Mike Barnicle

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Michael Barnicle (born August 24 1944) is a long-time newspaper writer based in Boston. Barnicle has written for The Boston Globe, the New York Daily News, and the Boston Herald.

He appears regularly on national television talk shows on NBC and MSNBC, such as Hardball with Chris Matthews, Scarborough Country, and Imus in the Morning, as well as the Boston WCVB-TV magazine program Chronicle[1][2]. He is a commentator on WTKK during Imus in the Morning[3].

Contents

[edit] Background and early career

Soon after graduating from Boston University in 1965, Barnicle began his career working for politicians, including the late Robert F. Kennedy. He was a speechwriter for John Tunney's U.S. Senate campaign in California in 1970 and for Ed Muskie and vice presidential nominee Sargent Shriver in the 1972 presidential campaign. In 1972 Barnicle appeared in the Robert Redford film, The Candidate, directed by Michael Ritchie.

[edit] Boston Globe

In August 1998, Barnicle was forced to resign from his position as a columnist at the Boston Globe amid questions about the sources of at least two of his columns.

The first column to raise journalistic suspicion, dated August 2, 1998, allegedly contained unattributed material from the 1997 book Brain Droppings by George Carlin[4].

After Barnicle claimed he had never read the book, editor Matthew Storin issued a one-month suspension. Later that afternoon, when a local television station aired a video clip showing Barnicle recommending the book to viewers, Storin increased the suspension to two months.

Closer scrutiny of all columnists followed, because another Boston Globe columnist, Patricia Smith, had resigned just two months before amid revelations that she fabricated people and quotations in four of her columns.

Review of hundreds of previous Barnicle columns by the Globe revealed another possible fabrication in an October 8, 1995 piece. The column, titled "Through Pain, A Common Bond," recounted the story of two sets of parents with cancer-stricken children who had struck up a friendship during a stint at Children's Hospital in Boston in the summer of 1994. When one of the boys, a black child, died, the parents of the other boy, a white child who had begun to recover, sent the down-on-their-luck parents a check for $10,000 USD. None of the people identified in the story could be located. When confronted with charges of fabrication, Barnicle said he did not obtain the story from either of the parents, but from a nurse at another hospital. When Barnicle did not produce the name of the nurse, and editors could not find a death that matched that of the child, Barnicle was asked to resign[5].

[edit] Moving on

Soon afterward, both the New York Daily News and the Boston Herald recruited him to write for them[6].

Despite a tumultuous end at The Boston Globe, later, in March 2004, Barnicle told Globe reporters that he had nothing but “fond feelings for 25 years at the Globe."[6] Globe sports columnist Dan Shaughnessy served as a regular commentator and guest host on Barnicle’s daily radio program on WTKK[7].

[edit] Most recent news

Barnicle was slated to host The Imus In The Morning Show starting April 16th, 2007, while Imus was suspended. However, that suspension turned into an outright cancellation, and instead, Barnicle's local one-hour show was temporarily expanded to the full four-hour morning drive slot on WTKK[8]. The program was cancelled in 2007.

Barnicle, a current contributor to the Boston Herald, is working in a consulting role to local business leaders -- including former General Electric chief Jack Welch, adman Jack Connors and concessionaire Joe O'Donnell - who are discussing trying to buy the Boston Globe from The New York Times Company[9].

[edit] Miscellaneous

For years Boston radio host Howie Carr has sparred with Barnicle, even during the short time they worked as Boston Herald colleagues, calling him a "hack" and referring to himself as the Herald's "nonfiction columnist[5]."

Barnicle called Carr "a pathetic figure" and asked "Can you imagine being as consumed with envy and jealousy toward me for as long as it has consumed him[10]?"

[edit] See also

[edit] Notes and references

  1. ^ Mike Barnicle MSNBC. Accessed 12 July 2007.
  2. ^ Mike Barnicle The Boston Channel. Accessed 12 July 2007.
  3. ^ Imus’ resurrection will feature new co-host and old standbys, 2007-11-30, <http://www.bostonradiowatch.com/>. Retrieved on 2007-12-07.
  4. ^ Former Boston Globe Columnist Is Returning, but to a Rival The New York Times. Accessed 12 July 2007.
  5. ^ a b Barnicle resigns from Globe The Boston Globe. Accessed 12 July 2007.
  6. ^ a b Barnicle signs on as Herald columnist The Boston Globe. Accessed 12 July 2007.
  7. ^ Mike Barnicle's Bio 96.9 FM Talk. Accessed 13 September 2006.
  8. ^ Barnicle Won’t Get Morning Show Slot on WTKK Hub PoliticsNOW. Accessed 13 June 2007.
  9. ^ Ellison, Sarah and Angwin, Julia. “Welch, partners consider buying Boston Globe," The Wall Street Journal Europe, 2006-10-27. Accessed 22 July 2007.
  10. ^ Badboys The Boston Globe. Accessed 12 July 2007.
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