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This Just In: Media

The Globe lowers the cone of silence

By Dan Kennedy

Three months ago -- which must seem like an eon at 135 Morrissey Boulevard -- the pages of the Boston Globe were filled with commentary about the downfall of Globe columnist Patricia Smith. Business columnist David Warsh, metro columnists Eileen McNamara and Mike Barnicle, and ombudsman Jack Thomas all felt compelled to weigh in on Smith's career, which came to an abrupt end in June when she admitted to fabricating characters and quotations in four columns.

Yet with the exception of a column by Thomas -- who, after all, had to say something -- not one word of punditry has appeared in New England's largest newspaper about Barnicle's subsequent resignation amid allegations of fabrication and plagiarism.

What gives?

It turns out that Globe management handed down an edict following Barnicle's August 19 departure ordering columnists to refrain from commenting on the matter. "We wrote about all of it in our news pages, extensively. There was little left to be said about it," says Globe spokesman Rick Gulla. "We wanted to get it behind us."

To the multiracial group of 50-plus employees who signed a petition protesting the unequal treatment of Smith and Barnicle, the edict is further evidence of the paper's reluctance to subject Barnicle, who's white, to the same kind of thrashing that Smith, an African-American, received.

Particularly irksome, according to several sources, was the fact that McNamara was reportedly ordered not to take on Barnicle. After Smith resigned, McNamara wrote an extremely tough column in which she charged that Smith had benefited from a racial double standard ("Don't Quote Me," News, July 10). A number of staffers who disagreed with McNamara's assessment were nevertheless outraged when they learned she wouldn't be allowed to tear Barnicle apart as well. "It was okay to talk about Pat, but it's not okay to talk about Barnicle," says one disgusted source. (McNamara declined to comment.)

Also unclear is who ordered the silent treatment. Gulla describes it as more or less a joint decision of editor Matt Storin and publisher Ben Taylor, with Storin passing the word to news columnists and Taylor dealing with the editorial and op-ed-page staff, which reports directly to him. But reliable sources say McNamara, who reports to Storin, was told the order came from Taylor -- an unusual and disturbing breach of the wall that generally exists between business and news operations. (Taylor declined to comment.)

Certainly one can sympathize with Taylor and Storin's desire to put this whole miserable chapter behind them. But the Globe's newsroom remains a miasma of discontent, and it's hard to see how lowering the cone of silence is going to help.