May 25, 2017
(AFP) - It was a small gesture that kept a fabled Boston newspaper fed during difficult times, one they thought frazzled reporters in Manchester would appreciate too.
So they sent pizzas across the Atlantic.
Editors at The Boston Globe came up with the idea the day after a suicide bomber killed 22 people and wounded dozens more at a concert at the city thousands of miles away in northern England.
"We decided it would be nice to do something for the people of the Manchester Evening News," says Emily Procknal, community relations manager at The Boston Globe.
Journalists at the Boston daily were themselves the recipients of pizza sent by the Chicago Tribune in the wake of the double bombing of the Massachusetts's city marathon in April 2013.
Neither is it the first time the gesture has been repeated. Several media outlets sent pizzas to a newspaper in Orlando after a nightclub attack in June 2016, others were sent to The Baltimore Sun as journalists covered riots that swept the city in April 2015.
"Newsrooms in the US have kind of started doing this," explained Procknal.
The Manchester Evening News appears to have appreciated the thought from across the Pond. "Thanks friends," tweeted the newspaper on Wednesday next to a picture of a fast emptying pizza boxes.