' blog: "He included a one-page disciplinary report—which indicated that an officer observed Jones kissing Marinova and placing his hand on her leg—and two pages of what Jones characterized as findings of a subsequent hearing." She wrote that a report she'd seen "indicated a 'guilty' finding against Jones. But the pages he posted say the charge was dismissed." Actually, as Adam Reilly pointed out (hey, facts are facts!), the papers provided by Jones on his blog show charges he "engaged in sexual acts" were dismissed because the guard only wrote up the leg touch, and didn't observe a kiss. So Jones was only found guilty of ignoring the guard's orders. In her original article, Van Sack seemed to cover her ass, saying they were "written up," not "found guilty." It seems Van Sack received only part of the documentation. Either that, or she ignored the verdict.

Maybe if Van Sack could tame her girl boner for anonymous sources and "a vigilant guard" (we merely suggested that prison guards give her a liiiiittle titty hard-on ... see how spurious not-quite accusations work?), she'd consider her sources' motivation: Fox visited to discuss abusive and retaliatory prison guards with Jones.

The day after the story broke, the "Herald Staff" wrote an editorial calling for an ethics probe into Fox's actions. We think the Herald is suffering from a bout of locker-room envy. After all, the Boston Globe broke the story on former House Speaker Sal DiMasi's corruption, and their sniffing out the paper trail led to his resignation (to spend more time with his family) and last week's federal indictment (good thing he got in that family time, since he could face a 20-year prison sentence). It's natural to size up your peers and try to overcompensate.

BUT DON'T WORRY, little Herald, the way things are going, you won't have anyone to measure up to soon. The New York Times Co. needs the Globe to cut $20 million from its budget to stay viable this year, and already negotiated $10 million off the budgets of its other unions, but that's contingent on the largest union, the Boston Newspaper Guild, making up the difference.

On Monday night, by a painfully close margin, the Guild rejected a deal that would cut reporters' salaries by more than 10 percent, slash benefits and eliminate the Globe's lifers. So, newsroom salaries across the board will be slashed by 23 percent.

It's true that management has only seen a 5-percent pay cut, and the flagship paper bleeds so much money on useless items like resident windbag Thomas Friedman, and the journalistic atrocity known as the Sunday Styles section, it'd make a Viking vomit. Still, not taking a 10-percent pay cut so you can take a 25-percent cut and potentially take your crumbling company to federal court is like complaining your feet are too warm while your house is burning down.

Good thing we'll have the Herald to entertain us with fiction when we're a one-newspaper town.