Thursday, May 04, 2006

Dan's the Man

Half of Red Sox Nation may still blame him for almost running Theo Epstein out of town, but hats off to Dan Shaughnessy today for a column a) properly taking the Red Sox to task for their belated decision to cancel Tuesday's Yankee game after soaking (literally) the loyal fans who showed up. and b) fearlessly spanking his own paper for yesterday's shameless page 1 touting of the Red Sox VIP travel packages.

Here are his key graphs.

Speaking of no-win propositions, we've got a problem here at Daddy Globe. Those of you not living in caves know by now that the New York Times Co. owns us, and also owns 17 percent of the Red Sox. This conflict of interest taints everything we do on these pages and the Globe looks especially compromised on days like yesterday when we ran a Page 1 story entitled, ''Hit the road with the Sox and get . . ."

Yesterday's journalistic wet kiss included a nifty graphic detailing exactly what Sox fans get if they purchase an official team VIP road trip package. The story contained no inside info that couldn't be gleaned by a fan with access to the Internet, but the timing was abysmal and the packaging worse. By any measurement, this was a Red Sox infomercial, a front-page story guaranteed to embolden those who believe the Globe is part of a Red Sox Cartel and certain to make life more difficult for Messrs. Snow, Edes, and all others who toil tirelessly to bring balanced coverage to our readers.

Well said.

5/4/2006 9:50:48 AM by Mark Jurkowitz | Comments [0] |

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