The Boston Globe demanded the resignation of controversial Boston Globe columnist Mike Barnicle last night after concluding he had stolen someone else’s punch lines and misled the paper about it.
The Globe initially suspended Barnicle, 54, yesterday for one month without pay after learning that he had used a series of one-liners in his Sunday column that had been lifted from comedian George Carlin’s best-selling 1997 book, “Brain Droppings.” But Editor Matthew Storin asked the 25-year veteran to leave the paper after learning that Barnicle, who claimed never to have read Carlin’s book, had held it in his hand and recommended it on Boston’s WCVB-TV in June.
Barnicle refused to quit, and a Globe spokesman would not say whether he was about to be fired.
It seems to me however, that there was separate incident of plagiarism committed by Barnicle that did not get him terminated. I cannot recall the details, but I really think that he had a pattern of putting his name on the works of others.