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Saturday, February 23, 2013

And Now For More Boston Globe Bashing - XVIII

It just gets better and better over at Boston's boring broadsheet.
Blindsided Boston Globe employees — still reeling after The New York Times Co. put the Hub paper up for sale again — are slated to come face-to-face this morning with a top Gray Lady exec for the start of what could be a messy split, including the likely demand for contract talks from the paper’s 10 unions, insiders said.
Remember this the next time, or the last time these sanctimonious pricks lecture you about the 'sanctity' of the union movement.
“People are very nervous and scared, very scared,” said one longtime Globe staffer, who requested anonymity. Another compared the paper’s pending sale to “a divorce, a bad divorce.”
As opposed to a good divorce? You Globe idiots have had nearly a decade to extricate yourselves from this morass, and in your steadfast refusal to do so, I (and the reading audience) am now supposed to take pity on you poor souls? You're main Globe cheerleader on this site, 'Objective' Bruce bailed on you five years ago, and that wasn't enough of a sell signal? Spare me, you dumb bastards...
New York Times Co. vice-chairman Michael Golden — who was openly pushing to dump the beleaguered broadsheet — is expected to join Globe publisher Chris Mayer in a series of so-called “Town Hall” gatherings with staff.
Sold down the river. Good luck to you, dickheads.

I have not one ounce of sympathy for a newspaper who, over the thirty plus years I had the unfortunate circumstance to observe, denigrate, belittle and disparage nearly every major corporation, business entity and nearly all other manners of free enterprise except themselves, and now they are finally getting, in a manner of speaking, their just desserts. Once again, for one notable exception, I have no sympathy whatsoever for anyone there losing their jobs. Good riddance.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Normally I find criticisms of the Globe on this blog to be reasonable, especially complaints against its namesake. Anyone who reads its editorials probably has nightmares about Jeff Jacoby's lazy scribblings of Jacoby. But this round of Globe bashing veers into the ditch with its own lazy ranting against accussations of some anti-corporate, anti-free enterprise agenda. The Globe as socialist propaganda? Not really. A paper doomed by trends in how New England consumes news and out of touch columnists and dumbed down editorials? More likely. If anything, I suspect the Globe would bend over backwards to generate advertizing revenue from just about any company, ethics be damned.

Monkeesfan said...

Anonymous - the Globe has been wrong on every issue for decades. Yes, the Globe is socialist disinformation (they're at it again today with an attack on Maine over the Tea Party). The only weay the Globe can ever become relevant again is the change its way - become a paper that reports the real world, not the mythology of socialism.

Anonymous said...

It's only socialist if you apply your own definition to the word 'socialism'. Or, if you're paranoid that everything with a whiff of difference to you're own opinion merits that label. There are actual socialst in the world. You may want to look into them before stamping your feet and resorting to childish labeling and name calling. And, the Globe was wong on every issue for decades? That's a pretty blanket statement. Even this blog gives credit to Shaughnessy when credit is due.

Roger Bournival said...

Is the Globe a liberal newspaper? In my opinion, this is not even in question. I had the Globe pegged as liberal back in early high school. I also had the benefit of reading the Manchester Union Leader during my upbringing and I've found William Loeb, their now deceased publisher, to be far more logical and reasoned in his opinions than the Globe's editorial staff.

Now let's consider Monkeesfan god-awful taste in music, I mean, opinion that the Globe is socialist disinformation. I don't consider it much of a stretch. If you consider and accept those definitions, this is why socialism, and its predecessor formation, communism, always fail - some people are simply more productive than others, and when human nature kicks in and the producers get pissed off at the slackers and non-producers, the system falls apart. I don't believe this statement to be controversial, or refutable. In fact, to paraphrase the dead white males who wrote this wicked pisser document back in 1776, I hold this statement to be self-evident. Maybe I need to re-read Das Kapital a fourth time, but I don't believe Marx addressed that differential of personal production / ownership of the results thingy angle at all in his treatise.

Another point, which for some reason I didn't consider until now - I can make the point that unions are a macro level form of socialism, in which the collective output and renumeration of the members of the union are, dare I say it, socialized, and the individual members who are responsible for a greater level of productivity are not rewarded for it.

Let me provide my own personal example. I worked for the Mass. Department of Revenue from 1988 to 1992. In my first year I assessed / collected well over $1 million for 'the state'. At the end of the year we all got the same percentage raises. The next year revenues from our group of first year hires dropped massively. Once again, to paraphrase the dead white males, cause and effect should be self-evident.

That said, in my opinion the Boston Globe at best promotes a left-wing / liberal agenda. Given that, I don't believe it's a stretch to say that the Globe is essentially socialist in nature and when it comes to their preferred economic structure of society, they've been wrong on every one of those issues. Whether this mindset contributes to their current demise is another discussion.

Monkeesfan said...

Anonymous - by your argument, then the Globe should be promoting agendas that oppose denying anyone who can create wealth the ability to do so. This is real difference. What the Globe has long promoted is just Dominant Media Culture boilerplate and yourself cannot name one issue on which they were right.

Anonymous said...

You can make a case for the Globe being center left throughout the years, but the arguement still doesn't wash for it being socialist. They editorial page may be socialist leaning relative to your and Monkeyman's opinion, but that hardly makes it a hardline mouthpiece. Sadly, its not worth investing time into navigating Boston.com's cringe inducung search engine to find specific editorials (or worse, actually having to read them) to support my arguement. But, I would respectfully suggest you consider its stance more akin to social capitalism. Lumping editorial pages into a strictly antagonistic category as purely socialst unfairly typecasts its authors and their opinions. And, I find it impossible to believe over my 10 years of reading that they've been irrationally opposed to nearly every business entity, as so claimed by your original criticism.