Just one day after Boston Mayor Michelle Wu’s reelection victory was officially secured, after a recount result ensured she will sail through November without an opponent, Wu has spent recent days focused on a different adversary: the media.
On two separate occasions since Monday, Wu has complained about media coverage of her administration, accusing news outlets of not accurately reporting on the city’s low crime rates under her leadership as mayor.
Speaking on GBH’s “Boston Public Radio” Tuesday, Wu delivered a dig at the media as she responded to a question about how Massachusetts residents can support her and her administration’s efforts to stand up to attacks from the federal government.
“Especially if you may not live and breathe Boston every day, sometimes what you read in the Globe or other outlets picks at different things that are happening,” Wu said on the live radio program. “We want to get better every single day, but last year, Boston had the safest year ever on record. The number of homicides that the city recorded was far and away the lowest of any major city nationally, and the lowest that we had seen since we started recording data 70 years ago.”
She continued, by stating erroneously that “throughout that entire time, The Boston Globe didn’t even write a single piece, and to this day, still really hasn’t delved into how that happened.”
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While it is far from unusual for public officials to take issue with media coverage, news outlets have written repeatedly about the drop in violent crime rates in Boston since 2024.
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Local media has reported on the city’s notable drop in gun violence rates and homicide numbers, along with the community’s response. That coverage has continued as the city has published updated numbers and faced attacks from the federal government.
Wu also chastised the media during remarks she delivered at a Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce event Monday.
“Boston’s homicide rate was by far the lowest in absolute numbers and per capita by residents, and certainly the lowest in our city’s history,” Wu said. “Certain members of our lovely, accountable, local press corps reminded me that if you cut it a certain way, Mesa, Arizona, had a slightly lower rate than we did. I’m sorry, Mesa, but if you don’t have all sports teams, you’re not a real city, okay?”
Indeed, while Boston has seen a dramatic decline in some of the most concerning types of violent crime since she took office in 2021, her frequent talking point that Boston is the safest major city in the country is debatable.
Other American cities — including some with comparable or bigger populations than Boston, such as San Diego, San Jose, and El Paso — had lower homicide rates last year, according to data from the firm Real-Time Crime Index.
Among US cities in the index with populations greater than 500,000, several ranked lower than Boston for violent crime rates in 2023, including Fort Worth and the Las Vegas metropolitan area.
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A spokesperson for the mayor’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Niki Griswold can be reached at niki.griswold@globe.com. Follow her @nikigriswold.