McNamara leaving Globe

Published Mar 21 2007, 06:56 PM by Adam Reilly

Globe metro columnist Eileen McNamara--who won a Pulitzer Prize for commentary in 1997--has received one of the paper's much-sought-after buyouts and will leave Morrissey Boulevard April 1, Media Log has learned. Next up: a full-time gig teaching journalism at Brandeis University, where she's currently an adjunct instructor.

“I’ve had the best job in Boston for the last 12 years--I know that,” McNamara said this afternoon. “It is a fantastic job, but it comes with its own stresses that I think eventually catch up with you…. I spent a lot of time in heartwrenching situations, and I guess it’s time to let somebody else take a shot.” (One example: her March 18 column on two domestic-violence murders that occurred 27 years apart.)

To understand why this is a major loss for the paper, look at McNamara’s March 14 column on the New Bedford immigration raid, in which grilling by McNamara actually prompted Nancy Fernandez Mills, the communications director for Gov. Deval Patrick, to utter these words: "I'd like to retract that statement until I talk to someone who actually knows something about this timeline." Or read McNamara’s critical assessment of the late South Boston city councilor Jimmy Kelly, which was a welcome corrective at a time when Kelly’s fans were having the loudest say.

“I didn’t come to this easily,” McNamara added. “I’ve had a great career at the Globe. I was in the Washington Bureau; I covered the famine in Ethiopia. And it is not easy to walk away from the newspaper business. If I didn’t love teaching as much as I do, I wouldn't do it and I couldn’t do it.”

Joan Vennochi, McNamara's longtime colleague, had this to say about her exit:

"As her friend, I am happy that she is leaving the Globe to do something she loves. I am sad for the Globe and its readers. Her voice is unique and she is fearless. She stands up to the powerbrokers. She speaks up passionately for the underdogs. She never accepts conventional wisdom. She does what journalists are supposed to do: afflict the comfortable and comfort the afflicted. This newspaper will not be the same without her."

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5 Comments

GlobeScorner said:

Let's not forget the way the Globe hung McNamara out to dry after the Smith/Barnicle travesties for no reason at all. Not to mention Mark Jurkowitz's craven, cowardly refusal to challenge their behavior on Beat The Press (when he was Globe ombudsman). Also not to mention the confused look on Eileen's face during Mark's pathetic defense of the Globe's behavior on that program. Good for her! The Globe doesn't -- and never did -- deserve her.

March 21, 2007 8:54 PM
Rhea said:

This is quite a loss for the paper. But that kind of job is super-stressful. She deserves the buy-out break.

March 21, 2007 11:23 PM
Adam said:

Boston, I initially let your misogynistic screed stand because I thought it spoke volumes about at least some of McNamara's detractors. But an email from a reader convinced me I was wrong. Feel free to delete the expletives and repost.

March 22, 2007 11:16 AM
Michael Goldman said:

To not understand what greatness Eileen brought to the Globe, is to fail to grasp the role of the passionate advocate columnist - the writer who speaks for those whom society would rather not acknowledge or even attempt to understand...Her articles gave voice to those who were too often lost in the netherworld of bureaucracies run amok; of women who were trapped in violent relationship without means of finacial or physical escape; of arrogant Judges who hid their decisions behind the cloke of judicial robes; and of unempowered people who battled in media darkness against powerful, well entrenched special interests... It's easy to SAY Eileen will be missed... It is more important to KNOW that what she wrote won't soon be forgotten...

March 22, 2007 5:14 PM

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McNamara leaving Globe

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