Shank And The Globe's Editorial Process

Having read Mike's recent post about Shank and the deleted Don Orsillo sign removal sentence, a Globe hack responds thusly:

That led David Skok, the Globe’s managing editor for digital and general manager of BostonGlobe.com, to respond: “Story was published early, sourcing was weak so the line was removed. Our coverage on this speaks for itself.”

It speaks, all right, and just furthers this blogger's contention that Shank does not have an editor, or doesn't until something blows up in Shank's face.

This is by no means an exhaustive list, but a cursory review of this site's posts since inception for the search word 'editor' shows 24 results. Out of the first twelve, I rediscovered five clear indicators of this lack of editorial oversight:

* Dec. 30, 2007 - three spelling mistakes, never corrected.

* Dec. 7, 2008 - Semi-confusing (and definitely annoying) references to the (Sea)Hawks and potentially the Atlanta Hawks.

* Jan. 26, 2010 - same as above.

* Nov. 23, 2014 - misstatement of fact; a Google search of two minutes could have prevented this one.

* July 9, 2015 - misstatement of fact / complete lack of research. Again, a two minute Google search was all that would have been required to get this story straight.

Oh - and my all-time favorite is right here:

Skaters know there’s a purity about the outdoor game. No Zamboni fumes.

A quick Google search turns out the following:

Drive Train:
Four-wheel drive. Rugged Spicer axles have high capacities. Full floating rear axle. General Electric 17.5 HP electric motor provides superior on-ice power even at low speeds.

By the way, Zamboni machines have had electric drive trains for over fifty years.

The only time a Globe editor is mentioned in the same sentence as Shank's is in this case or when Shank's wife donates $250 to Nikki Tsongas' congressional campaign from a joint checking account and a Globe editor has to pull Shank's ass out of the fire, piously declaring nothing to see here, move along.

If any of you want to continue to buy into the notion of Shank having constant editorial oversight, these examples out ought to persuade you otherwise. It is clear to me that the offending sentence in Shank's latest column was removed after someone, presumably at NESN and / or the Red Sox organization, spotted it and 'requested' that it be removed.

Hacktastic!

UPDATE at 5:28 PM - Commenter Anonymous points out this egregious example, to wit: Dodgers StadiumThe Coliseum opened was the Dodgers baseball field in 1958, and Shank's article as linked to above has Humphrey Bogart attending at least one game at that stadium. All well & fine, were it not for the fact that Bogart died in January 1957, one year before the stadium opened.

Like I noted before, this is not an exhaustive list of evidence that Shank has no immediate editorial oversight; any additional examples would simply be shoveling more dirt on this notion.

UPDATE at 7:11 PM - Typo has been corrected as noted above, which makes this site more accountable than Shank's columns on this sort of thing...

UPDATE, 9/2/2015 at 12:58 AM - Change of Los Angeles baseball venue as noted above, thanks to commenter Anonymous.

New suggested DSW masthead - 'At least we acknowledge and correct our mistakes!'