The deepest cut. Plus: Other things that happened in media this week

By media farm

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Oof. Oof, ouch and say it ain't fucking so. How else can we react to the news that came down Monday—that Globe business columnist Steve Bailey, the best read (and one of the best reporters) in town, is taking a buyout, blowing town and finally following through on all those whispered plans to move his ass to Europe?

Of all the hits the paper has taken in the past few years of cutbacks—McNamara, Chacon, Kurkjian et al—this one leaves the biggest hole. And it's not one that the Globe is going to be likely, or capable of filling for, um, forever.

The guy's been a force since landing at the paper three decades ago. He's a throwback reporter who walked his beat so hard that he literally wore a hole in his shoe. He's managed the difficult task of making business reporting not only compelling, but also a compulsive read. Hell, most of the time, he's the only reason we pick up the business page in the first place.

Fuck it. Media Farm is canceling our Globe subscription. You won't have our credit card number to mail to Worcester Oxy-heads anymore.

The Dig drank gin with Bailey in a fancy hotel bar last summer. On his expense account, obvs. We'll close this insufferable bout of weeping by retelling the story of how Bailey landed at the Globe, since this is pretty much the last chance we'll have to recycle the material.

A long, long time ago, Bailey drove north from South Carolina on I-95, looking for work. He'd pull off the highway, walk into a newspaper, ask for the editor and demand a job. At a stop in Connecticut, he stayed in a low-rent motel, drinking in a low-rent bar. He'd have a drink, drop a dime in the pay phone, call the Globe and demand to speak with then-executive editor Bob Phelps. Phelps's secretary at the time was Eileen McNamara. She refused to let her boss speak to the guy in the barroom who wanted a job, sight-unseen. So she'd hang up on him, Bailey would have another drink and he'd try again. Eventually, McNamara punched out and Phelps answered his own phone. He actually agreed to meet a deathly hungover Bailey the next day. Bailey wound up taking a job at the New Haven Register instead, but four hours into his first shift, Phelps somehow tracked him down and offered him a job. Bailey gave his notice at once. As Bailey recalled, "The guy was bullshit."

WHILE WE'RE DRYING our tears, we should note the impressive job Marty Baron's besieged army of cubicle rats has done in advancing the Patriots Spygate story—without the benefit of nearly any cooperation from the Pats, the NFL or the newly unmasked and (reportedly) vengefully vitriolic ex-employee who's driving the story. Maybe news isn't dead, after all.

OR MAYBE IT IS. The Herald broke some major news last week when it wrote about how a Suffolk University pollster totally owns John Zogby's ass, as well as the rear ends of pretty much every other pollster in the universe. The only problem was, he really doesn't. Bet it took a hell of a PR firm to sell the paper on that one.

CONGRATS to the New York Times for crucifying another public official on a sex fiend rap. And doubly so for actually having some evidence to back up those claims. Unlike, you know, last time. Journalism is on the march again!

OR NOT. And we know that, for the purposes of resolving the 'the world is spinning and all we can see is blackness and death and horror' existential crisis we suddenly find ourselves in, the Rorschach patterns that Howie Carr drools onto newsprint are eminently unhelpful. But we just can't help it.

Sunday's exercise in whatever you want to call whatever Howie Carr does was so flagrantly disingenuous—not to mention utterly lacking a shred of effort or pride—that it deserves special mention as Worst Piece of Something Pretending to be Journalism of the Year So Far. Considering the fact that we've been reading both Living/Arts and Barstool Sports religiously (Hey, Kati! Looking good lately!), that's really saying something.

Barack's voters are New Age. Hillary's voters ... old age. Hillary's hens drive SUVs. Obama's peeps drive Priuses (with bicycle racks on the roof). A lot of Hillary's voters rely on oxygen. Barack's rely on Oxys ... Eating fish? Hillary's crew goes to Red Lobster. Barack's people prefer sushi.

Can I haz writingness job?