Mark Jurkowitz follows up my item on the Globe’s gushing coverage of deluxe travel packages being offered by the newspaper’s corporate partner, the Red Sox, with some tough talk of his own, calling the page-one story “a poster child for the evils of corporate synergy.”
But for truly entertaining Globe-bashing, you have to turn to none other than the Globe’s own Dan Shaughnessy, who buries this nugget in his column today on the Sox’ dubious rain call Tuesday night:
Speaking of no-win propositions, we’ve got a problem here at Daddy Globe. Those of you not living in caves know by now that the New York Times Co. owns us, and also owns 17 percent of the Red Sox. This conflict of interest taints everything we do on these pages and the Globe looks especially compromised on days like yesterday when we ran a Page 1 story entitled, “Hit the road with the Sox and get …”
Yesterday’s journalistic wet kiss included a nifty graphic detailing exactly what Sox fans get if they purchase an official team VIP road trip package. The story contained no inside info that couldn’t be gleaned by a fan with access to the Internet, but the timing was abysmal and the packaging worse. By any measurement, this was a Red Sox infomercial, a front-page story guaranteed to embolden those who believe the Globe is part of a Red Sox Cartel and certain to make life more difficult for Messrs. Snow, Edes, and all others who toil tirelessly to bring balanced coverage to our readers.
“Mercy,” as the late Ned Martin would say. This is good stuff. Perhaps Shaughnessy should demand that Bruce Allen do a recount of his best and worst local sports columnists.
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There was nothing englightening about Shaughnessy’s column. Just a bunch of cheap shots at Red Sox management, with no information for readers as to the protocol or standards for calling a game.
I notice Shaughnesssy called it a “wet kiss” a day after DK’s post went up with the same usage.mike_b1 has a point. Still, Shaughnessy’s column serves a purpose. It’s good to suspend the lovefest every now and then and point out how tasteless and greedy things have gotten over at Fenway.
I’ve been a casual Sox fan for decades, having grown up east of the Connecticut River…but it wasn’t until the 2003 season I started really getting into it.For most of those 20-odd years of total fandom I have heard how greedy and disgusting Sox management is getting and how it’s worse every year. Certainly since 2003 I can see it’s gotten worse, but I wonder…has it really consistently been “getting worse” for all that time? Or is this a case of “selective memory” (like those folks that say the country is going more and more to hell every year)FWIW, I do think Shaughnessey nailed it perfectly; even if it was a cheap shot…the Sox deserved every word of that column.
Didn’t Shaughnessy turn on the Sox when they failed to include him in the decision making on Theo’s return?
To Globe sports editor Joe Sullivan, Shaughnessy is the bravest columnist he knows. To the rest of the world he’s a hack’s hack. The new persona of “Honest Dan Shaughnessy”, calling out the marketing synergies and business relationship of the Globe and Red Sox rings out as the hollow pro wrestling schtick that it is. The only question is how does Dan plan to profit from his new found integrity and drive this issue into the ground for decades to come?
DK, this is simply the blind squirrel stumbling on an acorn. Shaughnessy still has a looooong way to go before shedding the title of Boston’s worst sports columnist. This is someone who had the privlege of being one of Boston’s foremost sports commentators, and instead used it for the better part of 15 years to constantly pimp his ridiculous book. All Shaughnessy can offer is cheap shots, now it just happens that Globe management is his target.