Critique of Globe misrepresented
- |
IN HIS Articles of Faith column last Sunday, Michael Paulson misrepresented what I wrote on my website EconomicPrincipals .com. I suggested nothing more than that in taking over the pedophile priest story from the Boston Phoenix in 2001, the Globe incurred costs as well as benefits. That the newspaper did a bang-up job and earned a Pulitzer Prize for public service in the process minimized those costs. It is very hard to estimate what they might have been.
But to deny the possibility that the Globe's spirited coverage cost the paper the loyalty of some of its readers is ostrich-like. And to describe as "insane," as did Paulson, my observation that one reader's crusading journalism may be another's newspaper narcissism is a striking reminder of how difficult it is to write dispassionately about that story.
What my piece was really about, of course, was the Globe's larger strategy of ditching older readers (who probably would have been dependable customers) in order to chase younger ones (who in most cases have turned out not to be). Over the years, this part of the story has been underreported. Almost all newspapers have experienced declines in circulation and advertising revenues in recent years. The Globe's declines have been steeper than they needed to be because of the
David Warsh
Somerville
