Mike Barnicle
Encyclopedia
Michael "Mike" Barnicle (born October 15, 1943 in Worcester, Massachusetts
) is an award-winning American
print and broadcast journalist as well as a social and political commentator. He is a frequent contributor and occasional guest host on MSNBC's Morning Joe
and Hardball with Chris Matthews
and is frequently seen on NBC's Today Show with news/feature segments. He has been a regular contributor to the country's longest-running, award-winning local television news magazine, "Chronicle
" on WCVB-TV, since 1986. Barnicle has also appeared on the PBS NewsHour, CBS's 60 Minutes
, ESPN
, and HBO sports programming.
The Massachusetts native has written more than 4,000 columns collectively for the New York Daily News
(1999–2005), Boston Herald
(2004–2005 and occasionally contributing from 2006-2010) and The Boston Globe
, where he rose to prominence with his biting, satirical, and at times heart-wrenching columns that closely followed the triumphs, travails, and ambitions of Boston's working and middle classes. He also has written articles and commentary for Time
magazine, Newsweek
, The Huffington Post, The Daily Beast, ESPN Magazine, and Esquire
, among others.
in 1965 and began working for Robert F. Kennedy
. He was a speechwriter for John Tunney, Edmund Muskie
, and Sargent Shriver
. Barnicle appeared in the Robert Redford
film The Candidate
. Barnicle then was asked to write a column in the Boston Globe, which ran for 24 years between 1974 and 1998.
The paper and its columnist won praise with their coverage of the political and social upheaval that roiled Boston after the city instituted a mandatory, court-ordered school desegregation plan in the mid 1970s. In his Pulitzer Prize-winning book Common Ground: A Turbulent Decade in the Lives of Three American Families (1986), J. Anthony Lukas
wrote that Barnicle gave voice to the Boston residents who had been angered by the policy. Lukas singled out Barnicle's column ("Busing Puts Burden on Working Class, Black and White" published in The Boston Globe, October 15, 1974) and interview with Harvard psychiatrist and author Robert Coles as one of the defining moments in the coverage. The paper earned the 1975 Pulitzer Prize
for public service.
Over the next three decades, Barnicle became a prominent voice in New England. His columns mixed pointed criticism of government and bureaucratic failure with personal stories that exemplified people's everyday struggles to make a living and raise a family. Tapping into a rich knowledge of local and national politics, Barnicle had unique takes on the ups and downs of luminaries such as Sen. Ted Kennedy
, Sen. John Kerry
, and longtime Congressional Speaker of the House Thomas Tip O'Neill
as well as Boston mayors Kevin White
, Ray Flynn, and Tom Menino. In subsequent years, Barnicle's coverage expanded as he reported from Northern Ireland on the conflict and resolution there to the beaches of Normandy, from where he wrote about the commemorations of World War II
veterans.
Barnicle has won local and national awards for both his print and broadcast work over the last three decades, including from the Associated Press
, United Press International, National Headliners, and duPont-Columbia University. He holds honorary degrees from the University of Massachusetts
and Colby College
.
The second column in question, more than 80 lines of humorous observations dated August 2, 1998, contained a handful that resembled observations from the 1997 book Brain Droppings by George Carlin
. After Barnicle said he had never read the book, the editor of the Globe issued a temporary suspension. However, after WCVB-TV subsequently aired a video clip of Barnicle recommending the book to viewers for upcoming summer reading, the editor called for his resignation; this was rescinded under fire from readers and the suspension period doubled instead.
In June 2011, Barnicle was criticized on Salon.com for his tone in a 1991 column about the Boston area mobster Whitey Bulger and for an alleged friendship with Whitey's brother Billy Bulger.. But the criticism didn't ring true. Salon writer Steve Kornacki failed to recognize that Barnicle's column was satire. Boston journalist Dan Kennedy publicly took Kornacki to task for not recognizing the column's satirical voice. Kornacki responded with a gracious retraction. "Kennedy is right: My portrayal of Barnicle's July 1991 column is inaccurate, and I'm sorry -- and embarrassed -- that I screwed it up," wrote Kornacki on the Salon.com site.
served as a regular commentator and guest host on Barnicle’s daily radio program on WTKK. Until recently, Barnicle was on the radio three times a week with Barnicle's View on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays at 6:55am and 8:55am http://barnicle.969fmtalk.mobi.
Barnicle has since become a staple on MSNBC
, including on Morning Joe
and Hardball with Chris Matthews
as well as on specials on breaking news topics.
Mike Barnicle was interviewed in Ken Burns
's film Baseball in the Tenth Inning movie, where he mostly commented on the 2003-2004 Boston Red Sox
.
Worcester, Massachusetts
Worcester is a city and the county seat of Worcester County, Massachusetts, United States. Named after Worcester, England, as of the 2010 Census the city's population is 181,045, making it the second largest city in New England after Boston....
) is an award-winning American
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
print and broadcast journalist as well as a social and political commentator. He is a frequent contributor and occasional guest host on MSNBC's Morning Joe
Morning Joe
Morning Joe is a weekday morning talk show on MSNBC, with Joe Scarborough discussing the news of the day in a panel format with co-hosts Mika Brzezinski and Willie Geist. It was created as the replacement for Imus in the Morning, which was canceled in April 2007 after simulcasting on MSNBC since 1996...
and Hardball with Chris Matthews
Hardball with Chris Matthews
Hardball with Chris Matthews is a talk show on MSNBC, broadcast weekdays at 5 and 7 PM hosted by Chris Matthews. It originally aired on now-defunct America's Talking and later CNBC. The current title was derived from a book Matthews wrote in 1988, Hardball: How Politics Is Played Told by One Who...
and is frequently seen on NBC's Today Show with news/feature segments. He has been a regular contributor to the country's longest-running, award-winning local television news magazine, "Chronicle
Chronicle
Generally a chronicle is a historical account of facts and events ranged in chronological order, as in a time line. Typically, equal weight is given for historically important events and local events, the purpose being the recording of events that occurred, seen from the perspective of the...
" on WCVB-TV, since 1986. Barnicle has also appeared on the PBS NewsHour, CBS's 60 Minutes
60 Minutes
60 Minutes is an American television news magazine, which has run on CBS since 1968. The program was created by producer Don Hewitt who set it apart by using a unique style of reporter-centered investigation....
, ESPN
ESPN
Entertainment and Sports Programming Network, commonly known as ESPN, is an American global cable television network focusing on sports-related programming including live and pre-taped event telecasts, sports talk shows, and other original programming....
, and HBO sports programming.
The Massachusetts native has written more than 4,000 columns collectively for the New York Daily News
New York Daily News
The Daily News of New York City is the fourth most widely circulated daily newspaper in the United States with a daily circulation of 605,677, as of November 1, 2011....
(1999–2005), Boston Herald
Boston Herald
The Boston Herald is a daily newspaper that serves Boston, Massachusetts, United States, and its surrounding area. It was started in 1846 and is one of the oldest daily newspapers in the United States...
(2004–2005 and occasionally contributing from 2006-2010) and The Boston Globe
The Boston Globe
The Boston Globe is an American daily newspaper based in Boston, Massachusetts. The Boston Globe has been owned by The New York Times Company since 1993...
, where he rose to prominence with his biting, satirical, and at times heart-wrenching columns that closely followed the triumphs, travails, and ambitions of Boston's working and middle classes. He also has written articles and commentary for Time
Time (magazine)
Time is an American news magazine. A European edition is published from London. Time Europe covers the Middle East, Africa and, since 2003, Latin America. An Asian edition is based in Hong Kong...
magazine, Newsweek
Newsweek
Newsweek is an American weekly news magazine published in New York City. It is distributed throughout the United States and internationally. It is the second-largest news weekly magazine in the U.S., having trailed Time in circulation and advertising revenue for most of its existence...
, The Huffington Post, The Daily Beast, ESPN Magazine, and Esquire
Esquire (magazine)
Esquire is a men's magazine, published in the U.S. by the Hearst Corporation. Founded in 1932, it flourished during the Great Depression under the guidance of founder and editor Arnold Gingrich.-History:...
, among others.
Early career
Barnicle graduated from Boston UniversityBoston University
Boston University is a private research university located in Boston, Massachusetts. With more than 4,000 faculty members and more than 31,000 students, Boston University is one of the largest private universities in the United States and one of Boston's largest employers...
in 1965 and began working for Robert F. Kennedy
Robert F. Kennedy
Robert Francis "Bobby" Kennedy , also referred to by his initials RFK, was an American politician, a Democratic senator from New York, and a noted civil rights activist. An icon of modern American liberalism and member of the Kennedy family, he was a younger brother of President John F...
. He was a speechwriter for John Tunney, Edmund Muskie
Edmund Muskie
Edmund Sixtus "Ed" Muskie was an American politician from Rumford, Maine. He served as Governor of Maine from 1955 to 1959, as a member of the United States Senate from 1959 to 1980, and as Secretary of State under Jimmy Carter from 1980 to 1981...
, and Sargent Shriver
Sargent Shriver
Robert Sargent Shriver, Jr., known as Sargent Shriver, R. Sargent Shriver, or, from childhood, Sarge, was an American statesman and activist. As the husband of Eunice Kennedy Shriver, he was part of the Kennedy family, serving in the Kennedy and Johnson administrations...
. Barnicle appeared in the Robert Redford
Robert Redford
Charles Robert Redford, Jr. , better known as Robert Redford, is an American actor, film director, producer, businessman, environmentalist, philanthropist, and founder of the Sundance Film Festival. He has received two Oscars: one in 1981 for directing Ordinary People, and one for Lifetime...
film The Candidate
The Candidate (1972 film)
The Candidate is a 1972 American film starring Robert Redford. Its themes include how the political machine corrupts. There are many parallels between the then-recent 1970 California Senate election between John V. Tunney and George Murphy; however, Redford's character Bill McKay is a political...
. Barnicle then was asked to write a column in the Boston Globe, which ran for 24 years between 1974 and 1998.
The paper and its columnist won praise with their coverage of the political and social upheaval that roiled Boston after the city instituted a mandatory, court-ordered school desegregation plan in the mid 1970s. In his Pulitzer Prize-winning book Common Ground: A Turbulent Decade in the Lives of Three American Families (1986), J. Anthony Lukas
J. Anthony Lukas
Jay Anthony Lukas, aka J. Anthony Lucas , was a Pulitzer Prize-winning American journalist and author, probably best known for his 1985 book Common Ground: A Turbulent Decade in the Lives of Three American Families, a classic study of race relations and school busing in Boston, Massachusetts, as...
wrote that Barnicle gave voice to the Boston residents who had been angered by the policy. Lukas singled out Barnicle's column ("Busing Puts Burden on Working Class, Black and White" published in The Boston Globe, October 15, 1974) and interview with Harvard psychiatrist and author Robert Coles as one of the defining moments in the coverage. The paper earned the 1975 Pulitzer Prize
Pulitzer Prize
The Pulitzer Prize is a U.S. award for achievements in newspaper and online journalism, literature and musical composition. It was established by American publisher Joseph Pulitzer and is administered by Columbia University in New York City...
for public service.
Over the next three decades, Barnicle became a prominent voice in New England. His columns mixed pointed criticism of government and bureaucratic failure with personal stories that exemplified people's everyday struggles to make a living and raise a family. Tapping into a rich knowledge of local and national politics, Barnicle had unique takes on the ups and downs of luminaries such as Sen. Ted Kennedy
Ted Kennedy
Edward Moore "Ted" Kennedy was a United States Senator from Massachusetts and a member of the Democratic Party. Serving almost 47 years, he was the second most senior member of the Senate when he died and is the fourth-longest-serving senator in United States history...
, Sen. John Kerry
John Kerry
John Forbes Kerry is the senior United States Senator from Massachusetts, the 10th most senior U.S. Senator and chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. He was the presidential nominee of the Democratic Party in the 2004 presidential election, but lost to former President George W...
, and longtime Congressional Speaker of the House Thomas Tip O'Neill
Tip O'Neill
Thomas Phillip "Tip" O'Neill, Jr. was an American politician. O'Neill was an outspoken liberal Democrat and influential member of the U.S. Congress, serving in the House of Representatives for 34 years and representing two congressional districts in Massachusetts...
as well as Boston mayors Kevin White
Kevin White
Kevin Hagan White is an American politician best known as the Mayor of Boston, a position he held from 1968 to 1984.-Early years:...
, Ray Flynn, and Tom Menino. In subsequent years, Barnicle's coverage expanded as he reported from Northern Ireland on the conflict and resolution there to the beaches of Normandy, from where he wrote about the commemorations of World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
veterans.
Barnicle has won local and national awards for both his print and broadcast work over the last three decades, including from the Associated Press
Associated Press
The Associated Press is an American news agency. The AP is a cooperative owned by its contributing newspapers, radio and television stations in the United States, which both contribute stories to the AP and use material written by its staff journalists...
, United Press International, National Headliners, and duPont-Columbia University. He holds honorary degrees from the University of Massachusetts
University of Massachusetts
This article relates to the statewide university system. For the flagship campus often referred to as "UMass", see University of Massachusetts Amherst...
and Colby College
Colby College
Colby College is a private liberal arts college located on Mayflower Hill in Waterville, Maine. Founded in 1813, it is the 12th-oldest independent liberal arts college in the United States...
.
Boston Globe Controversy
In 1998, Barnicle resigned from the Boston Globe amid allegations of fabrication from a column written three years prior and plagiarism regarding a handful of jokes in a column 10 years previous. The October 8, 1995 column recounted the story of two sets of parents with cancer-stricken children. When one of the boys, a black child, died, the parents of the other boy, a white child who had begun to recover, sent the dead child's parents a check for $10,000. When the Globe could not locate the people who had not been publicly identified, Barnicle insisted nonetheless that the story was true. He said he did not obtain the story from the parents but from a nurse, whom he declined to identify. Mrs. Patricia Shairs later contacted the Globe to indicate that the story Barnicle wrote was about her family, although she said some of the facts were incorrect.The second column in question, more than 80 lines of humorous observations dated August 2, 1998, contained a handful that resembled observations from the 1997 book Brain Droppings by George Carlin
George Carlin
George Denis Patrick Carlin was an American stand-up comedian, social critic, actor and author, who won five Grammy Awards for his comedy albums....
. After Barnicle said he had never read the book, the editor of the Globe issued a temporary suspension. However, after WCVB-TV subsequently aired a video clip of Barnicle recommending the book to viewers for upcoming summer reading, the editor called for his resignation; this was rescinded under fire from readers and the suspension period doubled instead.
In June 2011, Barnicle was criticized on Salon.com for his tone in a 1991 column about the Boston area mobster Whitey Bulger and for an alleged friendship with Whitey's brother Billy Bulger.. But the criticism didn't ring true. Salon writer Steve Kornacki failed to recognize that Barnicle's column was satire. Boston journalist Dan Kennedy publicly took Kornacki to task for not recognizing the column's satirical voice. Kornacki responded with a gracious retraction. "Kennedy is right: My portrayal of Barnicle's July 1991 column is inaccurate, and I'm sorry -- and embarrassed -- that I screwed it up," wrote Kornacki on the Salon.com site.
1998–present
Soon afterward, the New York Daily News and the Boston Herald recruited Barnicle to write for them. Barnicle told reporters that he had nothing but "fond feelings for 25 years at the Globe." Globe sports columnist Dan ShaughnessyDan Shaughnessy
Dan Shaughnessy is an American sports writer.-Career:After graduating from the College of the Holy Cross, Shaughnessy began his career as a beat reporter covering the Baltimore Orioles for the Baltimore Sun in 1977. He has been a sports writer for the Boston Globe for approximately 30 years,...
served as a regular commentator and guest host on Barnicle’s daily radio program on WTKK. Until recently, Barnicle was on the radio three times a week with Barnicle's View on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays at 6:55am and 8:55am http://barnicle.969fmtalk.mobi.
Barnicle has since become a staple on MSNBC
MSNBC
MSNBC is a cable news channel based in the United States available in the US, Germany , South Africa, the Middle East and Canada...
, including on Morning Joe
Morning Joe
Morning Joe is a weekday morning talk show on MSNBC, with Joe Scarborough discussing the news of the day in a panel format with co-hosts Mika Brzezinski and Willie Geist. It was created as the replacement for Imus in the Morning, which was canceled in April 2007 after simulcasting on MSNBC since 1996...
and Hardball with Chris Matthews
Hardball with Chris Matthews
Hardball with Chris Matthews is a talk show on MSNBC, broadcast weekdays at 5 and 7 PM hosted by Chris Matthews. It originally aired on now-defunct America's Talking and later CNBC. The current title was derived from a book Matthews wrote in 1988, Hardball: How Politics Is Played Told by One Who...
as well as on specials on breaking news topics.
Mike Barnicle was interviewed in Ken Burns
Ken Burns
Kenneth Lauren "Ken" Burns is an American director and producer of documentary films, known for his style of using archival footage and photographs...
's film Baseball in the Tenth Inning movie, where he mostly commented on the 2003-2004 Boston Red Sox
Boston Red Sox
The Boston Red Sox are a professional baseball team based in Boston, Massachusetts, and a member of Major League Baseball’s American League Eastern Division. Founded in as one of the American League's eight charter franchises, the Red Sox's home ballpark has been Fenway Park since . The "Red Sox"...
.
See also
- The official Mike Barnicle website
- Alan Dershowitz: Controversies: Mike Barnicle