BOSTON GLOBE : Comprehensive Encyclopedia

The Boston Globe is the most widely circulated daily newspaper in Boston, Massachusetts and in the greater New England region. With a daily circulation of 474,845 as of October 2005 [1], it is also the dominant media organization in Boston. The broadsheet Globe's local print rival is the tabloid Boston Herald (daily circulation 230,543) [2].

History

The Globe was founded in 1872 by six Boston businessmen, led by Eben Jordan, who jointly invested $150,000. The first issue was published March 4, 1872 and cost four cents. It was originally a morning daily when it began Sunday publication in 1877. In 1878, The Globe started an afternoon edition called The Boston Evening Globe, which ceased publication in 1979.

The Globe was a private company until 1973 when it went public under the name Affiliated Publications. It continued to be managed by the descendants of Charles H. Taylor, who had been hired to run the paper in 1873.

In 1993, Affiliated Publications merged with The New York Times Company, publisher of The New York Times. The Globe is now a wholly-owned subsidiary of this company. The Jordan and Taylor families received substantial Times Company stock, but the last Taylor family members left management in 2000-2001.

Reputation

Globe reporters were an instrumental part of uncovering the Roman Catholic Church sex abuse scandal in 2001-2003, especially in relation to Massachusetts churches. They were awarded the Pulitzer Prize for their work, one of several the paper has received for its outstanding investigative journalism.

Like the Times, the Globe is sometimes accused by conservatives of liberal bias. The paper's editorial stance is generally center-left, but it has regularly hosted a wide range of viewpoints, including several mainstream conservative commentators such as Jeff Jacoby and libertarian commentator Cathy Young. The Globe endorsed Senator John Kerry in the 2004 presidential election.

The Globe is also credited with allowing Peter Gammons to start his Notes section on baseball, which has become a mainstay in all major newspapers nation wide. Gammons went on to become a member of the Baseball Writers Hall of fame.

Magazine

Appearing in the Sunday paper almost every week is the Globe Magazine. Doug Most is the current editor.

As of August 6 2006 the magazine has seen a new look. This new look consists of the cutting out of the Inspirations section and moving it into the Boston UnCommon section. It also adds departments such as Q/A and Pierced.

Contributors

Regular Features

Editor's Notes: Notes written by Doug Most that are relative to one of the features in that week's magazine.

Miss Conduct: An advice column focusing mainly on good manners and properness.

Coupling: Essay about social chemistry. Usually pretaining about someon's love-life.

Pulitzer Prizes

Blogs

The Globe now hosts 28 blogs covering a variety of topics including Boston sports, local politics and a blog made up of posts from the paper's opinion writers. [3]

Recent controversies

Patricia Smith and Mike Barnicle

In 1998, columnist Patricia Smith was forced to resign after it was discovered that she had fabricated people and quotations in several of her columns.[4] This raised questions of a double standard at the Globe, as Mike Barnicle, who is white (Smith is African-American), had been accused of the same offense without being punished. In August of that year, Barnicle was discovered to have copied material for a column from a George Carlin book, Brain Droppings. He was suspended for this offense, and his past columns were reviewed. In their review, the Globe editors found that Barnicle had fabricated a story about two cancer patients, and Barnicle was forced to resign.[5]

Chuck Turner news conference photo

In May 2004, the Globe apologized for running a photograph from a news conference called by Boston City Councilor Chuck Turner and a local activist who claimed to have pictures of US soldiers raping Iraqi women. The Globe published a short article [6] about the press conference casting doubt on the authenticity of the pictures. With the story ran a photograph in which the explicit images on the poster beside Turner were visible. Moreover, it was soon established that the pictures were fakes. In its apology, the Globe said the pictures "were overly graphic and the purported abuse portrayed had not been authenticated."

Freelancer seal hunt story

In the spring of 2005, the Globe retracted a story describing the events of a seal hunt near Halifax, Nova Scotia that took place on April 12, 2005. Written by freelancer Barbara Stewart, a former New York Times staffer, the article described the specific number of boats involved in the hunt and graphically described the killing of seals and the protests that accompanied it. In reality, weather had delayed the hunt, which had not yet begun the day the story had been filed, so the details were fabricated. [7][8]

Big Dig memo

The Boston Globe reported that in 1999, a safety officer wrote a memo warning about the collapse of the Big Dig. It appears the report has been fabricated because the officer did not work on the project until months after the alleged memo.

Peter Quinn Investigation

In November, 2005, the Globe began asking about travel expenses incurred by Peter Quinn, then the Chief Information Officer of the Commonwealth. The governor's office launched an investigation into this and Quinn was exonerated. Many found the initial report of the issue irresponsible and the coverage of the outcome inadequate. [9]

Notable contributors

Present

Past

External links