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Barnicle peddles this lame "street kid from Lincoln" act that makes the bow-tied bum kissers on Morrisey Blvd. feel like they have an "authentic" Bostonian instead of all the Noo Yawk imports they hire out of Haavaad. He has an easy style that appeals to the intellectually lazy and the credulous, in other words the vast majority any paper's readership.

He got caught out when Readers' Digest wanted to reprint one of his Globe articles. The RD fact checkers asked to see his notes, and he couldn't produce any, so they declined to print it, which caught the attention of Globe editors. It soon became apparent that his story was a fabrication, a fact that the slightest fact checking (use the telephone book!) would have established. He was put on probation, and when he plagiarized Mike Royko, the Globe was so embarrassed that even they had to let him go. He's really just a sappy fabulist, a more sentimental version of O. Henry.