The Boston Globe
The Boston Globe, also known locally as the Globe, is an American daily newspaper founded and based in Boston, Massachusetts. The newspaper has won a total of 27 Pulitzer Prizes.[4]
Type
Boston Globe Media Partners, LLC
James Dao
March 4, 1872[1]
Exchange Place,
Boston, Massachusetts, U.S.
United States
Its reported daily circulation had fallen to under 69,000 copies per day as of June 2022.[5] It reported 300,000 print and digital subscribers in 2017. The Boston Globe is the oldest and largest daily newspaper in Boston.[6]
Founded in 1872, the paper was mainly controlled by Irish Catholic interests before being sold to Charles H. Taylor and his family. After being privately held until 1973, it was sold to The New York Times in 1993 for $1.1 billion, making it one of the most expensive print purchases in United States history.[7] The newspaper was purchased in 2013 by Boston Red Sox and Liverpool F.C. owner John W. Henry for $70 million from The New York Times Company, having lost over 90% of its value in 20 years.
The newspaper has been noted as "one of the nation's most prestigious papers."[7] In 1967, The Boston Globe became the first major paper in the U.S. to come out against the Vietnam War.[8] The paper's 2002 coverage of the Roman Catholic Church sex abuse scandal received international media attention and served as the basis for the 2015 American drama film Spotlight.[6]
The editor of The Boston Globe is Nancy Barnes, who took the helm in February 2023.[9][10]
The chief print rival of The Boston Globe is the Boston Herald, which has a smaller circulation that is declining more rapidly.[11]
Magazine[edit]
Appearing in the Sunday paper almost every week is The Boston Globe Magazine. As of 2018, Veronica Chao is the editor, and contributors include Neil Swidey and Meredith Goldstein.
Since 2004, the December issue features a Bostonian of the Year.[76] Past winners include Red Sox general manager Theo Epstein (2004), retired judge and Big Dig whistleblower Edward Ginsburg (2005), governor Deval Patrick (2006), Neighborhood Assistance Corporation of America founder and CEO Bruce Marks (2007), NBA champion Paul Pierce (2008), professor Elizabeth Warren (2009), Republican politician Scott Brown (2010), U.S. attorney Carmen Ortiz and ArtsEmerson executive director Robert Orchard[77] (2011), Olympic gold medalists Aly Raisman and Kayla Harrison (2012),[78] three people who were near the Boston Marathon bombing, Dan Marshall, Natalie Stavas, and Larry Hittinger (2013),[79] Market Basket employees (2014),[80] and neuropathologist Ann McKee (2017).[81]
On October 23, 2006, The Boston Globe announced the publication of Design New England: The Magazine of Splendid Homes and Gardens. This glossy oversized magazine is published six times per year.[82]
Incidents of fabrication and plagiarism[edit]
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.[110] In August of that year, columnist Mike 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. The Boston Globe editors found that Barnicle had fabricated a story about two cancer patients, and Barnicle was forced to resign.[111] Columnist Jeff Jacoby was suspended by the Globe in 2000 for failing to credit non-original content used in his column.[112]
In 2004, the Globe apologized for printing graphic photographs that the article represented as showing U.S. soldiers raping Iraqi women during the Iraq War from a city councilor's presentation before they were verified. The photos had already been found by other news organizations to be from an internet pornography site.[113][114]
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, proving that the details were fabricated.[115][116]
Columnist Kevin Cullen was suspended by the Globe in 2018 for embellishing claims he made on radio and in public appearances related to the Boston Marathon bombing.[117]
