Flinging the p-word, continued

by Dan Kennedy

Although Young has written for the Globe before, including this week, her first official piece as a Jacoby fill-in will appear this Sunday, September 3; Braceras's debut will take place next Thursday, September 7. At Loth's insistence, Young's pieces will be original to the Globe rather than recycled Detroit News columns. Each woman will write weekly until Jacoby's suspension is up.

This raises a question: will Jacoby be back? And if he chooses to move on, will Cathy Young or Jennifer Braceras be his replacement? Understandably, both women decline to discuss the matter; Young, who knows Jacoby slightly, says only that she "was very saddened by what had happened to him." Jacoby, who has said he still doesn't know whether he'll return, has been doing quite a bit of substitute-host duty recently on WTKK Radio (96.9 FM). He's also pursuing a union grievance against the Globe to have his punishment reduced or eliminated -- something he's entitled to do even though he had refused to join the union.

At the time of his suspension, Jacoby said Loth all but invited him to resign, and told him his column would have to undergo a "serious rethink" if he chose to return. The most likely interpretation is that Loth wants Jacoby to produce more reported pieces on politics and fewer essays on cultural issues.

There's no reason to believe Loth has changed her mind. But in a conversation last week, she struck a more conciliatory tone. "We fully expect Jeff to come back in November," she said. "He's still a Globe employee." Nor would she rise to the bait when pressed as to whether Young or Braceras would be a candidate for a staff job if Jacoby left, responding again, "I expect that Jeff is coming back."

For conservatives, and for liberals who like to be challenged (me, for instance), Jacoby's return would be welcome news -- and Loth's choice of Young and Braceras shows why. Though they may well turn out to be worthwhile additions to the op-ed page, neither one's ideology appears to be in sync with Jacoby's hard-edged political, social, and cultural conservatism.

That wouldn't be a huge problem during a limited engagement, or if they were writing in addition to Jacoby. But the Globe already puts out what may be the country's most liberal op-ed page. Letting two columnists with essentially moderate views hold down the right flank on a permanent basis would only add to the paper's reputation as a hostile environment for conservatives.

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Dan Kennedy's work can be accessed from his Web site: http://www.dankennedy.net

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Dan Kennedy can be reached at dkennedy@phx.com

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Articles from July 24, 1997 & before can be accessed here

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