Tag: Rupert Murdoch

A half-century of bad blood

Earlier today the Boston Globe posted a 1982 article about the day that Rupert Murdoch saved the Boston Herald. Interestingly, the story, by David Wessel, now economics editor for Murdoch’s Wall Street Journal, gets into precisely why some old-timers at the Herald, like Joe Fitzgerald, remain angry at the Globe more than 26 years later.

As you will see, in the midst of Murdoch’s efforts to buy what was then the Herald American from Hearst, Globe publisher William Taylor sent a telegram to unions at the Herald informing them that any concessions they granted to Murdoch would have to be granted to the Globe as well. The move was seen at the time as an attempt by the Globe to nix the deal and hasten the Herald American to its grave, though Taylor denied that was his intent.

Murdoch threatened to file a lawsuit against the Globe charging the paper with violating antitrust laws, but was also quoted as saying: “I might have done the same thing in their circumstance.”

For those interested in tracing the feud back even farther, let’s not forget that the Herald American was formed as a result of the Globe’s journalistic and extra-journalistic efforts to persuade the Federal Communications Commission to strip the Boston Herald Traveler of its television and radio licenses, which the Herald held despite the FCC’s ban on cross-ownership.

The FCC ruled against the Herald Traveler in 1972, and the paper was acquired by Hearst’s Record American.

And while we’re at it, let’s go back to the 1950s, following the death of the once-dominant Boston Post. As recounted in the late J. Anthony Lukas’ masterpiece, “Common Ground,” then-Herald publisher Robert “Beanie” Choate suggested a merger with the Globe. When Globe publisher Davis Taylor turned him down, Choate reportedly told him: “You fellows are stubborn. Worse than that, you’re arrogant. You better listen to us or we’ll teach you a lesson. I’m going to get Channel 5, and with my television revenues I’ll put you out of business.”

Choate got his license — apparently with the help of Joseph Kennedy, whose son Ted, ironically, tried to put the Herald out of business in 1988 by forcing Murdoch to give up either the Herald or Channel 25. Murdoch chose to keep the Herald and sell Channel 25, although several years later he sold the Herald to longtime protégé Pat Purcell and repurchased Channel 25.

So there you have it: a half-century of bad blood between the Globe and the Herald.

Globe, Herald target each other

Boston Globe reporter Keith O’Brien today weighs in with a story about the financial problems being faced by the Boston Herald and GateHouse Media, which owns some 100 community papers in Eastern Massachusetts.

GateHouse’s problems are considerable and well-known. The Herald, though, is a bit of a mystery, as publisher Pat Purcell tends to play his cards close to the vest. What we know is that the paper and its reporting staff have gotten tiny, but that Purcell appears to have hit upon a formula for survival.

O’Brien, after chronicling shrinkage in the Herald’s staff and circulation, offers a quote from Sunday editor Tom Mashberg: “How are things now? It’s tough. We once had a newsroom filled with reporters and a commercial department filled with commercial staff. And it has definitely shrunk.”

Mashberg, upset that none of the positive comments he says he made got into O’Brien’s story, has fired back with an e-mail to the Globe, which I offer here in its entirety, with Mashberg’s permission:

To Globe Editors:

Tom Mashberg from the Herald here. I’m pretty disappointed at the way the reporter slanted this story. We spoke at length about how the Herald was performing miracles to survive and turn a profit in a terrible climate. When I asked him what he was going to use from me, he sent me this email:

“Here’s what I will be attributing to you: The total staff figures you sent me yesterday. Is that OK?

“And I will be quoting you regarding how the Herald has dealt with the cuts. And about how the Globe should have seen these changes coming. The quote at the end of our interview yesterday when you said it was puzzling that the Times allowed this to play out like this at the Globe.

“This could change, of course. Still haven’t filed my story. So e-mail or call if you have any questions.”

No one expects a puff piece, especially between competing newspapers. But it looks like the editors got hold of this and turned it into a hatchet job. I guess that explains a lot about where the Globe is headed. Sad.

If O’Brien or anyone else at the Globe would like to respond, I will post it immediately.

Meanwhile, Herald media reporter Jessica Heslam today reports that veteran media-watcher Michael Wolff believes neither Rupert Murdoch (about whom he wrote a book) nor New York Daily News publisher (and former Boston real-estate mogul) Mort Zuckerman has any interest in buying the Globe.

Heslam includes this toxic quote from Wolff: “I don’t think that anybody’s going to buy the Boston Globe. The Boston Globe is now an unbuyable property. It loses too much money and it has too many union obligations. No one will want it now. They might have wanted it. They did want it two years ago. Not now.”

Left unsaid is that (1) Murdoch can’t buy the Globe, since the Federal Communications Commission bans anyone from owning a television station (WFXT-TV, Channel 25) and a daily newspaper in the same market; and (2) Murdoch and Purcell are business partners.

Finally, the second of Herald columnist Howie Carr’s sneering pieces about the Globe’s missteps over the years prompts an observation. Carr actually found a way to poke fun at the 1998 departure of Globe columnist Patricia Smith, who was caught fabricating, without making any mention of the other, far better known Globe columnist who lost his job that summer: Mike Barnicle, caught making things up and plagiarizing by — among others — the Herald.

Anyone who listens to Carr’s talk show on WRKO Radio (AM 680) knows how much he detests Barnicle. But, after all, Purcell hired Barnicle to write a column a few years ago, and though it didn’t work out, Barnicle still pops up occasionally in the Herald. Since Carr can’t write what he’d really like to write, perhaps he should go cover a press conference or something.

The Herald-Ottaway connection

Rupert Murdoch’s decision to put Boston Herald publisher Pat Purcell in charge of his Ottaway community-newspaper division is paying some dividends for the Herald.

Today the Herald collaborates with Ottaway’s Cape Cod Times on a story about six Falmouth students who face child-pornography charges for allegedly text-messaging a nude photograph of a 13-year-old girl.

Interestingly, the Cape Cod Times version appears to have no Herald involvement. But the Times is running some Herald content, including the “Inside Track.”

For the Herald, this isn’t nearly as good as it was back when Purcell owned Community Newspaper Co., which is now part of GateHouse Media. For a few years, the Herald could draw on more than 100 papers in Eastern Massachusetts covering nearly all of Boston’s suburbs.

The only Massachusetts papers Ottaway owns, by contrast, are well south of Boston: the Cape Cod Times, the New Bedford Standard-Times and a handful of weeklies that cover the same territory.

Still, the Ottaway connection gives the understaffed Herald a bit more reach than it had before.

Monday morning odds and ends

I don’t plan to do much blogging this week, but I do want to call your attention to a few items:

  • Chuck Tanowitz and Adam Reilly have both written sharp analyses of GateHouse Media’s lawsuit against the New York Times Co. I think Reilly is on the mark with his observation that the Globe, through its Boston.com Your Town sites, is going beyond mere linking and is trying to establish itself as a substitute for GateHouse’s Wicked Local sites, while using GateHouse’s content.
  • Joe Dwinell of the Boston Herald has also weighed in with a good item [link now fixed] on the suit. I do disagree with his characterization of this as “David vs. Goliath.” Both GateHouse and the Times Co. are large, publicly traded media companies that are fighting for their financial lives. Call this Wounded Goliath I vs. Wounded Goliath II.
  • Sean Polay, a top Internet guy for Rupert Murdoch’s Ottaway Newspapers (including the Cape Cod Times and the Standard-Times of New Bedford), says he wouldn’t mind at all if Boston.com linked to Ottaway content. Interesting, given that Herald publisher Pat Purcell recently accepted Murdoch’s offer to run the Ottaway papers.

Finally, a source has provided me with a copy of Barclays’ most recent report on the New York Times Co., the one that placed the value of the Globe at a mind-bogglingly low $20 million. I have posted it (PDF), so you can have a look for yourself. Perhaps a few gimlet-eyed Media Nation readers can find some gold.

I’m dubious. As you will see, Barclays values the Globe at somewhere between $12 million and $20 million — lower than the value of the “Worchester Papers,” which it places at somewhere between $15 million and $25 million. That can’t be right.

And, come on — the “Worchester Papers”? Does someone at Barclays think the Worcester Telegram & Gazette are two different papers?

Boston is still a newspaper town

The latest news about the newspaper business is of the sort that no one ever thought we’d see. Tribune Co., which owns the Chicago Tribune and the Los Angeles Times, may seek bankrupcty protection. McClatchy has put the Miami Herald up for sale, but no one wants it.

So I thought this would be a good time to pause for a moment and ponder something that we all take for granted around here. How is it that the Boston Globe continues as one of our great daily newspapers? How can our number-two daily, the Boston Herald, keep chugging along in this environment?

First the Globe. The paper and its corporate parent, the New York Times Co., are in dire straits. The Globe may be losing as much as $1 million a week, and company executives are now on a salary-cutting binge. International and national coverage has been largely ceded to the Times and the wire services. And yet this may be the only city in the country other than New York or Washington where our major daily newspaper isn’t the subject of daily, heated rumors about its imminent demise.

No doubt the Times Co. is a more benevolent owner than Sam Zell, the foul-mouthed real-estate tycoon who runs Tribune. But maybe things aren’t as bad at the Globe as they are at most other papers because Boston remains, fundamentally, a newspaper town. Yes, print circulation is way down, but the Globe’s Web site, Boston.com, is thriving (though its ad revenues don’t come anywhere near offsetting print losses).

Surely there’s no explanation but Boston’s special relationship with newspapers to explain the continued existence of the Herald. For several decades, the tabloid has survived as one of the very few number-two dailies in the country. The Herald has gotten awfully small. Earlier this fall, the paper started jobbing out its printing to the Wall Street Journal, which now trucks the paper in from its plant in Chicopee each day. (As with the Globe, the Herald’s Web site is doing quite well.)

Last week, Herald publisher Pat Purcell went back to work for his old boss, Murdoch, who owns the Journal and everything else.

Few people other than Purcell know what the true financial condition of the Herald is, though it’s believed to be right on the edge. And few know what Purcell’s real motivation was in agreeing to run Purcell’s Ottaway community-newspaper division. But it’s possible that it was about finding efficiencies that will shore up the Herald’s position.

This is such a difficult moment for the news business that it would be ridiculous to make any predictions. A month from now — a week from now — these observations might seem pollyannaish and naive.

For the moment, though, with the exception of New York and Washington, there’s no better place in the country to be a newspaper reader.

Purcell and Murdoch, together again

And no, I have no idea what it means. But Boston Herald publisher Pat Purcell is going back to work for his old boss, Rupert Murdoch, becoming executive chairman of Ottaway Newspapers next month.

Ottaway’s community papers are a subsidiary of Dow Jones — Murdoch’s accidental acquisition when he purchased the Wall Street Journal a couple of years ago.

Purcell says he may be able to foster some sort of relationship between the Herald and Ottaway’s Massachusetts papers — among them the Cape Cod Times, the New Bedford Standard-Times and the Nantucket Inquirer & Mirror. But this isn’t a natural partnership, to say the least.

Ottaway’s Barnstable Patriot has more.