Politics: August 1998 Archives

If that is my lot in life, I suppose I can deal with it. I am a bigot. A racist. A pitiful dog. Oh, and I hate women.

And I have proof.

I am unable to see how the actions of Mike Barnicle and the actions of Patricia Smith are similar. I am unable to comprehend why just because the latter was fired for making up people who never existed and knowingly presenting her fabrications as facts in her columns means that the former, who stole someone else's jokes (intentionally or not), should also be fired.

And yet the NAACP and many Globe employees are protesting that the Boston Globe, the newspaper who fired one and not the other, has double standards.

The reason Smith was fired is not because she lied. It is not because she waged a deliberate fraud on her readers and her co-workers. (Although, these reasons alone are sufficient to not only fire her, but to make her case distinct from Barnicle's). She was fired because today more than ever, a news organization is only worth something if it can be trusted, and Smith demonstrated she could not be trusted by her readers.

Without the trust of your readers/viewers/listeners, you might as well pack it up now and go home. Nothing is more important than trust in the news business. She was fired because if she stayed on staff, the Globe could not be trusted.

What rational person would cease to trust Barnicle now? These are jokes, son. I am skeptical that even the suspension he got was deserved, though Barnicle was wrong. He should have done his best to make sure the material was not copyrighted in some fashion. If he did know about it, then he is doubly wrong. But even if he knew (which is unlikely, as he would also have known he would get caught), so what? They are JOKES. They are not made-up homeless kids, they are not fabricated sources about using nerve gas on American troops. They are JOKES.

But 53 Globe employees whine that there is an "appearance of double standard that allows one individual to ignore journalistic principles other reporters must follow."

I am a journalist by training, and while I don't condone the act, I never considered the use of "Take my wife, please!" in a column to be in a serious violation of journalistic principles.

But it gets worse, and here is where I become a racist-bigot-misogynist-homophobe (we'll throw that last one in for good luck, you never know when it might come in handy). The NAACP said the move reflects "a double standard that has both racial and gender implications." I just don't get it at all. I can only conclude that I must be a bigot, because if I weren't, then I suppose the Globe's not firing Mike Barnicle would be obviously evil to me.

Patricia Smith is a liar, guilty of fraud, who should never be allowed to report for a respectable news organization as long as she lives. She happens to be black and female. Mike Barnicle mistakenly lifted a couple of jokes from George Carlin. He happens to be white and male, and a bit on the conservative side, to boot. Shame on him.

Breathe deep, play Jesse Jackson reruns on the VCR, and it will all become clear.