| Local Heroes |
photo by Michael Manning |
Joe Heisler
IT'S 6:52 P.M. on a Tuesday night and Joe Heisler stands in front of a mirror putting on makeup for Talk of
the Neighborhoods, which starts in just eight minutes. When he finishes, he sighs, "What a day," and strides
to his seat in the Boston Neighborhood Network (BNN) studio that overhangs the Alley in the Massachusetts
Transportation Building. "Tonight we'll talk about - what else? - city politics," Heisler begins. His guest
is former mayoral candidate and state senator Joe Timilty.
Heisler, a former community journalist with the Hyde Park-Roslindale Gazette, has built his weekly
cable-television show into an institution of city politics. While no official ratings are available, the
show reaches a committed core of city voters, community activists, and local politicians. Heisler, dubbed
Boston's Larry King by the Boston Globe, interviewed all the candidates vying to replace Representative Joe
Kennedy in the Eighth Congressional District in 1998 and all those seeking Moakley's Ninth District seat
this year. Last year, his anniversary show at Doyle's, in Jamaica Plain, garnered almost as many local
pols - Mayor Tom Menino, House Speaker Tom Finneran, and most members of the city council, for example - as
a recent book party there for Chris Matthews, host of CNBC's Hardball. And through six years, Heisler's
guests have been as high-profile from a local perspective as Matthews's are from a national viewpoint: not
only Menino and Finneran, but Congressman Joe Moakley, Governor Paul Cellucci, and then-lieutenant governor
candidate Jane Swift. Every city councilor and city-councilor wanna-be aspires to frequent appearances on
the show. The program repeats during the week, providing for multiple media hits. On election night,
Heisler did his show for three hours, through six different segments. And for all this, for filling in the
gaps in the city's local political coverage, he gets ... nothing. Heisler does it for free in his spare
time from his full-time job as a contract manager for the state's Department of Transitional Assistance.
"While everyone talks about how important it is for electronic media to cover local politics, nobody really
does it accept for Joe Heisler," says Boston Herald columnist and former city councilor Tom Keane. Adds
Charles Rasmussen, spokesman for Finneran and a former news director at Neighborhood Network News, which
itself does a share of local programming: "Joe provides the city with an in-depth look at politicians and
the politics that revolve from City Hall to the neighborhoods and back again. Having people on for up to an
hour allows him to ask what a lot of people would like to ask."
Heisler cuts a telegenic presence, falling somewhere between '80s pop star Huey Lewis, to whom he bears
some resemblance, and Charlie Rose, whose chatty PBS interview show serves as a model for Talk of the
Neighborhoods. Heisler is a graceful interviewer; he deftly eases Timilty into speaking about his past
troubles with the US Justice Department by first raising the problems of his erstwhile mayoral opponent,
Kevin White. He also attempts to draw Timilty out about his one-time aide, Menino, whom Timilty has
criticized in the past. But all his guest will say is: "He has his life. I have mine. We don't go out to
dinner together."
Heisler is no machine-gunning Matthews when it comes to interrogating guests, but his smooth persistence
sometimes gives pause to potential interviewees. When politicians agree to appear on Heisler's show,
they're often committing to an hour's worth of talk. That's a lot of exposure for someone unaccustomed to
live television. In addition, since Heisler got to know then-city councilor Menino during his years as an
editor with the now-defunct Hyde Park-Roslindale Gazette, he does not back away from having Menino's
critics on the show. City Councilor Peggy Davis-Mullen, for example, one of the mayor's few outspoken
critics, was a guest the night of the mayoral preliminary election. "I still have high regard for him,"
says Heisler of Menino. "Sometimes I think his supporters think I am too critical of him because I ask
questions." But if Menino's allies are sometimes angered by the show - Heisler, for example, asks Timilty
about Menino's reluctance to debate Davis-Mullen and has allowed other guests, such as Keane, to criticize
the mayor - Heisler says it hasn't affected content. "I give credit to my general manager [BNN general
manager Curtis Henderson], because the city is indirectly the conduit of money to BNN," he says.
Looking to the future, Heisler is working on a plan to garner corporate funding for the program (Doyle's is
already a sponsor) that would allow him to broadcast daily. He hopes someday to win appearances from a few
reluctant guests, such as former mayor White and Boston University chancellor John Silber. Even if he fails
to snag them, Heisler continues to fill a void in Boston's political coverage. "I love this city," he says.
- Seth Gitell
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