The Boston Globe, founded in 1872, is Boston's highest circulation paper, and competes primarily with the
Boston Herald. The Globe has been published by a member of the Taylor family since 1873, when Charles Taylor bailed the paper out of some early financial troubles. The paper has a reputation for being left-leaning and provincial. (see
TWO HUB MEN DIE IN BLAST; New York also destroyed)
In 1993, the Globe merged with the New York Times company, becoming a wholly owned subsidiary. The Globe website claims this was "the largest, single, newspaper merger and acquisition in U.S. history."
Beginning in 1998, the paper was plagued with a series of suspensions and resignations by columnists accused of plagiarism and fabrication. Columnist Patricia Smith was the first to be fired, accused of fabricating a series of sources in her columns. Subsequently, amidst allegations of racial double standards (Smith is black, Barnicle is white), columnist Mike Barnicle was also forced to resign. Early in 2000, conservative columnist Jeff Jacoby was suspended for failing to attribute the source of one of his columns, and claimed that liberal bias was to blame.
sources: www.boston.com, www.transperencynow.com/globe.htm