The Globe's vanishing Sox disclaimer
It's hard to imagine a more service-y Globe story on the Red Sox than today's front-page piece, which describes the Sox's decision to freeze ticket prices. Consider:
Wall Street is panicking, businesses are collapsing, home
foreclosures have swept the land. As the government looks at bailing
out banks and the nation's behemoth auto industry, one of New England's
venerable institutions, the Red Sox, is trying to do its part to ease
the pain of a troubled economy.
Assembled in the team's ticket office yesterday, grim-faced
executives said they had made a policy decision "at the very highest
level of the organization," one that could affect millions across the
region. They announced they are freezing ticket prices.
"We have
been the beneficiary of fan support and fan loyalty," said Larry
Lucchino, the team's president and chief executive, waving a list of
ticket prices at Fenway, last year the most expensive in baseball. "And
at a time when our fans may be feeling some kind of economic adversity,
we should show some sensitivity."
So the article must have mentioned the fact that the Globe's parent company, the New York Times Co., is a part-owner of the team. Right?
[Cough]
This isn't a new problem. What confuses me, though, is that the Globe seemed to have come around to always referencing its Sox conflict of interest--only to move back in the opposite direction.
Fortunately, the Globe's new comments feature for stories allows readers to do the paper's work for it. Observes one reader:
How nice. Foreclosures?
Unemployment? Those are no longer a worry for anyone now that the
sacred Red Sox have just frozen, not reduced, ticket prices.
Hmmm... Did anyone see a disclaimer in this piece of crap "news"
article? The Boston Globe and Red Sox are part of the SAME COMPANY?
Actually, though, the article isn't the problem--and reporter Michael Levenson happens to be one of the Globe's best. The problem is the editors who've decided to pretend that the paper's conflict of interest re: the Sox doesn't exist.
