Best media hold-up job
Earlier this year, when the financially challenged Boston Globe announced a lucrative early-retirement
program aimed at paring the payroll, bigfoot sports columnist Will McDonough saw dollar signs. McDonough
went on his buddy Mike Barnicle's show on WTKK Radio (96.9 FM), where he's a regular, to announce that he
wanted to take the buyout but keep writing his weekly column - and, of course, collect a freelance check
for his efforts.
Nice deal if you can get it. Willie could. For sports junkies, McDonough's column is a compulsively readable
compilation of inside dope, pungent observation, and bitter-old-man asides. And the Globe's editors were
not going to let him go. So not only was McDonough able to take the buyout money and keep his column, but
he also continues to pop up on Barnicle's show - where he likes nothing better than to kick the Globe
around for being too liberal and out of touch with the city. That's not just biting the hand that feeds
you - it's ripping it off and swallowing it whole. Bill Clinton could have learned a few things from
Boston's original Slick Willie.
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