Eagan takes on the Globe

An unseemly row has broken out in Boston just as the future of the Boston Globe, one of the country's most historic big city papers, is in jeopardy, with the owners seeking wage cuts to keep the paper alive.

Just when journalists, even those working for competitors, might be expected to rally round, one of the city's most prominent columnists, Margery Eagan of the rival Boston Herald, has stuck the knife in, accusing the Globe of being a gentleman's club where a laissez-faire attitude has reigned for years.

The "libidinous" newsroom was dubbed 'the Love Boat', she claims, and "not even the guy who impregnated a cub reporter got canned". Booze, laziness, extramarital affairs - bosses turned a blind eye to all of it, she claims.

"Reporters who couldn't report? Well, one of them sat in a room monitoring police radios all day, then retired comfortably to Brookline. A Harvard man with a significant criminal offense? Rehired to the city desk, all forgiven. Everybody adored him."

Eagan's Herald column is published just as the Globe's owners, the New York Times company, are threatening to impose a 23 per cent pay cut to keep the paper going after losses of $50m last year and worse to come.

The threat comes after the paper's biggest union, the Boston Newspaper Guild, which represents journalists and advertising staff, voted down a package of $10m cuts in pay and benefits proposed by the owners.

At least 12,500 jobs have gone in American print journalism over the past two years as the economic downturn has ravaged local newspapers, and there are expected to be more job losses to come. Margery Eagan, whose paper is half the size of the Globe, can expect little sympathy if hers is one of them. ·