FRIDAY, DECEMBER 21, 2001 — Right out of the box today, three Boston Globe columnists weighed in with biting pieces about the new owners of the Boston Red Sox, a motley crew that includes the Globe’s corporate owner, the New York Times Company.

Brian McGrory offered sarcasm ("Dan Duquette will be our new Globe obituary writer, making better use of his personal skills"). Steve Bailey warned that "this whole sorry mess" — that is, the sleazy process by which team president John Harrington and baseball commissioner Bud Selig steered the sale toward their favored buyers — might not withstand the scrutiny of congressional hearings. And Dan Shaughnessy channeled baseball fans across New England when he bitterly denounced Harrington as a "cowardly little accountant" for screwing local favorites Joe O’Donnell and Steve Karp.

No doubt that pleased editor Marty Baron, who has been insisting for the past month that the Globe would provide tough coverage of the group led by Florida Marlins owner John Henry, Hollywood producer Tom Werner, and failed ski mogul Les Otten, despite the presence of the Times Company as a minority investor. "There won’t be a conflict, because people will be free to write independently about the team and about the organization," he told me several weeks ago (see " Don’t Quote Me, " News and Features, December 7).

But Baron misses an important point. It’s one thing for him to say he’ll pursue the story aggressively — and I don’t doubt his word. It’s quite another, though, to think that the Globe’s ownership stake in the Red Sox won’t have some effect on the fans and, more important, the taxpaying public.

This isn’t like the Chicago Tribune’s ownership of the Chicago Cubs, a team that continues to play in historic Wrigley Field without controversy, except for its athletic ineptitude. Rather, this is an enormous political, business, and economic story that’s going to play out over the next several years (see " Inside Baseball, " News and Features, December 14). The Red Sox are probably going to seek tens if not hundreds of millions of public dollars in order to renovate Fenway Park (the new ownership’s stated goal) or build a new stadium (former FleetCenter honcho Larry Moulter pointed out on WEEI Radio this morning that that’s a much faster, more efficient way to get new revenues streaming in). There will be neighborhood opposition to contend with. And, of course, the Globe will be covering that story, and editorializing on it, too. The Globe could even find itself covering a massive lawsuit brought by the aggrieved also-rans in the ownership sweepstakes: Boston Herald columnist Cosmo Macero pointed out this morning that Harrington could well find himself in the defendant’s dock in US District Court.

(And by the way, this doesn’t look so good from New York, either. Ira Stoll, the impresario behind SmarterTimes.com, observes today, "This is a repulsive deal on a number of levels," and suggests that Yankees and Mets fans may "wonder why anyone would want to own a Red Sox hat, let alone the entire team. No mention of that reaction in today’s Times .")

Yes, the Times Company’s main interest may be the Red Sox’ 80 percent stake in the New England Sports Network (NESN), as company president Janet Robinson has said. But in the course of pursuing a cross-platform media strategy, the company is buying a whole lot of hassles — not to mention more conflicts of interest than any news organization should have to contend with.

It’s an ugly situation, and even assuming that Baron can ensure the integrity of the newsgathering process, it’s still going to have a significant psychological effect on anyone who deals with the Globe. (By the way, Harrington’s faltering stadium plan, which is still technically on the table, would wipe out the Phoenix’s offices. For our past coverage, click here.)

Take, for instance, Jim St. George, the executive director of the Tax Equity Alliance for Massachusetts (TEAM), a liberal advocacy group that lobbies for public spending on education and human services. St. George opposed the $300 million in state and city subsidies that Harrington obtained for his "New Fenway" scheme. And several weeks ago, when I asked him if he’d feel as comfortable opposing a subsidy plan in which the Globe had an ownership stake, he said at first that he would. "I do tend to believe that the reporters that I work with are largely immune from that sort of big corporate policy," he told me. "I may be wrong, but that’s the assumption that I have."

But then St. George thought about it some more — and added that though he would have no problem shooting his mouth off, he’d probably limit himself to that, noting that there is a difference between "saying something in the paper versus taking an aggressive leadership role." He added: "Would I want to take on as an opponent, essentially, the Boston Globe? That would raise a lot of questions. Talk is cheap — thank God, or I’d be broke."

City Councilor Peggy Davis-Mullen had a similar reaction. "People are going to be afraid to speak out, particularly elected officials, because they won’t want to incur the wrath of a paper like that," she said. "It has the potential to cloud the issue."

A politico who is so intimidated by the Globe’s involvement that he asked not to be named told me that elected officials would be reluctant to oppose anything that is in the Globe’s corporate interests. "I can clearly see that certain legislators are going to think to themselves, 'I can pick up some points from the Globe,' or 'I can’t afford to take a hit from the Globe.'"

Isn’t that excessively paranoid? His response: "It’s not what is real, it’s what they believe. This is why they’re called conflicts of interest. What it does is it sends out a signal that there is a corporate position on this stuff."

Alex Jones, the biographer of the Times Company’s ruling Sulzberger family, said he has no doubt that the Globe will be able to cover this story as hard and as fairly as warranted. But he was taken aback when I told him of the comments by St. George, Davis-Mullen, and the anonymous politico.

"If in fact this is going to freak people out and make them afraid, then that is bad. This is a payback-and-get-even kind of town," said Jones, director of Harvard’s Joan Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics, and Public Policy and the co-author of The Trust: The Private and Powerful Family Behind the New York Times (Back Bay Books, 2000). Mind you, Jones doesn’t think there’s any reason that people should be afraid. But, he said, "if they’re afraid, they’re afraid. I can’t argue with that."

Tom Rosenstiel, director of the Project for Excellence in Journalism, raised another issue. As he saw it, the Globe’s "credibility and goodwill" in the community was one of the assets that the Werner-Otten group had to offer. (Rosenstiel spoke with me before Henry signed on.) With the Globe holding an ownership stake, Rosenstiel added, the paper would be trading on that credibility in a way that posed potential ethical risks. And even if the paper’s journalists were told they can pursue the story aggressively, the relationship would still pose an extra "hassle" and "burden."

" It sort of buries these landmines that the people in the Globe newsroom are going to have to navigate, " Rosenstiel told me. "These are questions that the Times [Company] and the Globe will have to contend with. They’re not fatal. They’ll take some lumps. But it’s manageable."

Manageable? Perhaps. But this is a deal that has reeked from day one. It’s unfortunate, to say the least, that the Times Company has willingly allowed some of that stench to be rubbed on New England’s dominant media institution.