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

And you thought Howie Carr was rough

From CFO.com: “Jack Welch, retired General Electric chief executive, has partnered with Hack Connors, a Boston advertising executive, to consider a bid for the Boston Globe newspaper.”

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12 Comments

  1. mike_b1

    Sometimes I forget how many companies Howie Schmowie has founded and built.Oh yeah: none.This is so juvenile. Does Howie still run crying to mommy when the big kids from the Globe show up in the reporters playground?

  2. jeff

    To divert myself from thinking about the consequences of having Jack Welch as an owner of the Globe I have been concentrating on the fact that CFO called Connors “Hack Connors.” Hilarious.

  3. Anonymous

    Mike, I’m guessing some of those big kids would swap paychecks with him in a N.Y. minute. As I recall, he used to show up in the City Room and City Hall. And you?

  4. yyz

    I worry about mostly single, wealthy individuals with few ties to the region, having an influence in the regions largest daily. I like Mike Barnicle being there. (I hope he’d return as a columnist. All if forgiven, I say)Find someone else: maybe all the major daily papers east of the 128 ring, might form a company and buy the Globe. That’s sounds much better.

  5. Mike from Norwell

    Anyone read the link? The Howie Carr inference was amusing, but I don’t think he writes for CFO.com. What fun you can have with a freudian slip of j for h…

  6. Anonymous

    First off, this small matter of name misspelling.I am not sure whether whoever wrote that paragraph is brainless or juvenile. A quick email to the magazine should be able to rectify this mistake that certainly has to be unintended.To the more serious issue of the Jacks of the news trade….I thought these guys were in the business of building malls and jet engines, and the only politics they know how to play is by the means of a checkbook or a fundraiser gala.What do these guys have to do with any news tradition? Running a TV and Radio empire isn’t replacement for the sense of mission/tradition newsprint has been endowed with for centuries. Newsprint is born out of a sense of duty and truth-digging that today has to adapt to the business world and be profitable. TV and Radio were born in the US almost instantly as commercial enterprises as well as major media alternatives just a few generations back.So these businessmen see a financial opportunity and hobby out of “ressucitating” the Globe.That isn’t what the Globe needs. It isn’t business savvy. That would be a monumental error to pin the Globe woes on a “management failure” hence the endless and ruthless cost cutting measures.The Globe’s porblems are much beyond that. Too far to go into now and too intangible to count in dollars and cents or inch-per-column ad sales. The Herald’s too, byt he way.What the Globe does NOT need is another scenario in which it is still going to be ridiculed and be poked at. This team is just an invitation for so much flack and laughter, it is insane to spend that much money for furthering a joke – or worsening it.The Globe under Welsh isn’t a sure ticket for respectability. I’d rather see an ownership that has a more visible heritage in American History and Arts and Letters and Journalism and political activism in either political stripe, not merely a shrewd business guru, despite my deep respect for that species too. A Mike Bloomberg would be a GREAT fit as a very savvy media success story with great regard to doing it right ans ethically. A Joe Kennedy. And if I had to have a palgiarist -I hate to bring that up but will once- I’d rather have Kearns-Goodwin, aka treasure trove of relevant info.Or how about a Ted Turner. My all-time favortie pick for a Morrissey turnaround. Even a George Will type, principled (99% of the time)and backed with money.( A shout out to Barnicle here on a well-put together piece he did on Mass Election for NBC a couple of days ago, short, sweet and well narrated. He is an asset, but sorry to say a -pompous- bore on radio. I’d like to see him in other media venues in Mass, except the Herald where dissing him was childishly common currency)The Globe isn’t merely a business. It is Boston’s and Massachusetts’ prestige, past and future. It isn’t JUST a stock performance chart. Money eventually flows from a well-run paper journalistically and editorially. Well-run management business models inversely don’t imply automatically a GREAT paper as a result. The two conditions are mutually exclusive. One implies the other, not vice-versa.When Welsh retired, there was hardly a more respected successful manager in the US. He retired at the top of his game and the stock market’s biggest fear was GE share price softening due to the uncertainty about Immelt who eventually turned out ok- no legend yet.Still, I wish he had truly taken longer time off. He didn’t seem to want to let go of the attention so he hung around for so many interviews, TV panels, book deals, a public divorce/remarriage and sports appearences. It would have been classier to disappear for a while and let people miss you. He couldn’t help himself; understandably for a very driven man, a very restless work-aholic and a success story very much in demand from a dizzy public asking for all the pointers and clues it can get, from a trusted boss/source. Fine.But please don’t pull this comeback story this soon, this surprisingly.Max Robins from Broadcasting & Cable has some relevant notes on NBC layoffs in the early 1980’s and how differently they were handled and to the greater point of how much can you cut at a maximum in TV, radio or print before you start to endanger news gathering quality.http://www.broadcastingcable.com/article/CA6383766.htmlI remember reading in Forbes or Fortune (same) an article taking his mngt style apart and arguing it isn’t fit for present times anymore. Jack was of course a bit testy and combative yet gracious in responding and no one can take his successes from him. So is his style what the Globe needs?For now, I’d rather have my Globe “pinched” than “sqwelshed” ooops sorry ….squelched, that is.N.(Since Harvard publications, plagiarism and health of local journalism is of relevance, I am curious to know Dan’s tkae on the developping VICTORIA ILYINSKY case over at the Crimsonhttp://www.thecrimson.com/article.aspx?ref=515308Oh and did we ever get an official explanation from Harvard why would they give the boot to some and then decide to keep the notorious Opal Mehta “author” Kaavya Viswanathan enrolled?? What’s the standard there? It appears they ‘invited’ her back this semester and is a junior now, presumably to garduate Suma Cum Lout-y? What are the Vegas odds on her career path out of college? No..No..No..Morrissey …please don’t even think about it…there are other great interns in this college town…please ..skip this one)

  7. Dan Kennedy

    N. —1. The CFO.com thing was obviously a typo — a funny one.2. Some students plagiarize. They should be punished and given a second chance.

  8. mike_b1

    Re 2., for clarification’s sake, Dan you aren’t saying Barnicle should be given a second chance, are you?

  9. Anonymous

    N, where do I go to get Saturday night back?….

  10. Dan Kennedy

    Mike — Everyone deserves a second chance, including Barnicle. Unfortunately for him, he got his back in the ’70s. Third, fourth, and fifth chances came in the ’80s, and chances six through eleven came in the ’90s. Remember, folks, at the time that he left, he was under fire for three separate columns — one he’d ripped off from George Carlin, one he’d ripped off from A.J. Liebling, and one he’d made up about kids with cancer.This is ancient history, but the guy just won’t go away. For anyone interested in the real background on Barnicle, I suggest this and this.

  11. mike_b1

    I remembered those pieces you wrote, and that’s why I asked. He’s the Richard Nixon of the Fourth Estate.

  12. Anonymous

    Agreed Dan. We should be forgiving of kids making mistakes like plagiarizing while on their learning curve.Here is the thing: This wasn’t just a paper due in or a school project that many professors screen with newly developped anti-plagiarism software.This was a deliberate concoction to not only secure a $500k to one Mil$ book deal, but also help boost her chances of GETTING into Harvard, not to mention deceiving the public and creating competition for the author she borrowed from, depriving her of potential sales and media attention in the Chik-lit segment.That -book deal- in my book constitutes mail fraud. This ain’t no attempt to merely get an A. That’s why I am a bit harsher here.N.

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