The Boston Globe lost a long-term paid subscriber this week — yours truly. I’ve stayed with this paper for a long time. I began a 7-day/week hard-copy subscription when I first moved here in June of 1974. I maintained that subscription through three marriages, several homes, and decades of Boston history. I read about Carlton Fisk, Fred Lynn, Jim Rice, and Rick Burleson in the Globe during the years when I followed sports. Even when, a few years ago, the hard-copy subscription became so expensive (and lost virtually all its content), I continued a paid online subscription. This month is my last.
The straw that broke the camel’s back is a November 1st piece by Kevin Cullen. It is perhaps no longer news to this community that I find the relentless harping on the marathon bombings objectionable. I have, for some time now, wondered how long it will take for the Globe to publish a week of news without one sappy “human interest” story that again wallows in “Boston Strong” victimhood. So it will perhaps not surprise this community that I did not appreciate this piece — as exemplified by this paragraph:
We flirt with cliché when linking this baseball victory to the Marathon bombings. But we do so because we are looking for deeper meaning. We are seeking confirmation that what we just witnessed was not merely Shane Victorino coming through again with the bases loaded, but a sign of something loaded with redemptive symbolism, an elixir that can cure every family that mourned, every person whose body or psyche was wounded, every cop and firefighter who tried to comfort a child whose leg was missing.
I don’t know whether Mr. Cullen has actually, himself, GRIEVED the sudden loss of someone close and well-loved. I have. There is absolutely NOTHING in “Shane Victorino coming through again with the bases loaded” that is remotely connected to either the kind of crushing grief I’m talking about or the multiple tsunamis of destruction such an event causes to family and friends. It is NOT a grief that is “cured”, not by “redemptive symbolism” or any other “elixer”. It is, in fact, presumptuous and insulting for hacks like Mr. Cullen to publish this sentimental rubbish — not just once, but day after day, week after week. A home-made “Boston Strong” bumper-sticker a day or two after the episode was appropriate. The carefully-sculpted counterpart in the outfield grass of a media extravaganza for which each seat cost a fortune — in a city where our subway and commuter rail system is collapsing because we “can’t afford it” — is pure, crass, unadulterated garbage.
So I posted a comment, well within the posted guidelines of the Globe. I don’t remember the precise words I used, but I opened with something along the lines of:
In this piece, Mr. Cullen not only “flirted with cliche”, he threw her on the bed and had his way with her…
I expressed my dismay at the continued harping of the marathon bombings, and observed that the rest of the world has been dealing with episodes like this for decades with no comparable whining. I also observed that America has killed and wounded comparable numbers of innocent civilians multiple times with drone attacks in Afghanistan and Pakistan, and with precious little attention paid to the human suffering we cause in each of those episodes.
My comment followed another similar comment, one that had provoked at least one reply.
I was therefore dismayed to discover, a day or so later, that my comment (and the preexisting similar comment and reply) had been simply excised from the “comments” section. Nothing left behind indicating that they had been removed — it was as if my comment had simply never been made.
This, then, is apparently the “new” Globe.
I will not pay a nickle to support it.
Of all the things to object to in the Globe these days, you choose this?
The guy’s job is to write “local color” columns, and in the paragraph quoted he went out of his way to explain that baseball’s just baseball, but that people wanted something good to happen after something bad happened.
If you are tired of the “Boston Strong” pieces, I get it. I’ve never been one for that kind of thing. Not for 9/11 even though I saw the plane hit the tower from a mile away. But I’m tired of the antipathy toward anything sports-related among some people on the left.
I’ve known personal tragedy, but I’ve also known unbridled joy over the Red Sox. And I know people who were injured badly in the bombing in April. Their lives were changed forever, but you know what, they were happy the team won. It was a few weeks with some excitement in the midst of a long, hard rehab. And this Red Sox team has been there all year, visiting people and being supportive. These players have been humble about it as they’ve brought cheer to people around here.
Right or wrong, the Red Sox mean a lot to many people in New England. They are a tradition 113 years old and many a family has bonded over watching them year in and year out. My grandmother, born in 1921, died in 2003. The last thing she said to my father was, “Hey, if the Red Sox ever win one, have a glass for me and Pop.” We did.
Nothing about that ever stopped me from being politically engaged. I went directly from the 2004 parade to New Hampshire to knock doors for John Kerry. An hour after this parade, I was out collecting signatures to raise the minimum wage.
Don’t condone deleting comments, but the statements you made (however grounded in fact) are exactly the kind likely to provoke a nasty flame war. They’ve been deleting stuff like that for years. Again, not that I condone it, but it’s not so new.
I have lived in the state for 14 years less than you, but as someone who was born here I will always be considered a Bay Stater while you are considered an out of towner. It’s totally unfair and we are incredibly provincial, it took bringing my Midwestern/Filipino fiancee here to really understand how provincial and unwelcoming we look sometimes.
Boston Strong was controversial during the Cup series and some bozos made Chicago Stronger t-shirts that started a whole flame war. I think it’s respectful and ties into the great work both teams did with victims and bringing the city together. Who could forget that memorable anthem at the Garden or the Ortiz comments after Fenway reopened. I agree that your witty takedown of Cullen was merited, but I also think the Globe long ago gave up on national and international reporting to become a local rag. Which is a damn shame. And frankly the Herald has always had a better sports page, and it will continue to do so now that the Globe’s page might as well just be an embedded link to redsox.com. But you know what you are getting with the Herald, the Globe could be so much more.
The Chicago Tribune and to a lesser extent Washington Post have done a decent job balancing local and national. Boston doesn’t have a Crains paper to keep up to date on local business. I would have a dedicated and glossy looking business section, have David Bernstein hire four other cub reporters to do a real local politics section, and get Charlie Pierce and Bill Simmons to revitalize the sports page. If Henry really wants to throw money around he could make a great paper. I suspect it’s just a ploy to cover his monopoly on local coverage though.
… if this were 2001, and the Sox won, it would be tied to September 11, and something similar would have been said,
Sports schmaltz is eternal. Funny how we insist sports is connected to everything else only when our teams win.
It’s hard to pin this on John Henry.
It was the Patriots who won the Super Bowl, four months after, and everyone talked about how fitting that was. Even papers in New York, where half the fans root for the Jets and hate the Patriots. The came the Saints, who won four years after Hurricane Katrina. Nothing new.
There are so many things the Globe could do to improve itself under the new ownership. And today was the first step! In case you missed it…
… it is a new, additional Monday sports section called “Score”. Seriously.
operation, how does the Globe rationalize the addition of “Score”? I didn’t notice that much in the way of advertising in the section, so how are they producing it? Also, what about the other 3 major professional sports teams in the city. Will they have “Score” time, too, or will it disappear after the NFL season concludes? Don’t misunderstand me, I enjoyed it Monday, and will continue to do so, but aren’t there greater priorities in news gathering and reporting for the Globe?
Tom, I’d have deleted that comment too, if I were running that comment section — not for disagreeing or criticizing the column, but because casually using rape as a metaphor for whatever you dislike should be unacceptable in any kind of decent discourse.
The other comment that was also removed made no such reference.
I find exchanges that totally miss the point tiresome. And, so long as we’re picking at nits, “censorship” is something done by a government — I made no such claim.
Manipulating an allegedly unedited comment stream to remove comments critical of the point of view expressed in an article is something I expect of Rush Limbaugh, not a legitimate newspaper. When the Boston Globe excises comments that violate their published standards, it normally leaves behind a marker that says “This comment has been removed”.
Based on your comment, I probably wouldn’t spend much time in a blog or comment section you moderate. I expect more from the Globe.
Tom,
I almost always like your comments and perspective, and I am somewhat sympathetic with your take on the “Boston Strong” thing, and certainly with the Globe censorship thing. So this is somewhat off-topic. But, for whatever it may be worth, I feel compelled to tell you that every single time I see or hear the phrase “had his way with her,” my stomach sinks, my blood pressure rises, and my heart rate goes all wacky. It took me years to convince my husband to abandon the phrase. I am not the only woman who, for painful personal reasons, reacts this way to this commonly-used phrase (which, by the way, demeans men as much as women). You should know this, even if you don’t- or can’t- understand. I really am trying to be helpful here. Thanks in advance for not responding negatively to this. I am shaking as I write it.
As you say, this is a commonly-used phrase. I did not intend it as a reference to rape, I was actually aiming more for a cliche building on the columnist’s use of “flirting with cliche”. I think I do understand, and I apologize.
I also don’t think that’s why my comment was removed, because the other critical comment (which made no allusion) was also removed.
i think the phrase “had his way with her” can be read as “it was her way too,” and all good clean fun. But it can also be read as rape, and the Globe might have a rule against rape references, which are quite common on the intertubes unfortunately.
Also, publications can censor things, and often do. I suppose you can apply a strict definition and say “suppress” if you like.
Generally, when the Globe removes a post that violates its guidelines, it leaves behind a marker that says so. That was not done with either my comment or the other critical comment (that made no such reference).
I fully understand that some publications (and talk shows) edit their “response” streams to filter out all comments that are critical. I generally don’t waste my time with such sites, and I’m sorry to see the Globe apparently descending to this level.
I agree with with you the Globe apparently and silently suppressed these two critical comments. That is, actually, the reason for my post.