Wow, the newly invigorated Boston Herald is really punching up these days: Yesterday, it ran a shocking expose on how a newspaper that's been dead for six years, its archives now stored at Northeastern, used to run lots of ads for escort services. Now that America is woke to the plight of human trafficking after the scandal embroiling Robert Kraft and his trips to the Orchids of Asia Spa, should Northeastern University come clean about a dirty little secret hidden deep within its archives?
Dirty little secret? Is the Herald writer the one person in Boston who never saw the Phoenix's "Adult" section? One can only hope he next turns his eyes inward, to the days when the editors at the Hearst paper in Boston part of that proud Herald heritage would ask their police reporters "is it dark out there?
In the meantime, here's the Herald story , but you'll need a Herald subscription to read it. Like the job UHub is doing? Consider a contribution. This is some weapons-grade whataboutism here. Yes the "adult" ads WERE sleasy. So they are upset about archives? I guess that is consistent with the current war on Facts, History, and Data, and anything that documents Reality. But to frame it as "a dirty little secret," when everybody knew about it? And to make it sound like Northeastern's somehow engaged in a coverup?
The writer was trying too hard or maybe his editors were. At one Ivy, you'd see indoor free paper stands in uni buildings with the paper taken, but a large percentage of the adult sections pulled out and left behind. I recall these included "escort" sections, labeled as such. Also, ads for strip clubs, phone sex ads, and personals classifieds before CraigsList. I don't recall whether they had "massage" place ads.
The Boston Herald used to run ads for massage parlors and strip clubs. Not sure about escort services, but I wouldn't be at all surprised. On the racing page, the Herald used to run ads for the Pussycat in the CZ and a place in Revere that sold lingerie. A more accurate headline wouldn't fit your narrative, NU honors paper that trafficked in sex-slavery. There is no bombshell in reporting that the Boston Phoenix ran ads for escorts which were in most cases prostitutes controlled by pimps.
