Did you see the Boston Globe on Friday, April 11?

Did you catch the article in the arts section on Justin Townes Earle, Steve Earle's musical progeny? Apparently he was playing in town so the Globe did a big piece on him. Now this is good. Filling us in about new musicians is what a newspaper should do, especially one who is named after two legends — his dad, Steve and Townes Van Zandt. (Remind me to tell you the time Townes played the Somerville Theatre back in the 80's.)

Anyway James Reed wrote a very nice article and it was accompanied by this very big picture of Justin. Did you see it? Did you notice anything odd about the picture?

The Globe 'photoshopped' out the cigarette he was holding. Yep, some editor decided our easily impressionable minds couldn't handle a 20-something singer/songwriter with a cigarette in his hand. What a load of cow pucky!

This is way too P.C.

I gave up cigarettes many years ago, but to photoshop them out of a picture? That's absurd. Why not just take a new picture?

What this does is simply say, is the Globe is the less a newspaper, but an arbiter of values. Objective, honest journalism is replaced by misguided paternalism. Political correctness trumps journalism.

This begs the question, what else does the Globe photoshop out of the newspaper? If they did selectively edit or photoshop something, how would we know? You can't trust them. No wonder circulation is declining. No wonder my opinion of newspapers is slipping into the compost heap.