The Boston Globe is losing tens of millions of dollars a year because many onetime readers refuse to pay 75 cents a copy to be insulted on a daily basis. If I want to be insulted, I'll get the insults for free from Keith Olbermann on MSNBC. I don't find it pleasant to pay for a newspaper that informs me that I am a homophobe because I oppose court-ordered gay marriage or that I am a racist because I oppose court-ordered bussing. The business model of alienating a huge portion of the Greater Boston community is not working.

This bothers Senator John Kerry, who has been a beneficiary of the Globe's service as a booster paper for the Democratic Party, so much that he plans to hold hearings on the decline of the print dinosaurs. He says that he is committed to ensuring that newspapers like the Globe do not disappear. That's pretty scary when you think about it. What if he had said that he is committed to making certain newspapers disappear? That's the flipside of what he said. The government, in other words, has no stake in this fight--at least not while there is a First Amendment.

Rather than yield to market demands, such as diversifying the outlook of its writers and freeing itself of union remora, the Globe wants a bailout. Right now it receives one from its New York Times parent company, which is $1.3 billion in debt. "America's newspapers are struggling to survive," Kerry notes, "and while there will be serious consequences in terms of the lives and financial security of the employees involved, including hundreds at the Globe, there will also be serious consequences for our democracy where diversity of opinion and strong debate are paramount."

Indeed, which is why the monolithic Globe should embrace intellectual diversity and strong debate. If it doesn't, this former Globe paperboy won't cry at its funeral.

When the going gets tough, you can count on Kerry to hold a hearing.

He was in Viet Nam you know.

The Globe refuses to get it. The trust funders on Morrissey Boulevard continue to publish all the cr@p that’s not fit to read and then whine when nobody buys their lying rag for now double the price.

As Mr. H. Carr says about the Globe’s consistent content: s0cialism and s0d0my.

And you get MSNBC for free...how?

this liberal rag should jjust shut down as it is its just wasing tree's.................

Charlie, you got it all wrong. It would be if the people wanted the paper that they would worry about how many trees died to make it. Just the same way that if people wanted the CFLs, they'd tell you they're too toxic to have in your home.

The Boston Globe Democrat’s demise is a classic example of how liberal Democrats have redefined what it means to be a Democrat. The leaders and the water carriers for the party and their politics have gone from being moderate to way, way left. The Globe is a perfect example of that shift as it used to appeal to many blue collar types who were staunch moderate Massachusetts’ (and beyond) Democrats but now does not consider them their base, if at all.

For some time now, the paper (like the city and State) has been moving away from the democratic model into socialist waters and the ethnic and $exual diversity crowd has high jacked the rag to appeal to people who are primarily a minimal crowd of Boston and outlier burg liberal elites and a majority of greater Cambridge liberal elites. I’m happy to say that because of this unrealistic political and business model, the Boston Globe is just one step above the Phoenix.