The Power of Words. BOB KERR: Two guys get tangled up in their own lines

8.21.98
BOB KERR: Two guys get tangled up in their own lines

       My friend the sports editor warned me about writing the column on Mike Barnicle. There could be more embarrassing revelations, he said. Don't jump too quickly to his defense.
       But I admired Barnicle. He'd always been one of those newspaper columnists who could put a lump in your throat with a story of small, human connections and capture the public sense of outrage as he consigned yet another shameless political hustler or whining celebrity to a seat on his "Barnicle Bus."
       So last week, after The Boston Globe threatened to dump him for lifting lines from comedian George Carlin, I wrote that it seemed a pretty flimsy basis on which to dismiss someone who had done so many good things with his column.
       Now, in a week when sloppiness, recklessness, and lies have threatened to make us more cynical and distrusting than ever, Mike Barnicle adds to the sad, sodden pile of disappointments. And my friend the sports editor looks even wiser than he used to.
       Barnicle seemed so right. He gave voice to the forgotten, the ignored, and the quietly heroic. He seemed so in tune with the right causes. He took us from the '70s into the '90s with a style that seemed such a snug fit with our hip sympathies. He was the wise guy with a heart.
       He was, in his own way, as embraceable as Bill Clinton, another guy with all the right lines. Both played to our need for someone to deal with the bad guys.
       And in the same summer week, both turned up as men who manipulate emotion rather than letting it be. They give rise to the rumors about a culture of deceit following Baby Boomers into their 50s.
       Clinton turned up on TV a lying, unrepentant slug. Barnicle turned up at home and out of work.
       Clinton kept his job. Barnicle lost his. The difference between a newspaper columnist and president of the United States, it seems, is that the truth matters more if you're a columnist.
       Apparently, Barnicle made things up and lifted material. Chances are he didn't do it often. He did it just enough to betray all those people who do the job right every day.
       There are reporters who slog through city-council meetings, budget hearings, and six-car pileups on the interstate, filling up mangled notebooks and doing the real work of their newspapers.
       And there are columnists who write three days a week about anything they want and have their pictures above their words. In return for all that freedom, the columnist has the responsibility not to embarrass the reporters.
       But because of what Barnicle did, some reporters will get beaten up a little by those who don't make distinctions. The Globe's credibility will suffer because one man with his own soapbox chose to do things the people in the newsroom know they cannot.
       Barnicle never did slog through city-council meetings, budget hearings, and six-car pileups on the interstate. He went right to the best job on the paper, carrying none of the hard reminders of truth's importance that come from covering police and politicians and natural disasters. And he became famous and went on television, which newspaper people both disdain and covet.
       And somewhere in all that media hopping, he apparently lost his way. He didn't keep up his end of the bargain, and he owes an apology to all those who do the daily work of newspapers and will suffer at least a little because of him.
       In many ways, the sad disclosures this week about Barnicle were more difficult to deal with than those about Clinton.
       There are all kinds of people who can be president. But there aren't many who can tell you about the priest who ran the school for poor kids and make you want to grab your checkbook and find the place.
       Barnicle was that good. He didn't need to make things up.

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