The day after the Bruins were eliminated, the Globe did not have a single picture of Joel Ward, the hero for the Capitols who scored the series winning goal in overtime. It would have been a great opportunity to change people’s racist prejudices that Black people don’t play hockey. A single picture of Ward’s smiling face as he was embraced by his joyful teammates would have been worth a thousand words, silently opening up people’s minds and opportunities for African-American kids, who might feel that hockey was off-limits to them.
But today, they had a giant front page story accompanied by a picture that looks more like a violent melee than the joyful celebration is actually is, and in which you can barely discern that Ward is black and handsome and the hero, accompanied by the headline “A SEASON ENDING GOAL SPURS A BARRAGE OF HATE.” Apparently they want black youth to feel that hockey is still off-limits to them, and hockey fans are racists. Posts on Twitter do not need to be front page news, anyone can say dumb things on Twitter and they do, especially after emotionally devastating season-ending games. But posts on Twitter can become news when the news wants to exploit racism to “rekindle discussion” and goad everyone into “re-establish their conviction that racism has no place in sports, civic life, or for that matter social media.” They end their editorial by saying that “neither the Bruins, the league, or the city of Boston have anything to apologize for’ but I think the Globe has something to apologize for. They should have shown Joel Ward’s joyful smile as he was embraced by his teammates on the front page yesterday, and taken the opportunity to inspire people and uplift people, and ignored the ugliness that no one would have noticed on Twitter.
Mark L. Bail says
And it’s disapproving of stuff like this that allows them to agree with the Pioneer Foundation on other things and still maintain the mantle of high-minded moderation.
From a news organization perspective though, the racism is news. It’s been a trend in GOP Presidential campaign and ignoring it won’t inspire and uplift. There is more time for that in a different story.
dont-get-cute says
judy-meredith says
Worth emphasizing I think. Ernie where are you?
kirth says
I am asking seriously, because I don’t read their political reporting. Has the Globe been reporting on the racism in the Republican campaign?
JimC says
As much as I love the notion of the “disapproval business” (good one, Mark), I can’t sign on to the notion that reporting on racism is “exploiting” it.
When this story broke, the comments seemed so extreme that I suspected a hoax. Unfortunately it’s not turning out that way so far.
It’s really shameful. It hurts the Bruins. it hurts the city.
dont-get-cute says
Emily Rooney’s Greater Boston led off with this story, and she agreed with me that the Globe should have ignored these tweets, asking “since when do we make the comments the news?” And then their next segment was on a Washington Post website aggregator who resigned in disgrace after posting some stories that were not true, or something like that. So I’m thinking the Globe and Rooney are both just trying to discredit bloggers.
And is there evidence now that the tweets came from actual Bruins fans from Boston? I still think a lot of it was tongue in cheek, some kind of sick joke, as stupid as that is.
Mr. Lynne says
… this morning and a thought occurred to me. Two things of note happened here with regard to race.
1) A person of color scored the goal
2) Said person got a barrage of racism for his trouble
Of these two things, which is the more noteworthy? Which of these two thing do we want to be the more noteworthy? We’d like to live in a world where the color of the guy’s skin isn’t noteworthy. In this case, I think its actually number 2 that is the more noteworthy news item here. That said, they could have lead with the picture and covered the more noteworthy point in the text.
Mark L. Bail says
he looks at the racism here from an either/or perspective: either you look on the bright side and inspire or you report on the racism. And you do it all in one article.
The reality is more complex than DGC sees or wants to see it.
justice4all88 says
Wherever racism lives, whether its the twitterverse or the MSM, it should be exposed. I don’t love the fact that some local yahoos have been outed for the racist little pigs that they are, thereby painting yet another terrible picture of Boston….but hopefully, they’ll think twice before they spew their hate. There’s a lot of kids who can get infected by that crap it’s it’s not called out. Stop the infection by innoculating it with sunlight.
dont-get-cute says
but apparently the Globe loved the fact that some yahoos made racist tweets. We still dont know if they were local or drunk or what. I think we should look away and ignore people making fools of themselves, not ruin their lives, treat it like Elvis Costello’s notorious drunken argument…here i found the wikipedia blurb about it:
Thats totally what this was about too, just posted on Twitter. It’s still “drunken talk,” “not meant to be printed in the paper” like Ray Charles said.
SomervilleTom says
Only those who were there will ever know for sure what happened in that bar more than three decades ago. That’s because it was a LIVE conversation that included all sorts of cues beyond whatever was reported. It was, literally, drunken talk. Talk is fleeting and ephemeral. Once words are uttered, nothing remains except their impact on the speaker and whoever was within hearing.
The web is different. Call it the “twitterverse” if you like, but the comments were PERMANENT. By posting the comments on twitter, they most certainly DID print their “talk” in the paper. Once such garbage is published, it’s too late to decide “Oh, I didn’t mean to print that in the paper”.
Further, is there any evidence that the authors of this racist trash didn’t “mean” it? Have any of the authors stepped forward to say they were drunk and apologize?
dont-get-cute is more willing than I am to excuse and minimize this garbage.
Mark L. Bail says
that Elvis Costello is an Irishman, and though he may have known better when he wasn’t in his cups, the n-word simply doesn’t mean the same thing there that it does here. For example, his song “Oliver’s Army” (about the occupation of Ireland) contains the lyric:
Not to many songs by white people in America that feature the n-word.
Drunk or not, people occasionally say stupid stuff. In that alcohol reduces inhibitions, some racist comments might actually be coming through Budweiser’s window to the soul.