Year: 2009

Union don’ts at the Globe

One line I’ve been recycling this week is that the showdown between New York Times Co. management and the Boston Globe unions would not come down to midnight on the 30th day — that union officials, based on their own comments, seemed to understand that both the Times Co. and the overall situation was serious, and would quickly agree to $20 million in cuts as the price of keeping the paper alive.

Well, now I’m not so sure. Coverage during the week has suggested increased intransigence on the part of the unions, and especially of Newspaper Guild president Dan Totten. And today, Christine McConville begins her report in the Boston Herald thusly:

Boston Globe unions are showing signs of digging in against management as frustrated labor leaders say their members have already given up enough in the effort to keep the struggling broadsheet afloat.

Meanwhile, the Herald’s Jay Fitzgerald learns that it might be possible for the Times Co. to place the Globe in bankruptcy even without selling it. That could actually be good news, as it gives Times executives a way of restructuring the paper without having to find a buyer in a brutal economic environment and without having to shut it down. (And has the Herald been indispensable this week or what?)

It is despicable that the Times Co.’s cash-fattened managers have said virtually nothing this week. They owe an explanation to the community at least as much as they do to their employees.

Still, there’s no question that the systemic disaster that’s bringing the newspaper business down has more to do with the Globe’s problems than any specific mistakes by Arthur Sulzberger Jr., Steven Ainsley and crew. So it’s interesting to see, as Adam Reilly of the Boston Phoenix reports, that there may be a mounting insurrection among some reporters against the union leadership, who could conceivably destroy the paper rather than give up perks like lifetime contracts.

So did I leave anything out? Oh, yes. Almost forgot. Howie Carr is an idiot.

The future of the Globe’s D.C. bureau

Michael Calderone, at Politico, speculates on the future of the Boston Globe’s Washington bureau.

He’s right to think that it could be endangered. But in addition to the main reason he cites for not closing it — politics remains a major spectator sport in Boston, unlike almost anywhere else — he misses one.

According to insiders I’ve talked with, the Globe’s Washington coverage does very well in search engines and aggregators, making it one of the reasons that Boston.com pulls such impressive numbers.

If the New York Times Co. targets the Washington bureau, then it’s truly slash-and-burn time, as it will be killing off one of the building blocks for future success.

A business model of sorts

Is this promising? Several alert readers sent me the link to Walter Mossberg’s column on True/Slant, which is a nascent community aimed at bringing journalists and non-journalists together.

I didn’t have time to spend more than a few minutes on the site, and I couldn’t really make heads or tails of it. Not good. I should be able to get it immediately.

As best as I can tell, True/Slant is a way for journalists to set up their own sites, do reporting, point to good stuff, interact with readers and sell advertising. In other words, it’s a way for them to start blogs. Am I missing something? How is this significantly different from Blogger or WordPress.org?

True/Slant founder Lewis Dvorkin writes:

As digital journalism rapidly evolves, this is top most on my mind: How can True/Slant combine the values and standards of the great news organizations that served the public interest so well for so long with the dynamic nature and interactivity of the digital world?

How indeed. Anyway, True/Slant is in “alpha” mode, so maybe it will become more interesting as it evolves.

Update: Dan Frommer of Silicon Alley Insider is unimpressed. (Via Romenesko.)

Timing is everything

Three months ago I posted the salaries and total compensation packages of the top executives at five troubled newspaper companies, including the New York Times Co., which owns the Boston Globe. Crickets chirped.

Today Christine McConville of the Boston Herald gives us updated Times Co. figures, and it’s the talk of the town — for obvious reasons, given that the Times is demanding a reported $20 million in union givebacks from the Globe as the price of keeping the paper alive.

McConville did some digging. I didn’t know that Globe publisher Steven Ainsley made $1.9 million last year, and the information she’s turned up on options and bonuses is fascinating in a stomach-churning kind of way. You’ve also got to love the nearly $250,000 in moving expenses Ainsley received in 2006.

On WRKO Radio (AM 680) this morning, Tom Finneran and Todd Feinburg were excoriating Times Co. managers for showering themselves with millions while they drove their business into the ground. Media Nation readers know that isn’t right — the entire news industry is falling apart for reasons that go far beyond the ability of the affected companies to turn things around.

But there is a deeper truth, and it isn’t pretty. For years, executives of news organizations — and corporations in general — paid themselves ridiculous amounts of money and argued that it was their expertise that led their companies to be so profitable.

Now we know they were essentially taking credit for the sunrise and paying themselves for it. The fraud has been exposed for all to see.