Tag: Boston Globe

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.

The Boston Herald reports that the Boston Globe will raise its prices outside of Greater Boston — not the comprehensive price hike I’ve suggested, but a start.

Looks like at least a few Boston Globe staff members are mighty unhappy at their union leaders for keeping them in the dark. Boston Herald media reporter Jessica Heslam writes that the Globe’s Donovan Slack e-mailed her co-workers last Friday demanding some accountability:

With all due respect, I’m starting to wonder about our union leadership and whether we are going in the right direction. Would appreciate your immediate candor about what is being asked of us and exactly what actions you are taking.

The Herald also publishes the entire “Book of Life” (PDF) — 340 Globe employees (some who are no longer there) with lifetime contracts, thought to be a considerable stumbling block in paring the Globe’s expenses and/or preparing it for sale.

In another Herald piece, reporters Jerry Kronenberg and Christine McConville quote former Globe staffer Doug Bailey, who speculates that the New York Times Co. will simply fold some Boston-area news into the New England edition of its flagship paper.

And Eileen McNamara, a former Globe columnist and Pulitzer winner, weighs in with a Herald commentary today whose headline — “Times Pimps, Pillages Globe” — is a pretty accurate reflection of her rage.

My respect for McNamara notwithstanding, her it’s hard to share her anger when the entire business is collapsing — and when other newspaper companies are in even worse shape.

Media Nation has obtained a memo that Boston Globe publisher Steve Ainsley e-mailed to his staff this evening. Here’s the full text:

To all Boston Globe employees —

I know the news over the weekend that highlighted the core issues presented to union leaders in a closed door meeting last week was jarring for all of you. It was certainly not our intention for you to learn of these preliminary discussions through reports in the Globe and other media but since this is how it has played out there are several important points of which you should all be aware.

As you all know by now, several members of the Globe executive team met with all our union leaders last week to review with them the Globe’s financial situation. It remains our standing policy that we never discuss ongoing labor negotiations publicly and we made that commitment to the leaders of all of our unions last week. For that reason I cannot provide more detail today. I can say that we explained that going forward we have to tackle major issues on both revenue and expense fronts and those individual strategies were shared with union leadership.

We will need significant concessions from labor and we are also framing a plan to draw more savings from the nonunion ranks, as we done over the course of the last several months. We also have a strategy in motion which will bring in additional revenue from consumers and advertisers. This plan was presented in some detail as we believed it appropriate to give union leadership a full view of all that is being done to achieve financial stability at The Boston Globe.

It is critical we all keep in mind our objective is to improve the financial performance of the Globe. Period. As bruising as this economic downturn has been to this institution, I believe we will accomplish that objective if all of us, every employee of the Globe, is able to keep our focus. Nothing less will prove successful.

Similarly, it is only fair that management also be prepared to make sacrifices. We have already reduced compensation 5% in 2009 and reduced the management work force by almost 20%. More work is to be done on this front and will be.

I continue to believe that our strength is in our common denominator — we are all employees of The Boston Globe. We have accomplished much in the last few years under difficult circumstances and that should give us all confidence that we can overcome this challenge.

Steve

The e-mail speaks for itself, but I do want to highlight this: “It was certainly not our intention for you to learn of these preliminary discussions through reports in the Globe and other media.”

Ainsley is the publisher of a newspaper. He is in the communications business. Not only has he fallen short in communicating with his employees, but it is mind-boggling to think that he really believed he could keep this a secret.

Over the weekend Paul Levy, the CEO of Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, sent out an e-mail to local bloggers asking that they take part in a “blog rally” aimed at underscoring the importance of keeping the Boston Globe in business.

As a journalist who covers the Globe, I declined to take part. But it’s an interesting idea. The posts started going up this evening. Here is Levy’s.

Universal Hub, like Media Nation, also declined to take part directly, but reports on the rally here, adding that some 20 bloggers are participating.

Mary Moore’s Boston Business Journal article on the fate of the Boston Globe is a must-read — a comprehensive overview of every idea that’s being floated, from the return of the Taylor family to the return of (good grief) Mike Barnicle. Of course, Rupert Murdoch and Pat Purcell have cameos, too.

And here’s a wrinkle to Moore’s suggestion that the non-profit Boston Foundation might get involved: vice president Mary Jo Meisner (photo) was editor of Community Newspaper Co. back when Fidelity owned it, running more than 100 papers in Eastern Massachusetts.

Meisner was also editor of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel and city editor of the Washington Post, among other newspaper jobs. It would be pretty interesting if the Globe’s financial woes somehow resulted in her returning to the journalism wars.

Michael Kinsley is in a sour mood today as he ponders the future of newspapers. Shorter Kinsley: Let ’em die. Slightly longer Kinsley: Non-profit, foundation-supported newspapers are a bad idea because if the marketplace won’t support them, then they have no right to exist.

Personally, I’m not wild about the idea of non-profit newspapers. For one thing, you have to give up some of your First Amendment rights. For another, there’s a danger that such papers, insulated from the pressures of the marketplace, will become too disconnected from their readers.

I prefer the St. Petersburg Times model: a for-profit newspaper owned by a non-profit organization — the Poynter Institute, in the Times’ case. The financial advantages aren’t as great as true non-profit status, but at least the editors don’t have to check with the IRS every time they want to weigh in on a political matter.

But gee, Mike, let a thousand experiments bloom. I’d like to see someone give non-profit newspapering a try. Maybe we can start with the Boston Globe.

And let me point out that public radio stations are pretty much all owned by non-profit foundations, and they are anything but disconnected from their listeners. Simply by having to solicit the bulk of their money from listeners, public radio station executives are perhaps more connected to their communities than many newspaper publishers and editors.

Finally: Kinsley is so far off in his observation that newspapers are dying because no one wants to read them that it’s hard to know where to begin. Do I really have to point out that newspaper readership is reasonably healthy when you add print and online readers together?

Just because it’s become a cliché to say that the business model is broken doesn’t mean it isn’t true.

I’m now hearing some gut-churning numbers from a reliable source about the Boston Globe’s advertising revenue. It will be fascinating to see the first-quarter financials for the New England News Group when the New York Times Co. files its next report with the SEC.