A major disappointment for me: my nephew, Jack Griffin, did not get to buy the Boston Globe as he and his associates wished and I had hoped.  Instead the New York Times sold the paper to the owner of the Boston Red Sox.

Jack would have brought to the Globe journalistic experience that John Henry, the new owner, lacks. Also Jack has deeper roots in the Boston area than Henry, allegedly a requirement of the seller.

A large part of my disappointment comes from what I envisioned as an extension of family tradition. My father, John Griffin, was Jack’s grandfather and spent virtually his whole career at the Boston Post.  Starting as reporter, he later became Sunday Editor and, in the last year of his life Editor.  The Post had once been the leading paper in Boston and one of the largest in the country.  Its offices and plant were located across the street from the Globe.

During the summer of my sophomore year in college, I worked as a copy boy at the Globe.  My father had arranged for me to be hired by calling his friend, the Editor. In this short time I came to see how a big-city newspaper worked, with all of its virtues and flaws.  Though the experience made me decide to follow a different career path then, the memory of it continues to stir my mind.

Had my nephew and his group been selected, he might have become Publisher of the Globe.  At least that’s how I envisioned the outcome.  Had that happened, there would have been a strong link with my father and a weak link with me.  And our family name would have once more adorned the leading Boston newspaper.

This dream, however, may have been destined to fail. Maybe it was and is better not to have extended this history.  Was not the extended family legacy I invented a kind of hubris just as well defeated?