Boston Globe – Page 82

After tumult, status quo for the Times Co.

Downtown Worcester — Union Station, Worcester

With 2009 drawing to a close, it’s now possible to say something that would have been inconceivable six months ago: the New York Times Co. is still the owner of the Boston Globe and the Worcester Telegram & Gazette, and is likely to remain so for the foreseeable future.

Was it all a dream? Starting last spring, and stretching well into the summer, there was nothing but tumult. First the Times Co. demanded — and ultimately got — $20 million in concessions from the Globe’s unions. The drama was high, as management threatened to shut down the paper if the unions refused to meet its demands, while the Boston Newspaper Guild — by far the largest union at the Globe — rejected one set of concessions before finally bowing to the inevitable.

Then the Times Co. put both papers on the market. And, for a while, it looked like a significant restoration was in the works. A group headed by former Globe executive Steve Taylor emerged as a leading would-be possible buyer for the Globe, and former T&G editor Harry Whitin looked like he might be moving into the publisher’s office at his old paper.

But Times Co. executives decided to hold on to the Globe. Then, yesterday, they announced that the T&G was no longer for sale, either.

No doubt the papers were pulled off the market for a variety of reasons, both good and bad. Costs are down, circulation revenue is up thanks to a hefty price increase and, overall, the financial picture at both papers appears to be brighter than it was a year ago. On the other hand, is there any doubt that both papers would have been sold if Arthur Sulzberger and company had been able to get what they considered to be a fair price?

With things more or less the same as they ever were, members of the community have a right to feel as though they’ve been jerked around. It would be a good idea if the Times Co. devoted 2010 to rebuilding the Globe’s and the T&G’s ties to the community.

Naming Chris Mayer to be the Globe’s next publisher (he’ll have responsibilities for the Telegram & Gazette as well) was a smart first step. He’s energetic, he’s rooted in Greater Boston and he seems far more likely to be a presence on the local scene than his recent predecessors have been.

But both papers have a long way to go if they are to recover from the wounds they’ve suffered — wounds that are largely characteristic of what the entire industry is going through, but some of which were self-inflicted. The best thing the Times Co. can do next year in these parts is to make itself invisible.

Photo (cc) by Bree Bailey and republished here under a Creative Commons license. Some rights reserved.

Sean Murphy responds to Totten

Boston Globe reporter Sean Murphy, who was the prosecutor in the Boston Newspaper Guild’s ouster of president — now former president — Dan Totten, spoke with me a little while ago. Murphy is highly critical of remarks Totten made in an e-mail reported yesterday by the Boston Herald’s Jessica Heslam. Says Murphy:

All I want to say is that this was a prosecution, not a persecution. Mr. Totten was not the victim of a political vendetta. He was a victim of his own bad conduct. I was asked to be the prosecutor and agreed to do so. It was done by the book. There was no personal animosity. Any suggestion otherwise is false. Any suggestion that I was biased is false. I was well known to be a “no” vote on both contract proposals, which was in line with the position of Mr. Totten. I did not participate in any recall efforts. I was known to eschew recall.

Murphy adds that, though he did attend a meeting to discuss Totten’s possible removal, Totten “knows full well I expressed great skepticism.”

I asked Murphy whether there has been any talk about whether the accusations made against Totten by the union could result in the involvement of law enforcement. Murphy’s response: “I have not broached that subject nor has anybody in my presence.”

Earlier coverage.

More on Dan Totten’s ouster

It turns out the Boston Newspaper Guild did indeed use the term “guilty” in an e-mail to its members about the removal of president Dan Totten; see the update at the end of my earlier item.

And Adam Reilly of the Phoenix speaks with Boston Globe staff reporter Maria Cramer, who says Totten was ousted strictly because of his misdeeds — and not out of any sense that he’d bungled the Guild’s dealings with the New York Times Co. Reilly writes:

“I find that suggestion” — i.e., that Totten’s trial represented a form of payback — “to be insulting in the least,” Cramer says. “We spent nearly four hours looking at the evidence, which was lengthy and very detailed…. It’s a duty that we took extremely seriously. We understood that the result would probably meet with this kind of criticism. But at the same time, I definitely feel we made the right decision — I have no doubt about that — and that it was free of politics.”

And there the matter rests. For now.

Still more: Boston Herald reporter Jessica Heslam has an e-mail exchange between Totten and his accusers. Looks to me like this is the key quote from Totten:

BNG / TNG / CWA has designated a member to act as “prosecutor” in this matter who attended a newsroom meeting this past September, 2009 with the purpose of assisting in the distribution and signing of a petition for my removal from office as BNG president. His actions were based on newsroom members opinion of the ratified contract of July, 2009, and their disagreement with its provisions. The jury selected for the trial contains several members as panelists who also attended the September, 2009 newsroom meeting and were signatories to a removal petition. None of these individuals is impartial; in fact, they are seeking to have me removed from office, and using this process as a vehicle to that end. This is in direct contradiction to the letter and spirit of the by-laws, and I will not be party to it.

Why was Dan Totten ousted?

Both the Boston Globe and the Boston Herald today report on the ouster of Boston Newspaper Guild president Dan Totten, whose leadership during the union’s months-long standoff with the Globe’s owner, the New York Times Co., was widely criticized.

Each story raises more questions than it answers, starting with the use of the word “guilty” to describe the internal ruling against Totten on Wednesday. That’s a pretty loaded term, but neither account gives any indication whether it’s one that the union specifically uses, or if it’s just a less-than-legally-precise description of what happened.

As for the charges against Totten, let’s take a look at the specifics:

He was found to have signed the name of another union official to his own paycheck.
He was found to have improperly used his union credit card to buy $254 worth of personal items.
He was found not to have produced receipts in a timely manner.

Are any of these accusations the sort of thing that law enforcement would find interesting? Perhaps the second item, although — not to downplay the seriousness of the allegation — it probably wouldn’t be worth the time given how little money was at stake. But it would seem to me that if Totten is not under any sort of criminal investigation, then we should tread carefully before labeling him a union crook.

As for the two other items, you could argue whether Totten should be punished for signing someone else’s name so that he could cash his own paycheck, but it was, after all, his own paycheck. Not producing receipts in a timely manner? You’ve got to be kidding.

I want to make it clear that I’m not sitting in judgment of anyone. Perhaps Totten really was, uh, guilty of serious malfeasance. My only point is that we don’t know.

I’d like to see someone dig into this and find out whether we are truly talking about malfeasance, or if instead Totten was sacrificed because his members are unhappy with the way he dealt with the Times Co.

The Guild-Times Co. standoff was the biggest local media story of the year. Totten’s fall is an important element of that.

Update: One question has been answered. According to a copy of an e-mail from the Guild that has been forwarded to Media Nation, it is indeed the Guild itself that used the term “guilty.” Here’s the full text:

Dear Boston Newspaper Guild Member,

A jury of members of the Boston Newspaper Guild today found President Daniel Totten guilty of charges that he improperly signed a paycheck and ignored directives to turn over expense receipts in a timely manner. The jury voted to expel Mr. Totten from the union, and also ordered him to pay a fine of $254. The jury heard several hours of testimony from Union officers and office staff. Mr. Totten declined to participate in the trial process. The five members of the jury were chosen by random selection. Mr. Totten has the right to appeal the verdict.

Sincerely,

Scott Steeves
Acting President, The Boston Newspaper Guild

Welcome, Romenesko readers. There’s a lot more where this came from here.

Ghostbusting the Globe’s op-ed page

ghostbusters pic I like it when politicians have direct, unfiltered access to the public. The media have plenty of opportunities to posit themselves between candidates and voters. If a pol lies, twists or omits relevant facts and there’s no one from the Fourth Estate to call him or her on it, well, so be it. There will always be another opportunity.

That said, I don’t think the Boston Globe did enough to make sure that the four Democratic candidates for U.S. senator actually wrote their own op-eds in Sunday’s paper. If words are appearing under the bylines of (in fair-and-balanced alphabetical order) Mike Capuano, Martha Coakley, Alan Khazei and Steve Pagliuca, I’d like some assurance that they were written by the candidates, not those of some paid spinner.

But when I asked editorial-page editor Peter Canellos what precautions the Globe had taken, he replied by e-mail that he had checked with op-ed editor Marjorie Pritchard and, essentially, none had been taken. “I spoke to Marjorie, and the answer is that we simply requested that they write pieces for the op-ed page,” Canellos told me. “There were no further restrictions imposed on them.”

Granted, short of some sort of forensic investigation, it would be impossible for a newspaper to make sure candidate op-eds were actually written by the candidates. But I think the candidates should have been asked directly to write their own statements, with no assistance from staffers other than editing. That way, they’d have been put on notice that if they didn’t, then they were cheating.

I realize that I’m holding a candidate’s written words to a higher standard than I am spoken words. But the role of speechwriters is well-established, and the very fact that a candidate has to speak the words changes the equation. A ghostwritten op-ed, in contrast, might never even be seen by the candidate — we simply have no way of knowing.

Besides, when a newspaper such as the Globe solicits op-eds, it is taking responsibility for what it publishes in a way that’s entirely different from running a story about a candidate’s speech.

It’s time to banish the ghosts from the op-ed page. Who you gonna call?

An additional thought: Several of the commenters make the point that ghostwritten op-eds are a long-established practice throughout the newspaper business. So let me clarify. Yes, I know that. Not reading obviously ghostwritten op-eds is an equally established practice. It’s time for a change, don’t you think?

More on the cost of GlobeReader

What is the Boston Globe now charging if you want to get home delivery of the Sunday paper plus GlobeReader? When I called the subscription department yesterday, I got an answer that was so confusing I chose not to report it. But now it looks like rozzie02131 has figured it out.

The answer: $5 a week after an introductory offer. That’s an increase of nearly 43 percent over the old price of $3.50. But the new GlobeReader is a lot better. And it still works out to half the cost of seven-day home delivery.

Interestingly, the Globe appears to have turned its pricing model upside-down. Previously, you got GlobeReader for free if you were a Sunday subscriber. Now — given that GlobeReader by itself costs $5 a week — you get the Sunday paper for free if you sign up for GlobeReader.

New GlobeReader adds puzzle and is puzzling

The Boston Globe is taking its GlobeReader product in a different direction, and I’m not sure it makes a lot of sense.

First, the good news: it’s gotten better. GlobeReader now includes a feature that lets you copy or e-mail a link, just like the parent company’s Times Reader. It’s also added the crossword puzzle, comics, a weather map and TV listings.

Now for the not-so-good. Previously GlobeReader was free to all print subscribers, including those who took home delivery only on Sundays. Moreover, you couldn’t have it for any price unless you were at least a Sunday subscriber. Given that the Globe reportedly earns some two-thirds of its revenues from the Sunday edition, the strategy seemed like a reasonably smart way of preserving the Sunday paper.

The new GlobeReader, by contrast, is available without any home delivery at all. The cost: $4.98 a week. But if you want to get it for free, you need to take home delivery of the print edition seven days a week. Otherwise, you’ll have to pay something. (I called a very polite clerk at the Globe who struggled to explain what the cost of GlobeReader would be for Sunday subscribers. It was nominal, but it wasn’t free.)

In other words, the Globe has given me a choice that it doesn’t want me to make. Several months ago, we switched to Sunday-only delivery, supplemented by GlobeReader the other six days. If we stick with Sundays-only, we’ll pay extra for GlobeReader. We could resume seven-day print delivery — but we’ve already decided we can’t afford $50 a month. Or we could pay $21 or $22 a month for GlobeReader access only. That couldn’t possibly be good for the Globe, since GlobeReader is practically ad-free.

(Conversely, this may make sense as we move into what may prove to be the post-advertising age. With no printing or distribution costs, GlobeReader is pure revenue.)

I should note, too, that the New York Times has long made Times Reader available for free to Sunday-only subscribers like us. Perhaps that’s going to change as well.

It strikes me that the new strategy, rather than shoring up the Sunday edition, will simply encourage customers to sign up for GlobeReader seven days a week — or read the paper for free at Boston.com. Although we hear from time to time that that may be coming to an end as well.

Like all newspapers, the first imperative for the Globe is to survive, and to make enough money to support a robust journalistic mission. I’m not sure this is the way to do it. But I guess we’ll find out.

Joanna Weiss on her new Globe post

Ralph Ranalli of Beat the Press has an interview with Boston Globe feature writer Joanna Weiss on her impending move to the editorial and op-ed pages. Weiss tells Ranalli:

I’ll still be writing about pop culture, but from a different direction. I think it’s exciting; it’s a different kind of forum. And I’ll reach a different kind of reader that didn’t necessarily read my TV coverage.

As for Weiss’ expectation that she’ll get some pushback from readers who’d prefer a traditional op-ed-page columnist, I have some advice: Don’t worry. There aren’t that many of them. And, at this point, they’re all 70 and older.

Pop go the Globe’s opinion pages

In an apparent attempt to infuse the Boston Globe’s opinion pages with a pop-culture sensibility, editorial-page editor Peter Canellos has announced that feature writer Joanna Weiss will be moving to the editorial board and writing a weekly column for the op-ed page.

Canellos also announced that editorial-board member Larry Harmon will begin writing a weekly column as well.

The full text of Canellos’ e-mail to the staff follows.

Folks,

I’m pleased to announce that Joanna Weiss, whose Globe career has spanned political writing, popular culture, and TV criticism, will be joining the editorial-page staff on November 16. She will be a regular member of the paper’s editorial board and write a weekly op-ed column. A close observer of social trends and culture, and a bright, empathetic writer, Joanna will provide a vibrant new voice on our op-ed page, and an important new perspective on our daily editorials.

Joanna joined the Globe in 1999 from the Times-Picayune of New Orleans. She grew up in Maryland and is a graduate of Harvard University.

I’m also pleased to be able to add a weekly op-ed column by one of the longtime stars of our editorial board, Larry Harmon. He will remain a regular member of the board while bringing a new voice to the op-ed page. A lifelong Bostonian and graduate of Boston Latin School and Boston University, Larry joined the editorial board in 1992. He is the co-author of “Death of an American Jewish Community,” the definitive account of the block-busting and red-lining of Mattapan in the ’60s and ’70s. Larry knows Boston from the street level, and will bring a neighborhood perspective to our op-ed page.

As the months go by, Marjorie Pritchard, Dante Ramos and I will continue to look for new voices to add to our op-ed pages, in print and online, to ensure the broadest and most provocative range of opinions.

Please join me in congratulating Joanna and Larry,

Peter

A terrifying story about the newspaper business

There’s an absolutely terrifying story about the newspaper business making the rounds today, and it’s not the one about print circulation falling another 10.6 percent. That’s hardly a surprise, given the continued rush to online — pushed along by papers like the Boston Globe and the Boston Herald raising the price of their print editions.

No, the truly ugly news is a story in the New York Times by Stephanie Clifford, who reports that companies increasingly see newspaper Web sites as a place for premium, special-event advertising, but not for everyday ads. For the latter, they use online networks, which cost a fraction of what newspapers charge.

According to the Audit Bureau of Circulations, the Globe’s daily circulation fell 18.4 percent, and now stands at 264,105. On Sunday, it’s fallen by 16.9 percent, to 418,529. In its heyday, the Globe’s Monday-through-Saturday circulation was more than 500,000, and on Sundays it was north of 800,000.

The Monday-through-Saturday Herald stands at 138,260, down 17.5 percent. The circulation of the Sunday Herald dropped 5 percent, to 95,635.

If you had told me five years ago what the print circulation of the Globe and the Herald would be today, I’d like to think I would have been entirely unsurprised. On the other hand, I know I would have been shocked that advertising revenues had not followed from print to online.

If the eventual end of the recession doesn’t provide some relief to the beleaguered newspaper business, you really have to wonder how this will all end.