19th century in Boston, circa 1872
The Boston Globe was founded in 1872 by six
Boston businessmen who jointly invested $150,000 (). The founders included
Eben Dyer Jordan of the
Jordan Marsh department store, and
Cyrus Wakefield of the
Wakefield Rattan Company and namesake of the town of
Wakefield, Massachusetts. The morning edition bore the title
The Boston Daily Globe until the word "Daily" was dropped from the nameplate in 1960.
20th century In 1912, the
Globe was one of a cooperative of four newspapers, including the
Chicago Daily News,
The New York Globe, and the
Philadelphia Bulletin, to form the
Associated Newspapers syndicate. In the early 1900s Charles H. Taylor was responsible for making the Globe the most used newspaper in New England. He went into greater details regarding social movements such as the
Women's suffrage movement, while other competitors such as
The Boston Post did not shine as much light on these social movements. In the
1940 Massachusetts gubernatorial election, the
Globe correctly projected the re-election of Republican incumbent
Leverett Saltonstall, using methods first established by Taylor; rival
The Boston Post called the race incorrectly for Democrat
Paul A. Dever. In 1955,
Laurence L. Winship was named editor, ending a 75-year period of the role being held by the paper's publishers. In 1958, the
Globe moved from its original location on
Washington Street in downtown Boston to
Morrissey Boulevard in the
Dorchester neighborhood. In 1965,
Thomas Winship succeeded his father as editor. The younger Winship transformed the
Globe from a mediocre local paper into a regional paper of national distinction. He served as editor until 1984, during which time the paper won a dozen
Pulitzer Prizes, the first in the paper's history.
The Boston Globe was a private company until 1973 when it went public under the name
Affiliated Publications. It continued to be managed by the descendants of Charles Taylor. In 1993,
The New York Times Company purchased Affiliated Publications for
US$1.1billion, making
The Boston Globe a wholly owned subsidiary of
The New York Times parent. The Jordan and Taylor families received substantial The New York Times Company stock, but by 1999 the last Taylor family members had left management.
Boston.com, the online edition of
The Boston Globe, was launched on the
World Wide Web in 1995. Consistently ranked among the top ten newspaper websites in America, it has won numerous national awards and took two regional
Emmy Awards in 2009 for its video work.
The Boston Globe has consistently been ranked in the forefront of American journalism.
Time magazine listed it as one of the ten best US daily newspapers in 1974 and 1984, and the
Globe tied for sixth in a national survey of top editors who chose "America's Best Newspapers" in the
Columbia Journalism Review in 1999.
21st century headquarters in
Dorchester in September 2009. In 2017, the newspaper moved its printing operations to
Taunton and its headquarters to
Downtown Boston. , who acquired the newspaper in 2013 for $70 million Under two editors,
Martin Baron and then
Brian McGrory, the
Globe shifted away from coverage of international news in favor of Boston-area news.
Globe reporters
Michael Rezendes, Matt Carroll,
Sacha Pfeiffer and
Walter Robinson, and editor
Ben Bradlee Jr. were instrumental in uncovering the
Roman Catholic Church sex abuse scandal in 2001–2003, especially in relation to Massachusetts churches.
The Boston Globe was awarded the
Pulitzer Prize for their work and the work of other staff, one of several the paper has received for its investigative journalism, and their work was dramatized in the 2015
Academy Award–winning film
Spotlight, named after the paper's in-depth investigative division.
The Boston Globe was the paper that allowed
Peter Gammons to start his
Notes section on baseball, which has become a mainstay in many major newspapers nationwide. In 2004, Gammons became the 56th recipient of the
J. G. Taylor Spink Award for outstanding baseball writing, given by the
BBWAA; he was honored at the
Baseball Hall of Fame on July 31, 2005. In 2007,
Charlie Savage, whose reports on
President Bush's use of
signing statements made national news, won the
Pulitzer Prize for National Reporting. On April 2, 2009, The New York Times Company threatened to close the paper if its unions did not agree to $20 million of cost savings. Some of the cost savings include reducing union employees' pay by 5%, ending pension contributions, and ending certain employees' tenures. Despite the cuts helping to "significantly [improve]" its financial performance by October of that year, the
Globe parent company indicated that it was considering strategic alternatives for the paper, but did not plan to sell it. As of 2010, the
Globe hosted 28
blogs covering a variety of topics, including
Boston sports, local politics, and a blog made up of posts from the paper's opinion writers. In September 2011,
The Boston Globe launched a dedicated, subscription-based website at bostonglobe.com. Starting in 2012, the
Globe provided a printing and circulating service for the
Boston Herald, and by 2013, was handling its rival's entire press run. In February 2013,
The New York Times Company announced that it would sell its
New England Media Group, which encompasses the
Globe; bids were received by six parties, including John Gormally, then-owner of
WGGB-TV in
Springfield, Massachusetts, another group included members of former
Globe publishers, the Taylor family, and
Boston Red Sox principal owner
John W. Henry, who bid for the paper through the
New England Sports Network, which was majority owned by
Fenway Sports Group and the
Boston Bruins. However, after the NESN group dropped out of the running to buy the paper, Henry made his separate bid to purchase the
Globe in July 2013. On October 24, 2013, he took ownership of the
Globe, at a $70million purchase price, and renamed the venture
Boston Globe Media. On January 30, 2014, Henry named himself publisher and named Mike Sheehan, a prominent former Boston ad executive, to be CEO. , Doug Franklin replaced Mike Sheehan as CEO, then Franklin resigned after six months in the position, in July 2017, as a result of strategic conflicts with owner Henry. In July 2016, the 815,000-square-foot headquarters in Dorchester was sold to an unknown buyer for an undisclosed price. The
Globe moved its printing operations in June 2017 to Myles Standish Industrial Park in
Taunton, Massachusetts. Also in June 2017, the
Globe moved its headquarters to
Exchange Place in Boston's
Financial District. In July 2022, James Dao, a senior editor with 30 years of experience at
The New York Times, was named the editorial page editor, succeeding Bina Venkataraman. In November 2022,
The Boston Globe announced that NPR news chief
Nancy Barnes would replace
Brian McGrory as editor. From September 1, 2022, to August 31, 2023, the
Globes combined print and digital circulation for weekdays increased by 2.7%, to 346,944, and for Sundays it rose by 1.3%, to 408,974. There are more than 245,000 digital-only subscriptions, an increase of about 10,000 since February 2022. ==Editorial pages==