Some of it may not be his fault.

"The advertising, the speeches in Iowa refashioned John Kerry in a—as a much more authentic person. And now the question is, as he goes back to New Hampshire, a neighboring state of Massachusetts, do the people of New Hampshire, who have been often affected by the coverage from across the border, are they going to see John Kerry less as a patrician kind of elitist liberal and more as the Vietnam war hero who's a working-class tribune?"

—CNN commentator Jeff Greenfield on John Kerry's Iowa caucus victory, Jan. 19.

It's counterintuitive that John Kerry should expect more hostile press in Massachusetts, where repeatedly he has won re-election, than in the corn fields of Iowa. The Boston Globe, which sets the tone for political coverage in Massachusetts and much of New England, should logically cheer on its hometown boy as he reaches for the big brass ring. Ideologically, the Globe and Kerry occupy roughly the same left-of-center niche, and through three Senate elections the Globe has never failed to endorse him. And as decades of adoring Kennedy coverage have demonstrated, the Globe doesn't blush at playing the "homer" (journalese for a reporter who roots openly for local sports teams, institutions, and civic leaders).

But screwy as it may sound, Greenfield's analysis is correct. Kerry really does get unfavorable coverage in the Globe. The paper has exposed relentlessly, and mocked frequently, Kerry's least attractive character traits. Granting that the news pages almost always follow scrupulously the profession's strict guidelines for objective reporting—and that opinions and attitudes inside a newsroom are never entirely uniform—it is nonetheless the case that, broadly speaking, the Boston Globe has it in for John Kerry.

Chatterbox cannot provide scientific proof that the Globe dislikes the junior senator of Massachusetts. He freely admits that his is an impression based on occasional perusal of the newspaper, rather than a counting of favorable versus unfavorable stories. But the impression is widely shared by others. The Kerry campaign, of course, thinks so; its former campaign manager called the Globe coverage "distorted, insignificant, irrelevant and vindictive." But most of the Globe-ies and ex-Globe-ies Chatterbox interviewed for this story (mostly on background) think so, too. This group doesn't think the Globe's coverage is "distorted, insignificant, irrelevant and vindictive," but it does recognize that the Globe gives Kerry a much rougher time than, say, the Des Moines Register.

The instances of Kerry-bashing at the Globe are too numerous to cite here, but let's review some highlights:

• In March 1989, reporter John Robinson mocked the newly divorced Kerry as "the Senate's Romeo," and wrote that Kerry "reportedly courted" the actress Morgan Fairchild "on the QT while dating another woman."

• In October 1996, in the midst of a heated Senate re-election campaign, Globe columnist David Warsh suggested that Kerry won a Silver Star in Vietnam for "finishing off" an enemy soldier who was wounded and therefore posed no threat. This was untrue; the enemy soldier, though wounded, quickly got back on his feet.

• In March 2003, reporters Michael Kranish, Frank Phillips, and Brian C. Mooney reported that Kerry had tried to pass himself off as Irish to boost his popularity in Massachusetts, which has a large Irish population.

• In November 2003, columnist Joan Vennochi wrote, "John Kerry's presidential campaign needs more than a new campaign manager. It needs a new candidate."