Triple Trouble

Glitches at the Globe

The journalistic axiom that disasters come in threes has proved painfully true for the proud Boston Globe (daily circ 482,000), which has found itself embroiled in triple trouble--all of its own making First, an editorial writer put a joke headline, MUSH FROM THE WIMP, on a piece about President Carter's anti-inflation speech. The headline somehow slipped into 140,000 copies before it was caught and changed to something less irreverent

(ALL MUST SHARE THE BURDEN). Then the next week, some 100 advance issues of the Sunday Globe appeared with the wrong edition of the syndicated Parade magazine supplement; instead of the intended cover story about TV's Walter Cronkite, readers of these were treated to a feature on New York Yankees Owner George Steinbrenner, who may be the most unpopular personality in Red Sox-mad Boston since King George III.

While these booboos were occurring, moreover, the Globe was taking a beating over its treatment of Mike Manoogian, a blind news dealer who has been hawking papers with oldtime fervor ("Big story! Big story!") since 1936. In December Manoogian was cut off by the Globe, which said he had swiped some copies from a newspaper vending machine. But when one of the man's longtime customers wrote a protesting letter to the publisher, she got back a haughty reply accusing Manoogian of "thievery." Copies of the letter given to local newscasters turned TV and radio on to the case of the clipped newshawk, who says that the Globe's action cut his daily revenues from $15 to $2 and plunged him into debt to the tune of $2,400. Stung by the adverse publicity, the Globe last week resumed deliveries to Manoogian. Said the paper's circulation manager: "It's a no-win situation." As for Manoogian, his big story now is that he is planning a libel suit.

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