Keller @ Large: Boston Globe Must Recover From Home Delivery Crisis

BOSTON (CBS) - We are now well into our second week of fear and loathing among a significant chunk of the Boston Globe's home delivery customers, a crucial part of the newspaper's business.

Publisher John Henry finally offered a personal apology Tuesday night along with a vow to clean up the mess as quickly as possible.

Both are welcome, because whatever its faults, the Globe is a crucial part of our community that we can ill afford to see go down the chute.

Many media outlets, including WBZ-TV and WBZ NewsRadio 1030, provide valuable coverage of our region. But no other outlet has the resources and time to throw at a story that the Globe has.

I'm sure they will correct me if I'm wrong, but no other news organization around here has a million-plus dollars to drop on legal fees the way the Globe did in its fight to expose the depth of the Catholic Church priest sexual abuse scandal.

Without them, too many stories of institutional corruption and fraud, of abuse and exploitation of the vulnerable by the powerful, might never be told.

Other newspapers and outlets like CBS Boston.com do a fine job of covering sports, but only the Globe has the horses to deliver investigative and out-of-town sports coverage. Plenty of fine reporters cover Beacon Hill, but the Globe's reporting is an indispensable asset to understanding what really goes on there.

And as we've been reminded these past nine days, no Globe means missed notices of births, deaths and weddings, some of the region's most important news stories.

So here's hoping for a quick Globe recovery.

Then, Mr. Henry, please fix the Red Sox.