By Bruce Mohl

The Boston Herald’s refusal to cover the fast-moving probation story is becoming comical. It’s one thing to not write about  the Boston Globe’s two-part series on probation patronage – they’re the competition, I get that — but it’s quite another to ignore news.

On Monday, when the Supreme Judicial Court placed Probation Commissioner John J. O’Brien on leave and appointed an independent counsel to investigate the agency, the Herald didn’t report it. The newspaper ran an editorial commenting on what happened, but no news story.

And today, when other news media were reporting that the Senate was going to give the judiciary greater control over the probation department, the Herald again ran an editorial (and a Howie Carr column on Treasurer Tim Cahill’s hiring of O’Brien’s wife and daughter) but no news story.

So we’re entering the Herald’s Day 3 of denial with no end in sight. I emailed Herald editor Kevin Convey for his take on the situation, but I didn’t hear back.