The Boston Globe

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The Boston Globe

The December 30, 2005 front page
of The Boston Globe
Type Daily newspaper
Format Broadsheet

Owner The New York Times Company
Editor Martin Baron
Founded 1872
Headquarters 135 Morrissey Boulevard
Boston, MA 02205-5819
Flag of United States United States
Circulation 386,415 Daily
587,292 Sunday[1]

Website: boston.com

The Boston Globe (and Boston Sunday Globe) is the most widely circulated daily newspaper in Boston, Massachusetts and in the greater New England region. With a daily circulation of 386,415 as of September 2006[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]).

Contents

[edit] 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.

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.[2] 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.[3]

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.

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. [4][5]

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.

Today, 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. [6]

[edit] 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.

On October 23, 2006, the Boston Globe announced the publication of Design New England: The Magazine of Splendid Homes and Gardens. The glossy oversized magazine will publish six times per year.[3]

[edit] Contributors

  • Robin Abrahams writes Miss Conduct (see below)
  • Doug Most, Editor
  • Charlie Pierce is a staff writer
  • Neil Swidey is a staff writer
  • Tina Sutton writes The Clothes We Wear

[edit] Regular Features

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

Letters: Reader's correspondence

Q/A: A mini interview with a local person

The Big Deal: A profiling of a transaction that recently took place

Pierced: A column by Charlie Pierce

Tails From the City: Heartwarming stories from Boston and elsewhere

The Clothes We Wear: Style column

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

The Globe Puzzle: A crossword puzzle

Coupling: Essay about social chemistry. Usually pertaining to someone's love-life.

[edit] Pulitzer Prizes

2005 - Explanatory Reporting, Gareth Cook

2003 - Public Service, Boston Globe Spotlight Team

2001 - Distinguished Criticism, Gail Caldwell

1997 - Distinguished Commentary, Eileen McNamara

1996 - Distinguished Criticism, Robert Campbell

1995 - Distinguished Beat Reporting, David M Shribman

1985 - Feature Photography, Stan Grossfeld

1984 - Spot News Photography, Stan Grossfeld

1984 - Local Reporting, The Boston Globe

1983 - National Reporting, the Boston Globe Magazine

1980 - Distinguished Commentary, Ellen Goodman

1980 - Distinguished Criticism, William Henry III

1980 - Special Local Reporting, The Boston Globe Spotlight Team

1977 - Editorial Cartooning, Paul Szep

1975 - Meritorious Public Service, The Boston Globe

1974 - Editorial Cartooning, Paul Szep

1972 - Local Reporting, The Boston Globe Spotlight Team

1966 - Meritorious Public Service

[edit] Notable contributors

[edit] Present

[edit] Past

[edit] Notes and references

  1. ^ a b Circulation Data. The New York Times Company. Retrieved on March 7, 2007.
  2. ^ Gavin, Robert. "Herald's circulation declines", The Boston Globe, 2005-11-08. Retrieved on September 6, 2006.
  3. ^ [1]

[edit] External links