Columnist Backed in Battle for Job

Employees and a major advertiser offered support to Boston Globe columnist Mike Barnicle, who has refused to resign for using unattributed jokes in a column. Photographer Stan Grossfeld, a two-time Pulitzer Prize winner, said Barnicle did not deserve to be fired, even though “what he did was stupid.” Staples Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Thomas G. Stemberg said the company wrote a letter to the newspaper. “It said we are concerned that if his column no longer appeared in the Globe its circulation and therefore its value as an advertising medium would fall,” Stemberg said.