By Dan Kennedy • The press, politics, technology, culture and other passions

Shaughnessy’s lament

The punchline: Dan Shaughnessy’s whining about his job on page one. Now what’s the joke?

Update: There’s a huge discussion of this taking place in my public Facebook feed.

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7 Comments

  1. Mark Horsfall

    Shaughnessy’s a lazy, old hack who’d prefer to troll the readership with cynical opinion and hyperbole over taking the effort to actually stake out opinion. But the joke is that Access Hollywood would never consider itself journalism. Why does the lead columnist at the Globe, which is nothing more than a promotional vehicle for sports teams, especially(and only?)the Red Sox think he has the right to be confused with practice?

  2. Jim Callahan

    Must be a bad day for columny. The guy who wrote “The Curse of the Bambino” and then jealously guarded the myth he created, channeled reader interest and hysteria over the Red Sox, let alone the rest of the hyperventilating stuff he has written over the decades, can’t claim dry-as-a- prune, journalism teacher dispassion. Horsefeathers.

  3. Mike Benedict

    Shaughnessy apparently has been watching”The Fugitive.” Perhaps he should grab his videocassette of “Good Morning, Vietnam.” He would find Sergeant Major Dickerson (“Dick”) very familiar. And the appropriate quote, then, would be this one:

    “Dick, I’ve covered for you a lot of times ’cause I thought you was a little crazy. But you’re not crazy- you’re mean. And this is just radio.”

    The CHB isn’t crazy. He’s just mean. And this is just sports. When you are reduced to repeatedly whining about the customers, it’s time to find a different trade.

  4. Mike Benedict

    One more thought. Shaughnessy is often complimented as a good writer, even by those who dislike his tone and approach. I can only assume that’s because the commas are always in the right places and he doesn’t use any big words. Let’s be honest: snark aside, Shaughnessy’s writing style is basic and dull. In every graf, you can almost feel the beatings from his grade school teacher-nuns for every deviation from the 1950s writing form they demanded every student follow. He learned his lessons well. I had one of my dogs read a few of Shaughnessy’s columns and after about a week, even he was producing the same basic pieces. And he can barely even type!

    You want to read a sportswriter who knew how to have fun with a subject without making fun of a subject, read Bob Verdi.

    The countdown to John Henry’s revenge is on.

  5. Just goes to show that the Globe’s longstanding “real names” policy for its columnists doesn’t keep out the trolls.

  6. I guess Shaugnessy committed the crime of admitting that real journalists should not have an agenda. Interesting example he gave of writing about the presidential election.

  7. Mike Benedict

    Rick, Shaughnessy’s agenda has been all too apparent through the years: Settle scores, real or contrived. And his racism is disgusting.

    Short of that, there’s really nothing in his columns.

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