Hey, there! Log in / Register
Mike Barnicle is a zombie
By adamg on Sat, 10/02/2010 - 7:34pm
That's one explanation for why nothing can kill the plagiarist. Or, in the case of why Ken Burns chose him to explain the 2004 Red Sox in his recent docu-update, maybe one needs to apply that old journalistic adage: "Follow the money." As Joan Walsh writes:
Barnicle's professional troubles are never mentioned, but more remarkably, to my knowledge no media report has made the connection between Barnicle's star turn and the role of his wife, Anne Finucane, the Bank of America chief marketing officer credited with the B of A's sponsorship of "Tenth Inning." Finucane's role is no secret; she's been quoted about the bank's Burns partnership and photographed at gala events with the filmmaker. But it's undisclosed within the project, and given Barnicle's (to me questionable) centrality to "Tenth Inning," something there feels off.
Via Scocca, who has a few choice words on Barnicle and the other local plagiarist Burns used to explain 2004:
Mike Barnicle is a fraud and a liar. He didn't even have the excuse of being in over his head and strung out on drugs, like Jayson Blair. He had a nice, easy columnist spot. He fabricated and plagiarized because he was lazy and dishonest, and because he had contempt for his $200,000-a-year job and his readers.
Inviting Mike Barnicle to talk about what the Red Sox mean to Boston is like inviting Janet Cooke to discuss the problem of drug abuse among young people. He wasn't even a sportswriter, unless you count the time he ripped off a joke from George Carlin about the pope giving baseball scores.
And Scocca via Dan Kennedy.
Topics:
Free tagging:
Ad:
Support Universal Hub
Help keep Universal Hub going. If you like what we're up to and want to help out, please consider a (completely non-deductible) contribution.
Comments
This coming from Slate, which
This coming from Slate, which hired the odious hypocrite and criminal Eliot Spitzer.
This coming from a dummy
Salon not slate. Read and learn.
Speaking of reading and learning ...
It's coming from Salon and Slate.
I noticed Barnicle seems to have lost his good sense
of humor since George Carlin died. Coincidence? Who did he blow to get the gig on MorningJoe?
He's had season tickets since 1975.
Back off will ya? The guy is lucky yes. Married well, yes. Lives in the hardscrabble streets of Lincoln? Yes? Sox fan? A huge one. Who did you want them to talk to about Boston baseball, The CHB? Matt Storin? Gerry Callahan? God Jesus Buddha Allah help us all Emily Rooney? The producers of Dirty Water TV? I would have rather watched more of him than the other plagirist and Dodger fan turncoat DK Goodwin. (Don't adjust your set folks,assit your frightened children, that is her real face).
Tubby, pasty, balding Hiberno-Bostonians like myself get sick of him every once in a while but his show on TKK was much better than any of the blowhards (Marjorie and the Leather Merchant excepted). I don't mind him chatting about the State Religion. It works.
well.....
....put. Don't really like him and his faux rough and tumble Irish act, but it he works for this piece. It beats him drowning on about how Ted Kennedy really was the every man.
If this guy is the best
If this guy is the best 'journalist' Massachusetts can offer, no wonder why this place is such a circus.
I'd have nominated Charlie
I'd have nominated Charlie Pierce
Charlie Pierce
I'd second that vote. His Boston Globe Magazine column can get more than a little tired (I think Dave Barry is one of the few columnists that was able to maintain over-the-top wise-ass/absurd commentary without straying into being too annoying), but his longer pieces for the Globe and his appearances on "Only a Game" with Bill Littlefield are pretty good.
Bill Littlefield would be another intelligent option, although probably not "Boston" enough for what the documentary was looking for.
I think he hates baseball
Isn't he more of a football guy?
Bill Simmons, then
He wrote some great stuff that year. But his wife doesn't work for the documentary's sponsor.
Not weepy enough
Maybe your problem is with Ken Burns' style, and the fact that Barnicle is basically appropriate for Ken Burns.
Simmons could get really weepy
Just have him sit there with printouts from the Sons of Sam Horn "Win it for ..." thread, you know, like:
Or, in digest form, he could just read his own column from the day of game 4 of the 2004 World Series.
Barnicle's whole act summed up for me..
Years ago, when the Ritz Carlton was still the Ritz Carlton, they used to offer a limousine shuttle service for the guests from 7AM to 10AM. I would often have to work that assignment and I would always see Mike Barnicle having his breakfast in the Cafe.
I always found it to speak volumes about this scumbag that he tried to portray himself as a "man of the street". He would have the valet bring him his Range Rover so he could run off to Roxbury or Dorchester to bring tales of the downtrodden to people who would read his crap and mumble "tsk-tsk" over their morning coffee.
He could be worse, though. He could be Howie Carr, who has brought the streetwise musings of a man who faced the mean streets of Deerfield Academy to us for years now!
Another Of Charlie Pierce's Gigs:
Charlie Pierce also appears every Tuesday morning at 10:30 am on the Stephanie Miller Show, broadcast nationwide, and heard locally on AM 1510, WWZN. If you're not near a radio at that time, or are outside of WWZN's broadcast range, the segment is made available later on Tuesday at stephaniemiller.com.