Herald columnist Joe Fitzgerald dies, 79

Joe Fitzgerald was an asshole.

Now he's dead.

The End

At one point he was a cheery counterpoint to Howie, with various local hero and good news columns, but he got crabby in later years. Maybe, like with so many others, it was after 9/11.

I used to like Joe’s columns on the sports pages. He told warm human interest stories that made you like the athletes he was writing about, and the person who was writing the stories as well. When he switched to politics, he was just another hack writing biased and moralizing opinions, with little reasoning more than “as everybody knows, my beliefs are just common sense.” RIP Joe, I’ll miss the writer you used to be.

I haven't read the Boston Herald since the 1990's when Howie Carr did a complete turnaround from being a populist muckraking columnist to a conservative Drive-Time Shock Jock on WRKO which reflected in his work at the Herald.

I always thought Joe Fitzgerald was the "Editor in Chief" of The Herald. I'm sure I read and enjoyed his stuff pre-Howie conversion.

Along with a lack of columns supporting Cardinal Law.