Skip to footer

Mayor Tom Menino: A tireless public servant

|
REUTERS/Jim Bourg
Boston Mayor Thomas Menino celebrates with Boston political and business leaders including Massachusetts State Senator Dianne Wilkerson (R) at Boston's City Hall after it was announced that Boston had been chosen by the Democratic Party to host the 2004 Democratic National Convention.

[The original column appeared Oct. 31, 2014 in The Daily News Briefing]

Today's column might seem a little parochial if you live in London or Singapore or New York. Thomas Menino, who passed yesterday, was mayor of Boston for 20 years. Nothing about him was flamboyant or eloquent, and he made that an asset. An undistinguished public speaker, he mumbled in his first mayoral campaign commercial that "I'm not a fancy talker."

Mr. Menino was, however, a tireless public servant who showed up at even the smallest events as mayor and before that as a city councilor. Late in his career, a Boston Globe poll indicated that more than half of Boston had met him personally.

In a city that had been riven by class and race division, he championed diversity and inclusion. In a city with more than its share of political scandal, his tenure was relatively scandal-free. He called himself an "urban mechanic," working to make his city better. Today's Boston is, in great part, a reflection of his effort. That pragmatic legacy that is at least as worthy of applause as a lot of fancy talking.

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.
editor@csmonitor.com
Subscribe
Mark Sappenfield
Editor

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

Subscribe to insightful journalism

QR Code to Mayor Tom Menino: A tireless public servant
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/Commentary/From-the-Editors/2014/1103/Mayor-Tom-Menino-A-tireless-public-servant
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe