Alert Media Nation reader S.G. sends along this story from the Armenian Mirror-Spectator about barely retired retiree Steve Kurkjian of the Boston Globe. Given how often his byline still appears, you might be puzzled to learn that Kurkjian took an early-retirement buyout a couple of years ago. He explains:
People need this stuff, and I know how to do it. People out there return my phone calls when I say “I’m Steve Kurkjian from the Globe.” In both cases [stories about former Massachusetts House Speaker Sal DiMasi and Partners HealthCare], the source said “I will only deal with you. I’m not going to give it to anybody else.”
A good read about a local legend.
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Glen Bergendahl
“Do you know who I am?”
Steve Kurkjian
Dan: I think your posting wouldn’t be complete if I didn’t add this letter to the editor that I sent off after reading the article in the Mirror Spectator.
What a surprise for me to pick up the Mirror Spectator and see published the profile of me based on an interview nearly a year ago with Tom Nash. While I was generally pleased with the article, I think had I been told it was going to run now, I might have been able to update some of what I had said so many months before, including:
— The Globe’s rebound from the threatened shutdown last Spring attests to the fact that journalism is not “nearly dead.” Granted newsroom reductions continue to take its toll, but the newspaper’s commitment to providing in-depth coverage as reflected by its reporting on the political campaign to succeed Ted Kennedy and the tragedy in Haiti shows newspapering is on the road to recovery;
— I am no longer working with the Globe’s Spotlight Team. Although I am always available to assist the team or the newsroom in whatever way is needed, the assignments that I had at the time have all been completed and the team thrives without me. (I do continue to labor on authenticating an Armenian Genocide photograph as well as unraveling the theft from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum.)
— Although my love and pride for my grandson continues unbounded, it is now shared with his baby sister who was born in late December.
Thanks as ever,
Best,
Steve Kurkjian
And if I can, I’d like to add two other points. What I was stressing in the quote, “I’m Steve Kurkjian from the Boston Globe…” was not anything special about me but that The Globe’s standing in the community gets people’s attention to call back its reporters. And second, the articles in which I had sources who would speak only to me were not Partners and former Speaker DiMasi but two subsequent ones on the Boston Red Sox and the Boston Police Department.
Thanks,