UNITED STATES
dotCommonweal
Luke Hill
September 3, 2014
When the Boston Globe hired John Allen away from the National Catholic Reporter earlier this year, it didn’t make sense. The Globe had closed its overseas bureaus years ago and—like every other newspaper in the country—had a shrinking newsroom.
With the launch this week of Crux (“Covering All Things Catholic”) as the Globe’s newest website, hiring the man George Weigel once called ““the best Anglophone Vatican reporter ever” makes sense—not as a newspaper strategy but as an online media strategy.
New Globe owner John Henry (also principal owner of the Boston Red Sox and Liverpool Football Club) made his fortune crunching numbers, analyzing data, and trading on the commodities futures markets. According to newsroom sources, the numbers Henry has crunched persuad him there’s an unmet demand for coverage of the Catholic Church; and that the Globe—with its long history as paper of record in one of the most Catholic metropolitan regions in the country—is well-positioned to capture a profit-making share of that market.
Crux launched with a small staff: Globe veteran (and former Boston.com editor) Teresa Hanafin edits the site, with Allen as her associate editor. Inés San Martín and Michael O’Loughling are the Vatican and US reporters, respectively. Longtime Boston Herald columnist Margery Eagan was hired away to write a column on spirituality; and Christina Reinwald is Crux’s web producer. At least for now, the site is fleshed out with stories from the wires: AP, Catholic News Service, and Religion News Service.
Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.