The Boston Globe

The Boston Globe, often called the Globe, is a daily newspaper based in Boston, Massachusetts. As of 2023, it is the city’s oldest and largest daily paper, and ranks tenth in print circulation nationwide. Founded in 1872 by six local businessmen, it was soon taken over by Charles H. Taylor, the paper’s early business manager and publisher, whose family controlled it for generations. Privately held until 1973, the Globe was then sold to The New York Times in 1993 for $1.1 billion—one of the priciest print acquisitions in U.S. history. By 2013, its value had dropped over 90%, and sports magnate John W. Henry bought it from the Times for $70 million. Its main print competitor is the Boston Herald, which had a smaller and faster-shrinking circulation as of 2018.

The Globe has won 27 Pulitzer Prizes. In 2013, The New York Times called it “one of the nation’s most prestigious papers.” It made history in 1967 as the first major U.S. newspaper to oppose the Vietnam War. Its 2002 investigation into the Roman Catholic Church sex abuse scandal drew international attention and inspired the 2015 film *Spotlight*. Since January 2026, Brian McGrory has been the editor.

The paper began as a morning daily, with its first issue on March 4, 1872, selling for four cents. A Sunday edition launched in 1877, and a weekly mail edition ran from 1873 until 1892, when it merged into the Sunday paper. An afternoon edition, the *Boston Evening Globe*, started in 1878 and ceased in 1979. The morning edition was called *The Boston Daily Globe* until 1960, when “Daily” was dropped. In 1912, the Globe joined a syndicate with the *Chicago Daily News*, *The New York Globe*, and the *Philadelphia Bulletin*. Early publisher Charles H. Taylor boosted the paper’s reach in New England by covering social movements like women’s suffrage more thoroughly than rivals such as *The Boston Post*. In the 1940 Massachusetts governor’s race, the Globe correctly predicted Republican Leverett Saltonstall’s win using Taylor’s methods, while the *Post* wrongly called it for Democrat Paul Dever.

In 1955, Laurence L. Winship became editor, ending a 75-year stretch where publishers held that role. Over the next decade, the Globe rose from third to first among Boston’s eight newspapers. It moved from downtown Washington Street to Morrissey Boulevard in Dorchester in 1958. Thomas Winship succeeded his father as editor in 1965, transforming the Globe from a mediocre local paper into a nationally respected regional one. During his tenure until 1984, the paper won its first dozen Pulitzers. The Globe went public in 1973 as Affiliated Publications, still run by Taylor descendants. The New York Times Company bought it in 1993 for $1.1 billion, giving the Jordan and Taylor families substantial Times stock; the last Taylor family members left management by 1999. Boston.com, the online edition, launched in 1995 and has ranked among the top ten U.S. newspaper websites, winning national awards and two regional Emmys in 2009 for video work. *Time* magazine named the Globe one of America’s ten best dailies in 1974 and 1984, and it tied for sixth in a 1999 *Columbia Journalism Review* survey of top editors.

In the 21st century, under editors Martin Baron and then Brian McGrory, the Globe cut back on international news to focus on the Boston area. Reporters Michael Rezendes, Matt Carroll, Sacha Pfeiffer, Walter Robinson, and editor Ben Bradlee Jr. led the 2001–2003 investigation into the Catholic Church sex abuse scandal, particularly in Massachusetts. The paper won a Pulitzer for that work, and the story was dramatized in the 2015 Oscar-winning film *Spotlight*. The Globe also gave sportswriter Peter Gammons a platform to start his baseball notes column, a feature that later became common in major newspapers.