In Feud, Massachusetts Police Lash Out at Local Newspaper.

As feuds go, this is not the biggest or most easily understood, but when a government agency uses phrases like ''hyperbole, fiction and innuendo,'' ''dark, dirty and poorly lit newsroom'' and ''dying medium'' to describe a newspaper, it is bound to get attention. The Worcester Telegram & Gazette in Massachusetts has been at odds with that city's Police Department over, among other things, access to records of police disciplinary investigations; the paper's reporting on the overtime earned by the police chief's brother, a department officer; and, most recently, its critique of the academic credentials that officers cite to increase their pay. (The Telegram & Gazette is owned by The New York Times Company.) [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]