The Boston Globe will face serious conflict-of-interest questions on its sports page now that Red Sox owner John Henry is the new baron of the Hub broadsheet, experts say.
“The problem is that no matter what the Globe does, readers are going to wonder about the credibility of the Red Sox coverage,” Ken Doctor of Newsonomics said. “What the Globe will need to do is issue a clear statement and put it on Page 2 of the sports section every day and reiterate the independent coverage of the Red Sox.”
Henry’s Fenway Sports Group also owns Liverpool Football Club and a part of Roush Fenway Racing. Henry’s also a founder of iRacing, a racing simulator.
“He’s part of a sports empire, and like anyone who reads the Globe, I’m worried about what this means for sports coverage in the city,” Boston University journalism professor Lou Ureneck said. “Will the Boston Globe become an extension of the Red Sox public relations machine? That would be my big concern.”
To ease those fears, Ureneck said there “needs to be a very public reassurance on the part of John Henry that there will be a very clear line of separation.”
Henry, in his statement yesterday, suggested additional civic-minded minority owners might be announced in the days ahead. But those, too, could bring other potential conflicts, said Joshua Benton of Harvard’s Nieman Journalism Lab.
“Because anyone who is rich enough to own (a piece) of the Globe will have some political interests, that is the challenge,” Benton said. “But it’s better to have as many well-resourced, civically minded people as you can having a piece of it. We’ll find out how those people are and judge from there.”
