Boston Globe on brink of closure

[czsz]

Times Co. Said to Consider Closing Boston Globe

By RICHARD P?REZ-PE?A
Published: April 3, 2009

The New York Times Company has threatened to close The Boston Globe unless labor unions agree to concessions like pay cuts and the cessation of pension contributions, according to a person briefed on the talks.

The company is looking for $20 million in savings from The Globe, which has already gone through several rounds of deep cost-cutting and staff reductions. The company does not report figures by newspaper, but executives have acknowledged that the Globe lost tens of millions of dollars last year.

The threat to close The Globe was first reported by The Globe on Friday evening on its Web site, Boston.com. The site quoted the leaders of two of the unions describing a meeting Thursday at which the company delivered the ultimatum.

It quoted an unnamed person saying that in the meeting, management said that without the concessions, The Globe would lose $85 million in 2009.

The Times Company chairman, Arthur Sulzberger Jr., and Catherine J. Mathis, chief spokeswoman for the company, each declined to comment or confirm the article.

The company paid $1.1 billion for The Globe in 1993, the highest price ever paid for a single American newspaper, and it was highly profitable through that decade. But in recent years, the erosion of advertising and newspaper circulation has been more severe in the Boston area than in most of the country.

Advertising revenue for the industry fell 16.6 percent in 2008, according to the Newspaper Association of America.

The Times Company also wants to end a provision in The Globe?s contracts that gives certain employees lifetime job guarantees.

The company recently revealed that it was asking most of its employees, including the bulk of those at the flagship New York Times newspaper, to take a 5 percent pay cut for the remainder of this year. The company has recently scrambled to borrow money and sell assets to raise cash to weather the downturn.

The Globe last year reported weekday circulation of 324,000, the 14th highest in the country, and Sunday circulation of 504,000, the 11th highest.

Sit back and imagine the Herald as this city's only newspaper...

[ablarc]

...in recent years, the erosion of advertising and newspaper circulation has been more severe in the Boston area than in most of the country.
Why? Higher than average internet usage?

[kmp1284]

Why pay for yesterday's news? The only service I see the Globe providing these days is keeping 700+ people off the dole(for now).

[ablarc]

One of those people is Bob Campbell.

[kmp1284]

Well then, I'm going to buy 100 subscriptions right now. That puts it all in perspective. We must save the Globe so the masses can read Robert Campbell's once-a-week hit or miss architectural critique. The problem is the rest of the paper, what matters to most people, is a complete train wreck.

[Ron Newman]

I think Campbell is a freelance correspondent, not an employee. That Globe column isn't his day job.

[ablarc]

Well then, let it sink.

[czsz]

Unbelievable how blithe some people are about the death of newspapers. 99% of blog posts are just commentary on newspaper articles. And there are still quite a few good ones produced by the Globe. Before the Times Co. gutted it, there was high quality international correspondence, and there's still some original and informative stuff going in the Ideas section. I would hate to see local issues left up to the Herald.

If White Knight New Englanders wind up swooping in to save the Globe from the Times (and, preferably, from profit-margin journalism), this threat may wind up having been a good thing. If the Globe dies, a bunch of Bosotn's prestige dies with it, even if it's not one of the country's best papers anymore. The Herald represents the Boston of tribal neighborhoods and NIMBYs - it has a supreme provincial cattiness that's appropriate for a tabloid, but not a paper of record. The Globe has a distinguished pedigree, an elegant look, and announces through its very name that Boston is a city that cares about the world.

[statler]

Look through this forum. Count the Globe stories. Count the responses to those stories and conversations those stories spur. Now try to imagine this place without them.

[ablarc]

Boston without the Globe would be exactly like New York without the Times.

[vanshnookenraggen]

All that will be left is the Herald... *shudder*

[czsz]

Threat to Globe triggers flood of feelings
Many worry, a few shrug, but most adamant that the city needs its major daily newspaper

Marcus Weiss of Newton stared in shock yesterday at the newspaper that has landed on his doorstep every day for 30 years. In Woburn, Ollie Gonsalves wondered who would stick up for the "little guy." In Cambridge, Mike Spartichino shrugged indifferently and rushed home with a box of doughnuts.

Yesterday, the region confronted the possibility that The Boston Globe might cease to exist, after publishing daily for more than a century. News that The New York Times Co. might shut down the biggest newspaper in New England if its unions don't swiftly agree to $20 million in cuts sent a shockwave throughout Greater Boston, sparking an outcry from corners as disparate as the Boston Symphony Orchestra, Johnny's Luncheonette in Newton Centre, and voices ranging from US Senator John F. Kerry to Peter Wolf of the J. Geils Band. To some readers, such a loss seemed unimaginable, but others said the transformation from paper to the Internet is inevitable.

Losing the Globe is more than the shuttering of a company, readers said. It would be, they said, the loss of something essential to Massachusetts' very sense of itself - and one of the few forces for public accountability in the region. They recalled stories exposing corruption and waste in government and other institutions, and stories giving voice to those who otherwise would have no power at all.

"To someone like me who's very involved in civic life in the communities, it's unimaginable," said Paul S. Grogan, president of the Boston Foundation, calling the Globe the "civic glue" that keeps the public together.

"Almost every leader in Boston - in the public sector, the private sector, and the nonprofit sector - reads The Boston Globe every day. It gives the community a shared sense of what the issues are, what the challenges are. . . . I just don't see that being replaced."

Some were especially irked that the warning was coming from New York. The New York Times Co., facing its own cash crunch, is unwilling to support further losses at its Boston outlet.

"New York again," growled Daniel Doyle, 70, of Somerville, as he stood outside Verna's Donuts in Cambridge, where counter staff wear T-shirts saying "still here!" because it, too, nearly closed a couple of years ago. "I didn't even know they owned the Globe. If you took the paper away and I can't read my sports, what am I getting up in the morning for?"

Critics of the Globe, especially in anonymous comments posted on the newspaper's website, said the newspaper was falling victim to turbulent economic times as well as its own "liberal bias," though they did not provide specific examples. Some complained about ink stains; others about perfumed inserts in the newspaper. Still others raised deeper concerns about customer service.

Others said they did not have time to read the Globe, or preferred to read it for free online.

"I don't really read the Globe," said Spartichino, 20, of Arlington, an electrician who prefers to watch TV news with his mother at dinnertime. "It's too big. I have to work and all that."

Still, the possibility that the newspaper could fold dominated the conversation at diners, in coffee shops, and on street corners.

At Breads 'n Bits of Ireland, a breakfast spot in downtown Melrose, the topic bounced from table to table in the cozy dining room.

"It'd be a tragedy if the Globe were to close," said Steven Locke, 45, a Melrose lawyer and father of two boys, who once was a Globe paperboy in Newton.

"Could you imagine our kids going through life not knowing what a paper is?" said his wife, Suzanne, who teaches at a Cambridge private school.

Still, the Lockes admitted, they don't get the paper every day. Mornings are consumed with getting the boys ready for school and rushing off to work, where Steven Locke reads Boston.com, the Globe website.

"I'd pay five cents an article online," he offered.

Nearby, Jean Gorman spoke up for the print edition. "I want my newspaper in my hand," said Gorman, an office manager for a real estate firm. "I want a real paper."

From the next table, Eric Wildman chimed in, calling the Globe a "victim" of the success of its free website. He used to subscribe daily but now pays only for the Sunday edition.

"Nobody has time in the morning anymore to get up and read the paper," said Wildman, 33, a human resources manager who learned about the possible closing of the Globe on the political blog BlueMassGroup.

John Cinella, a 69-year-old lawyer who rises at 5:30 a.m. to read the paper, said he cherishes his daily paper, and a stack of memorable editions.

"I've got Globes from the great fire, all the Red Sox victories, the Patriots'," said Cinella, whose three boys all once delivered the paper.

Fifth-grader Connor Locke piped up. "When Obama won, we saved the newspaper," the 11-year-old said. "And when Papi hit the 52 home runs, I framed that and I have it hanging on my wall."

His mother beamed.

"Can't frame the computer screen," she said.

For the most devoted readers, the thought of losing the Globe was like trying to imagine the loss of an old friend.

"Any day I don't have my Globe I really feel out of sorts," said Weiss, a lawyer who read a Celtics article over a breakfast of French toast at Johnny's Luncheonette in Newton. "It's such an important way of living my life and starting my day."

At the opening of the Grove Hall branch library yesterday, Jeannette Sisco of Mattapan counted the ways the Globe has touched her life. The longtime school librarian posts stories about her students on a "Wall of Fame" at the West Roxbury Education Complex. She mails articles to relatives around the country. She used to lead a "Friday night ritual" clipping coupons for three elderly uncles, all former Pullman railroad porters from the South End.

"It's a wonderful source of freebie-weebies in the city," said Sisco. "Every single day I look for book talks and artistic activities that can be engaged in for F-R-E-E. It's going to be a real loss in these tough economic times."

At the VIP convenience store on Massachusetts Avenue in Cambridge, Harish Chopra, the 30-year-old owner, said reading the Globe helped him learn English when he moved here from India more than a decade ago. Now fluent, he says he makes sure the Globe is the first newspaper shoppers see when they walk into the store.

"Top shelf," he said with a smile.

In Woburn every morning, retired maintenance man Ollie Gonsalves rises, gels back his hair, and heads to the Moore & Parker newsstand to buy his daily Globe. The clerks at the 115-year-old newsstand and smoke shop always save him a copy if the stack dwindles.

"The Globes run out quick here," said Gonsalves, 80.

Gonsalves said he likes the editorial page, which he said stands up for people like him: "I'm a little guy."

Harry McDonough III, another Woburn native, didn't share that view - but wanted to hold fast to his Globe just the same.

"I'll tell you what, I'm a meat-eating, God-fearing, gun-toting, right-wing conservative white male and proud to be that way," said McDonough, a 41-year-old hardware store manager. "But I do read the Globe to see how the other side thinks. That's important. Knowledge is power."

But others say they get along fine without the paper itself, for their own reasons.

Christine Pratt-Purvis, a 44-year-old cosmetologist of Roxbury, said she used to read the Globe every morning on the subway to work, giggling over the comics pages. But when she lost her job a year ago, Pratt-Purvis said the print edition suddenly felt like an extravagance.

Yesterday, government officials and community leaders - from the arts to government agencies - called on the Globe and The New York Times Co. to save the newspaper.

"The thought of losing this newspaper is deeply disturbing," blogged Paul Levy, CEO of Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center. "It is the major source for investigative journalism that keeps the government, corporations, and, yes, nonprofits, honest and accountable. We simply cannot afford not to have it."

"It's difficult to imagine Massachusetts without the Globe and I'm not going to even try," said Kerry. "The history of the Globe is punctuated by courageous investigative journalism and a soul and conscience that helped propel and sustain the causes of civil rights and peace during tumultuous years in our city."

"Even the bloggers will say no one else has had the resources to see all the different parts of Greater Boston and to look in depth," said Joel Barrera, deputy director of the Metropolitan Area Planning Council, a regional planning agency for Greater Boston.

James Taylor, the legendary singer-songwriter from Massachusetts who subscribes to the Globe, said he is a major supporter of unions but hoped that all sides would find a way to save the newspaper.

"They must find a way to negotiate some way to continue," Taylor said. "The New England point of view, a seriously intellectual point of view, is something I can't imagine going away."

News of the Globe's possible closure hit hard in the arts community, where the paper's coverage has been credited with helping fill theaters and concert halls and turning new institutions such as the Institute of Contemporary Art into a major attraction on the waterfront.

Peter Wolf, the front man for the J. Geils Band, said losing the Globe would destroy readers' connection to the region.

"I can't say it starts my morning but it starts my afternoon and it's an old friend," he said. "Unfortunately people don't get the impact till after it's done. And when it's gone, it's gone for good."

http://www.boston.com/ae/media/articles/2009/04/05/threat_to_globe_triggers_flood_of_feelings/

[czsz]

Union employees open to concessions, but demand management cuts as well

Some Boston Globe union workers were stunned to learn of the newspaper's threatened shutdown. To others, it was not a complete surprise, given the industry's mounting troubles. Some viewed it as a negotiating ploy, others as a serious threat.

But all of those interviewed said they're willing to accept pay cuts and other concessions to save New England's largest newspaper - as long as executives and managers make the same sacrifices.

"If management is willing to lead us, to take pay cuts and concessions, I'm sure the union would be willing," said Bob Sullivan, 56, who has worked as a mailer for 38 years. "We all want to keep our jobs. We all want to keep the Globe publishing."

The Globe's owner, The New York Times Co., last week threatened to quickly shutter the money-losing newspaper unless its 13 unions swiftly agree to $20 million in concessions, including pay cuts, reduced company contributions to retirement and healthcare, and the elimination of lifetime job guarantees now enjoyed by some 430 workers, according to union officials and other people familiar with the matter. Management told union leaders last week that without serious cutbacks, the Globe is projected to lose $85 million this year, following a $50 million loss in 2008, according to a Globe employee who was briefed on the discussion.

The Globe and newspapers across the country have been hard hit by the recession, accelerating declines that began years ago as readers and advertisers migrated to the Internet.

The concessions will be negotiated separately with each union, according to union officials. Globe management will meet with individual unions next week to detail the concessions they are seeking from each one, said Ralph Giallanella, secretary treasurer of Teamsters Local 259, which represents about 200 drivers who deliver the newspaper.

The Globe has about 1,400 union employees. The Boston Newspaper Guild is the largest, representing more than 700 editorial, advertising, and business office employees. It's unclear how swiftly the unions will need to reach an agreement to prevent closing the Globe, but one union leader has said concessions need to be made within 30 days.

The Globe just last week completed cutting 50 jobs in its newsroom through buyouts and layoffs. Jenifer McKim, a business reporter who joined the paper in August, said she was just breathing easier after surviving the last round of job cuts. Now, she said, the situation is "bigger and sadder."

"Last week I was worrying about me, but now it's not just my job, but this great paper," said McKim, 42, who grew up in Brookline. "I've been reading it since I was a little girl, and I always wanted to work for the Globe."

McKim, who worked for the Orange County Register in Southern California before joining the Globe, said she supports making concessions. "We have to change," she said. "I want to be part of the transition to multimedia. I imagine we'll always be telling stories and a watchdog in the community."

Patricia Wen, a health and science reporter at the Globe for 23 years, agreed that concessions need to be made. Wen, 50, who is one of the employees with a guaranteed job, said she's not sure how serious the shutdown threat is, "but it's scary."

Union workers said management must share in the pain. Many have already gone years without raises in the face of continued declines in revenues.

Dan Pushee, 56, a machinist for 30 years, said executives have received bonuses even as workers have been laid off.

"We'll give back," Pushee said, "but they've got to give back their bonuses and take pay cuts."

Spokesmen for the Globe and Times Co. declined to comment yesterday.

Several managers who declined to be named because they are not authorized to speak publicly said they are willing to make more sacrifices to preserve the paper. In fact, they fully expect the Times Co. to impose more cuts on management's pay and benefits. Last week the Times Co. instituted a temporary 5 percent pay cut for nonunion managers at the Globe and other Times Co. properties. In January the company cut pension benefits for existing nonunion managers, and managers hired after Jan. 1 no longer receive a pension plan but rather an enhanced 401(k). And last month, the company eliminated retiree health benefits for nonunion employees.

James McLaughlin, a mailer for 38 years, said workers have been making concessions for years, giving up raises and paying more for healthcare. Last year the pressmen and union drivers agreed to concessions that saved about $10 million, including a 5 percent wage cut, according to a person familiar with the matter.

"It's tough," said McLaughlin, 58. "We never thought we'd have to worry about the demise of the newspaper. We've given up so much. I think I can give a little more."

http://www.boston.com/ae/media/articles/2009/04/05/union_employees_open_to_concessions_but_demand_man agement_cuts_as_well/

[statler]

Why pay for yesterday's news?

Where are you getting today's local news from? 4, 5 & 7? Ugh.

Bostonist? (Current top headline: International Pillow Fight Day)

Universal Hub? (Dance battle at North Station - with video!)

You realize that if the Boston Globe goes, boston.com probably goes with it. And I haven't found a better source for up-to-date local news than that site.

[ablarc]

Some folks are just curmudgeons. ;)

[czsz]

You realize that if the Boston Globe goes, boston.com probably goes with it.

If only we could jettison boston.com without losing the Globe...

[statler]

Why? It's not perfect but it's not too bad. Hell, The Big Picture (http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/) alone makes it invaluable.

[PaulC]

I've been going on the south end house tour and to open houses in the south end and sometimes back bay for about 15 years. I've always been shocked that only once did I see a Boston newspaper. I commented on that and the broker told me they had just moved here from Concord. I saw no shortage of new york times in these units. New residents seem to have no conection to the city and that is a very bad thing for the city.

[czsz]

I love The Big Picture, but most of the site is cheesy as hell. It would at least be nice for the Globe to have a slightly more independent looking page.

I once applied with a position at boston.com as a roving street interviewer. They asked me what I would ask people and I trotted out a list of controversial topics of the day. They came back and said "we were thinking more along the lines of 'what are you doing this weekend?' or 'isn't it hot out?'"

Some awesome journalism there.

I've been going on the south end house tour and to open houses in the south end and sometimes back bay for about 15 years. I've always been shocked that only once did I see a Boston newspaper. I commented on that and the broker told me they had just moved here from Concord. I saw no shortage of new york times in these units. New residents seem to have no conection to the city and that is a very bad thing for the city.

In my building in Cambridge the deliveries are about 1/4 Wall Street Journal, 1/4 New York Times, and 1/2 Boston Globe. Two days ago there was an angrily written note in the lobby demanding someone return a Globe "because it's what I look forward to every day".

[statler]

Yeah, there is a lot of crap up there, but I think I've conditioned my brain to tune out things like BoMoms & Tom & Gisele 24/7.

And still there is no real alternative to it for breaking local news.

[kennedy]

I'd rather see the Globe go, and Boston.com (overhauled) stay. That's probably the most likely future for the newspaper industry. The Seattle PI did it. I've heard news about the Chicago Sun-Times heading in a more online direction. The St. Louis Post-Dispatch recently overhauled their paper to more resemble their website.

I don't want to hear any nostalgic nonsense about the value of having a real paper in your hand from anyone...

[vanshnookenraggen]

In Boston, Paper?s Peril Hits a Nerve

By RICHARD P?REZ-PE?A
Published: April 12, 2009

BOSTON ? When local bloggers rallied last week in an online forum about how to save the embattled Boston Globe, readers offered loads of sympathetic advice and surprisingly little of the ?let ?em rot? attitude that has colored so much debate over the future of newspapers.

Ever since The New York Times Company threatened 11 days ago to sell or close The Globe unless it accepted deep cost cuts, Boston has been in a state of near shock.

Civic leaders and ordinary Bostonians alike ? particularly those old enough to remember a pre-Internet age, before free access to news on the Web siphoned away so many of the paper?s readers ? have spoken out about the central role of The Globe in the life of a region that cares deeply about local culture and local politics and fashions itself as the higher education capital of the nation.

?I?ve been surprised at how well people understand that this would not be the same city without it, and not as good a city,? said Paul Levy, the chief executive of Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, who organized the ?blog rally? on The Globe. ?It?s the only thing that can really hold institutions accountable.?

Mayor Thomas M. Menino agrees, despite his share of run-ins with the paper.

?I have disagreements with The Globe, but what?s good for Boston?? he said in an interview. ?To have them not here would be a big hole in our life.?

There has been much hand-wringing in the last decade as one Boston institution after another has faded away or passed into the hands of out-of-towners.

BankBoston, John Hancock insurance and Gillette were swallowed by much bigger companies with faraway headquarters. A group of non-New Englanders bought the Red Sox baseball team ? an organization close to a civic religion ? with the Times Company, which already owned The Globe, as a junior partner.

In 2006, the Filene?s department store chain ceased to exist, and its owner, Federated Department Stores, turned some stores into the Macy?s banner ? another shadow cast by New York. But it did not convert the huge Filene?s flagship store, leaving a vacant, hulking shell that still stands in the heart of downtown Boston. That blow had particular resonance for The Globe; Filene?s was the paper?s biggest advertiser.

?Boston is much less insular than it was 30 years ago,? said Paul S. Grogan, president of the Boston Foundation, a philanthropic group. The city has long had a chip on its collective shoulder about where it stands in the world, ?especially any time you get New York into the picture,? he said, and while that trait has faded greatly, losing local institutions does not help.

Perhaps that is why, along with the desire to save The Globe, many Bostonians argue for local ownership, with a particular suspicion of answering to anyone in that bigger city on the Hudson.

One blogger advocated an arrangement similar to the community foundation that owns the Green Bay Packers football team. Several members of Boston?s business elite have been rumored to be interested in buying The Globe, but none have confirmed it and most have denied it.

At least a few local investors showed interest in buying the paper a few years ago, but that was before the newspaper business slid into its deep slump.

?You have to have local ownership that wants to buy the paper,? Mr. Menino said. ?It?s questionable. I haven?t heard of anybody.?

Losing The Globe ?would rock the city psychologically,? Mr. Grogan said. ?It doesn?t square with the more confident, more worldly self-image that Boston has.?

But that impact would split along generational lines, as it does between Julia Quinn and James Monti, strangers who rode side by side last week on a Red Line subway train.

Ms. Quinn, a medical assistant in her 60s, said she read The Globe almost every day, though its politics were too liberal for her tastes. ?Boston?s not a podunk town ? it?s got to have a good paper,? she said.

Mr. Monti, an unemployed construction worker in his 20s, said he only occasionally picked up a paper, ?mostly to see how the Sox are doing,? and was just as likely to find the news online. He shrugged off the prospect of losing The Globe, saying he could go elsewhere for information.

The merits of budget cutting and local ownership are debated inside The Globe itself. Some Globe employees are angry that their paper has had several rounds of staff and budget cuts, while the flagship New York Times newspaper ? which is in better financial condition ? has more often been spared and some company executives have collected large salaries and bonuses.

But there is widespread agreement that, good ownership or bad, local or faraway, no company could absorb the losses The Globe has suffered without taking drastic action. Times executives told labor leaders last week that The Globe was on pace to lose $85 million this year.

At the Times Company?s New England Media Group, comprised mostly of The Globe and its Web site, Boston.com, advertising revenue fell 18 percent last year, and executives said recently that it would drop faster this year. From 2004 to 2008, that segment of the company had a 33.7 percent decline in ad revenue, and The Globe?s circulation fell 28 percent, to 324,000 on weekdays.

Yet its news staff is still one of the largest in the country, at about 340 people, though it is down almost 40 percent from its peak, and the paper has dropped some of the sections it once printed.

The company has called for greater sacrifice by The Globe?s more than 200 mailers than other major labor groups at the paper. The Globe has reported that, according to their union, the company wants the mailers to accept a 25 percent pay cut and the elimination of a lifetime job guarantee that covers most of them.

In addition, the union said, the company would stop contributing to mailers? pensions and sharply reduce what it pays for their health care, among other cuts.

Measured by readership, Boston.com is a smashing success, with an average of 5.2 million unique visitors a month last year, according to Nielsen Online. The Globe ranks 14th in daily print circulation among American newspapers, but sixth in online audience, an imbalance that reflects how heavily wired its highly educated market is.

Dan Kennedy has spent a good part of his career analyzing The Globe, first as a media columnist for the Boston Phoenix, an alternative weekly, and then as author of a blog, Media Nation. But he said no source of local news could come close to taking The Globe?s place, including its longtime rival, the much smaller Boston Herald.

Just as Boston has become less insular over the last generation, so has The Globe generally become a better paper, less cozy with the city?s political establishment, said Mr. Kennedy, an assistant professor at Northeastern University who also writes for The Guardian.

?The Globe can set the agenda for the region, bring focus on a story, in a way that nobody else can, and we need that,? he said.

But Mr. Kennedy said that last year, when he taught a freshman journalism class at Northeastern, ?one of the things that really struck me was these students had basically no experience reading a newspaper of any kind.?



Link (http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/13/business/media/13globe.html?8dpc)

[czsz]

Who are these young people who have never read a newspaper and don't care about them? Am I that old now?

[vanshnookenraggen]

I'll be honest the only time I pick up a news paper is to move it out of my way on the subway. I do however consume blogs and online newspapers which is what is killing the old papers.

[Lrfox]

Who are these young people who have never read a newspaper and don't care about them? Am I that old now?

I read the paper. Online. I only pick up a hard copy when I'm visiting my parents and it's sitting there on a Sunday morning. I can't remember EVER paying for a paper with the one exception being a few months ago when i bought a copy of the WSJ to show my co workers an article that I read (online) in a meeting.

Was it Van who said that Newspapers with online sites should require paid subscriptions to access their content? Whoever it was, it was a good suggestion. At least make them subscribe to the paper to access the site (they can choose whether or not they want delivery of an actual paper). Even if they only do this for exclusive content and keep breaking news and AP content free, they could turn more profit. Scratch that, turn A profit.

[pelhamhall]

The best part of watching this Globe ship burn is watching the New York Times Corporation strong-arm labor unions and disregard worker's rights from their corporate board room in New York.

This is the media outlet that is famous for it's anti-capitalist bias, and it's frequent bashings of other corporations for strong-arming unions and their so-called disregard of worker's rights from their remote corporate board rooms.

The hypocrisy is rich.

Besides, I don't believe this "shutter the Globe" PR ploy anyway. It's just union busting from some of the world's most loathsome and duplicitous people so they can make more in their sale of the paper. The Globe loses $85M/year. They are asking for $20M in concessions with no mention or plan for the other $65M lost. It doesn't add it up. Doesn't smell right.

So how dumb are the Globe unions? We'll find out soon enough.

[czsz]

Read what that Northeastern prof said again - he didn't say people aren't reading the physical newspaper, now (most people don't). He said his students don't even have experience reading one. That's way more shocking, IMO.

Was it Van who said that Newspapers with online sites should require paid subscriptions to access their content? Whoever it was, it was a good suggestion. At least make them subscribe to the paper to access the site (they can choose whether or not they want delivery of an actual paper). Even if they only do this for exclusive content and keep breaking news and AP content free, they could turn more profit. Scratch that, turn A profit.

This has been turned around in many minds, but the truth is that there are too many obstacles. People will always be able to get around pay walls, or turn to one of an infinite number of other news outlets that will want to capitalize on the diminished competition. Even a revision of antitrust laws to allow collusion on this, though, wouldn't prevent someone with a subscription from posting an article for all to see elsewhere, which might still be legal under fair use. And even if it's not, it would be cost and labour-prohibitively expensive to track all those violations down. Ach.

[kennedy]

I don't know about anyone else my age, but I read the paper almost every day, or at least catch up on it online. The professor was likely talking about the fact that the students probably had far more experience watching their news and getting 15 second clips, rather than reading in-depth about the story.

[BostonSkyGuy]

Does anyone know people who read the news, that don't read Boston.com? I know most of my friends who want to read newspapers, just go to Boston.com and get sports, business, current news/headlines etc.

Why don't they just charge a monthly fee to subscribe to the site? If you charge say $10 a month, that's about 33 cents a day. Cheaper and move convenient than the actual print paper. Say 500,000 people sign up for that service. That's $5 million a month just right there. I know personally I wouldn't mind paying the $10 a month at all. The Globe could still make money with advertising on the site as well as the subscription fee.

As of right now, there's ZERO reason to buy the Globe if you have internet access because you can just go to Boston.com and get up to the minute news FOR FREE. The world is going digital, and you're naive if you didn't see the end of newspapers and certain magazines coming. Maybe the Globe could do what the Christian Science Monitor just started to do and do a weekly magazine type paper.

[jass]

Does anyone know people who read the news, that don't read Boston.com? I know most of my friends who want to read newspapers, just go to Boston.com and get sports, business, current news/headlines etc.

Why don't they just charge a monthly fee to subscribe to the site? If you charge say $10 a month, that's about 33 cents a day. Cheaper and move convenient than the actual print paper. Say 500,000 people sign up for that service. That's $5 million a month just right there. I know personally I wouldn't mind paying the $10 a month at all. The Globe could still make money with advertising on the site as well as the subscription fee.

As of right now, there's ZERO reason to buy the Globe if you have internet access because you can just go to Boston.com and get up to the minute news FOR FREE. The world is going digital, and you're naive if you didn't see the end of newspapers and certain magazines coming. Maybe the Globe could do what the Christian Science Monitor just started to do and do a weekly magazine type paper.

I used to read the globe, but never boston.com.

Now I dont get the globe and still dont visit boston.com (unless linked to a story directly)

I dont like reading news online. Maybe in a couple of years when the kindle is affordable Ill be back with paper news.

There is no way that the globe deserves $1 a day a God knows how much on Sunday. Their quality isnt good enough. The paper is thin, half of it is made of wire stories, and the sports section sucks. Charge me 25 cents a day and Im all in.

[statler]

^^ Where do you get your local news from?

[pelhamhall]

This is why I am rooting and hoping for the Boston Globe to shut down... it's not a place that reports the news, it's a vehicle to promote the leftist agenda.

Yes, yes, yes, I sound like a kook, I know. But here's a specific thing that bothers me... there was a 2,000 person rally yesterday in downtown Boston. Who cares what it was for... the Globe chose to ignore this 2,000 person rally. I personally was curious about it and was expecting to read a little blurb on it in today's paper. There was none.

Meanwhile, here is prominent coverage of a rally that attracted just 200 people - that the Globe wrote a full story on, with pictures:


Antiwar demonstrators protest call for troop `surge'
Boston Common rally draws 200

Article from: The Boston Globe (Boston, MA)
Article date: January 12, 2007
Author: April Simpson


The Globe is not reporting the news, the Globe is a vehicle with an agenda that is pushes on us. By doing this, they have alienated about 35% of their market (a recent estimate of conservative-leaning Mass residents). Now that people can choose where they get news, this 35% demographic no longer has any use for the Globe.

Politics aside, I was genuinely curious about the tax protest. The Globe opted not to cover it, the Herald and four TV channels did.

(and just as a disclaimer, the Globe did pick up a small AP blurb on tax protests held throughout the nation, but the article was mostly about whether they were truly non partisan or if they were Republican-driven - there was little reporting on the events themselves)

[statler]

Even the Metro covered the teabaggers. Of course, because they are affiliated with that liberal rag, they focused on the stupidest attendants, including my favorite quote: Some of the thousands that turned out locally said little has changed since tea was first into these waters over 235 years ago. "That's what this is all about. We came over here because we didn't want to be taxed," said Judy MadazunovicI wonder if Judy has ever read a history book? Would she know what one might look like if she saw one?

Also, for those holding signs with 1776 on them. The original tea party was in 1773, but what is 3 years among friends?

Of course they all could have been liberal plants put in place to make the whole movement look stupid. Socialists are a sneaky lot.

[vanshnookenraggen]

To be fair most newspapers have always had some agenda. But you are right, we do need a real balanced and objective news source for the region. If the Globe falls something will take it's place, something online probably.

It's kind of an exciting time to live in really.

[statler]

If the Globe falls something will take it's place, something online probably.

What and how will it be funded?

I hope you are right, and maybe I'm just a pessimist, but I can easily see us headed to a dark ages of journalism. Scary times to me.

[pelhamhall]

Don't let my comments mislead you - I could care less about that group of people or that tea party movement.

But...

2,000 people got together in downtown Boston - what was the deal? what do they want? who were they?

I am genuinely curious.

The Boston Globe has nothing at all to report. Of course not, it doesn't mesh with their agenda.

Contrast this to that 2007 article, when a lousy 200 people got together to protest Bush's troop surge. The Boston Globe dedicates an article to them - with images, and without any pot-shots at these people for possibly being, oh, I don't know... perhaps hippies, yahoos or deadbeats?

To not cover a rowdy, 2,000 person protest in the heart of your city that is making national headlines shows how the Boston Globe is just not a credible news-gathering business.

[blade_bltz]

Also, for those holding signs with 1776 on them. The original tea party was in 1773, but what is 3 years among friends?


I own this shirt.

http://s3-external-1.amazonaws.com/wootsaleimages/Ain_t_No_Party_Like_A_Boston_PartyxkbDetail.jpg

[pelhamhall]

I guess it is better that the Globe ignored it, God only knows which idiot they would have picked out of the crowd and labeled "typical" - That Huffington Post gallery was quite an offensive way to caricature and cover the actions of 750,000 people.

The proof is in the pudding. Nationwide news was happening, and yet only one network bothered to cover it! While you all hate Fox, they had a monopoly on yesterday's news! They were your only choice if you were curious about what was going on.

If you're not familiar with typical Neilson numbers, last night's numbers were skewed way, way higher than typical mid-week stats with O'Reilly pushing 4M viewers:

FOXNEWS O'REILLY 3,980,000
FOXNEWS HANNITY 3,239,000
FOXNEWS GRETA 2,947,000
FOXNEWS BECK 2,740,000
FOXNEWS BAIER 2,401,000
FOXNEWS SHEP 2,185,000
MSNBC OLBERMANN 1,499,000
CNNHN GRACE 1,336,000
CNN KING 1,292,000
MSNBC MADDOW 1,149,000
CNN COOPER 1,021,000

This illustrates the problem with the Boston Globe's decision to cover only news that fits with their agenda (like the 200 person Iraq protest). This is a big reason they deserve shrinking readership.

[Ron Newman]

The story you all say isn't there, I see on page A16.

[pelhamhall]

My edition (I was in Framingham this morning) did not have it - there was an AP wire report about a nationwide movement with protests in all cities, but not a Boston Globe report about the specific goings on in the City of Boston. This is the same story Boston.com is carrying.... hmm.... do you have a city edition? Is it available on boston.com?

[czsz]

The Globe had photos of the Boston protest but ran the AP's story, I think believing it would be more responsible reporting to get a nationwide perspective on this, rather than simply zeroing in on the protesters in Boston. I think the real story here is the Globe's dwindling resources and increased need to rely on wire services.

[statler]

If you are referring to this (http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2009/04/16/thousands_in_us_protest_tax_day_with_tea_parties/), Pelhamhall already mentioned it in his first post:

(and just as a disclaimer, the Globe did pick up a small AP blurb on tax protests held throughout the nation, but the article was mostly about whether they were truly non partisan or if they were Republican-driven - there was little reporting on the events themselves)

[underground]

I'm sorry, but I'm not buying this. I think the amount the Globe covered this was ample. In a world where resources and time are both limited, they can't cover every single thing. When the US is in an unpopular war and there are protests, that is news. When the Federal Government cuts taxes and there are protests that the Government raised taxes, that's not news. In fact, that's just a bunch of people who won't let the facts get in the way of their strongly held opinions.

Personally, I say congratulations to the Globe for not falling for Fox News' Astroturfing.

On a related note, I heard on Fox 25 this morning that John Henry is considering buying a stake in the Globe. Sounds good to me; the guy clearly knows how to run a business, especially a local Boston business.

[statler]

On a related note, I heard on Fox 25 this morning that John Henry is considering buying a stake in the Globe. Sounds good to me; the guy clearly knows how to run a business, especially a local Boston business.

Yeah, that was in the Herald this morning too (natch). That would be great news (so to speak).

[pelhamhall]

When the US is in an unpopular war and there are protests, that is news.

If 200 unwashed, burnt out hippies banging on bongo drums is news, then 2,000 non-hippies protesting the government is news.

Also, the April 2007 coverage of the hippies did not at any point stray into comments about their appearance, lack of diction and articulation, or their stench of illegal drugs. For THAT protest, the Globe took the "high" road.

[underground]

The fact that they got a pic and an AP story after protesting that their taxes were raised when they were in fact lowered is more than fair.

[statler]

Plus, the whole thing was based on the false premise that today's situation is in any way analogous to the situation in 1773. It's a complete raping of our country's (and this city's) proud history in order to score cheap political points.

[Justin7]

It's a complete raping of our country's (and this city's) proud history in order to score cheap political points.

Exploitation is what these people do. It is what they survive on.

[BostonSkyGuy]

Exploitation is what these people do. It is what they survive on.

Wait, wait...you're mad at people for being mad that the government is abusing and misspending taxes? I don't understand how anyone can think these people are wrong. Sure, maybe you disagree with how they went about voicing their displeasure, but if you're satisfied with how the government is currently spending taxes, and has been spending taxes for years...there's something wrong with you.

It doesn't matter if you're Republican or Democrat, the government is out of control when it comes to spending money. From wars, to stimulus packages, to pork barrel spending projects when is enough, enough?

[statler]

Funny how enough is enough came at exactly 12:00AM January 20th, 2009.

Where were all these people two years ago?

[Justin7]

Wait, wait...you're mad at people for being mad that the government is abusing and misspending taxes? I don't understand how anyone can think these people are wrong. Sure, maybe you disagree with how they went about voicing their displeasure, but if you're satisfied with how the government is currently spending taxes, and has been spending taxes for years...there's something wrong with you.

It doesn't matter if you're Republican or Democrat, the government is out of control when it comes to spending money. From wars, to stimulus packages, to pork barrel spending projects when is enough, enough?

Yes, Fox News is fair and balanced (and had nothing to do with starting these rallies), stimulus during a recession is bad, FDR prolonged the Great Depression, we had too much regulation during the W years, we need to increase national defense while eliminating taxes, and Obama is a secret Muslim-Socialist who enjoys killing babies and plans to enslave white people.

How could one not like these people? They are clearly the ones we should be listening to. After eight years of Democrats in control of the Federal government, it's about time we give someone else a chance. Why not the extreme right?

[statler]

Actually, I like this version of the Right a lot more than the last. At least 'wasteful spending' is something I can actually agree with them on. I wish this was their focus for the past 8 years rather than trying to convert the US to a theocracy.

Now we just need to come to terms on what we consider 'wasteful'. :D

(And yes I take full responsibility for turning the Globe thread into a political bitchfest - sorry)

[pelhamhall]

This started as a complaint against the Boston Globe.

They opted to not cover an important 2,000 rally in downtown Boston, while at the same time have opted to cover countless, smaller, less important rallies.

Why? Who cares. They are failing. They are not a news organization.

Without even trying I was able to find these with just one Google click:

Antiwar protest draws 500 to Boston Common
Article from: The Boston Globe (Boston, MA)
Article date: January 19, 1991

And here:

300 protest China's human rights violations
Article from: The Boston Globe (Boston, MA)
| Date: March 31, 2008| Author: John Forrester |

And here:

Antiwar demonstrators protest call for troop 'surge'
Boston Common rally draws 200
By April Simpson, Globe Staff | January 12, 2007

And yet 2,000 people protesting government spending (not taxes - spending) and it's ignored.

To me, that says quite a lot about the Globe - what it is, it's business model, and it's rightful demise as a news organization.

I don't want the right vs. left, issue vs. issue to cloud the argument here, in this Boston Globe thread.

The Globe is not a credible news organization. It should go out of business as such. Fairly simple.

[statler]

Just because they have a slant does not mean they are not a credible news organization. That's just crazy talk.

Who do you consider to be an unbiased news organization?

[underground]

I Googled "Boston Globe Tax Protest" and found this story. (http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2009/04/16/thousands_in_us_protest_tax_day_with_tea_parties/) People who protest against raising taxes in a year when their taxes were lowered should be happy that they got any coverage at all.

Likewise, the globe also covered the earlier gas tax protest, as seen here (http://www.boston.com/news/local/breaking_news/2009/02/gop_gas_tax_pro.html). The Globe is hardly ignoring this issue.

Furthermore, they've been all over the Pension abuse issue, they were all over Marian Walsh, they've been all over the Fire Fighters Union, they've been all over the MBTA, they've been all over the Turnpike Authority, and they've been all over Aloisi. To say they aren't covering Government waste is completely at odds with reality.

[pelhamhall]

They picked up an AP wire report from KENTUCKY.

The gas tax rally is a good example, but that was something that struck a chord across party lines, no? Isn't Democrat Therese Murray the largest opponent of the gas tax? So it wasn't a "right wing" issue, it was a "populist" issue. If the Democrats were all for it and the Republicans the only ones against, do you wonder if it would have been covered?

Also, the protest Wednesday was about "spending" not "taxes" as you continue to falsely state. But how would you know, even an educated person such as yourself can't get the news from the Boston Globe.

[statler]

^^ Pelham already mentioned that piece upthread. He is right. The Globe has a liberal slant.

This, however, does not make them a non-credible news organization.

In a perfect world they would be basis free. I'm not aware of any news organization that is.

the protest Wednesday was about "spending" not "taxes" as you continue to falsely state.

Then why the all the Tea Party hoopla? (Taxed Enough Already, right?) That's my biggest gripe with this whole thing. That and the sudden interest in the subject after 8 years of silence.

[pelhamhall]

Statler - my point is that they didn't even cover it... obviously if they had covered it the article would have been bias, but that's OK, at least they would be reporting the news. Most people can read through the bias and make their own opinion.

Their news blackout decision was actually much more sinister and representative of a more dangerous form of bias - something more likely to be seen in North Korea than Boston.

[Ron Newman]

Looks to me like they gave it the coverage it deserved -- a one or two paragraph local insert into a national AP wire story.

[pelhamhall]

Then why the dedicated "Boston" story from the countless other rallies? The 200 protesting the successful Iraq troop surge? The few hundred protesting the freeing of the Kuwaiti people in 1991? Since these protesters turned out to be on the wrong side of history, a little tough reporting might have showcased that these people weren't really playing with a full deck of cards?

It's not like Wednesday was a heavy news day, OR that they had to send reporters far.

Picking up a little national blurb written in Kentucky is not telling me what all the commotion downtown was as I took a taxi by it. I picked up the paper in the morning fully expecting to find out the news of the day in my city, in my city newspaper. I was surprised to not find it.

That's all I'm saying.

(I'm also really bored today at work... like really bored - I could keep this up all afternoon, more than anything I'm just playing devil's advocate, so take it all with a grain of salt)

[underground]

Because those rallies weren't held as a result of a Fox News Astro-turfing campaign? Just my guess.

Also, it was about taxes. It was on tax day, it was called a "Tea Party," and people were holding up signs about taxation. Sure, Government waste was an issue as well, but this rally was about taxes and how the protesters are under the impression that they were raised this year when in fact, for all but the top 5% of earners, they were lowered.

[pelhamhall]

The tax party theme was coined and conceived by CNBC, no?

This relates to the goins'-on in the city of Boston on April 15th how?

"Oh those 2,000 people? Just ignore them, Foxnews sent them."

Ludicrous and juvenile.

Even if that was true, well, then there's your story. (The AP picked up this angle by way)

No story at all is something altogether different.

I'm not right wing by the way, I am a radical centrist.

[pelhamhall]

Taxes are an issue. But I was under the impression that the issue was insane government spending?

Honestly, I don't know, the media blackout is truly disturbing.

It is great news that Obama is keeping the Bush Tax Cuts - congrats to him, symbolically leaving the highest bracket to revert back to 38.5% even though the bulk of the revenue is collected at the middle brackets. Stick it to the rich just cuz you can, play the class warfare card instead of treating all equally...

Good for Obama for embracing Bush economics - he certainly deserves plaudits for that.

The income tax is a great way to grab headline. But income tax isn't the only game in town.

Capital gains taxes? Corporate taxes? Cigarette taxes? Payroll taxes? Real estate taxes? Gasoline taxes? The billions of other levies, fines, fees, and taxes?

They won't be coming down under this president.
http://www.usnews.com/blogs/peter-roff/2009/4/2/obamas-cigarette-tax-puts-the-lie-to-his-no-new-taxes-pledge.html

But about the Globe, if you can't rely on them to report the goings-on in Boston on a typical day, then why do you need them?

That is the only question worth asking.

[underground]

1) The Tea Party was a self selected term. MSNBC's only involvement was to point out that they were also self selecting to call themselves Tea Baggers.

2) As for the Globe only giving partial coverage to a fake political movement created by a cynical "News" organization? Yeah, I'm fine with that. They also don't give a front page story to the LaRoushies ever time they demonstrate.

However, what the Globe has done is give excellent coverage on issues that actually relate to Government Waste. They've been the leader on coverage of Public Pension Abuse, MBTA waste, Turnpike Authority waste, the do-nothing job to Aloisi's sister, DiMasi's shady Cognos deal, DiMasi's shady ticket broker deal, Alan LeBoveridge's continuous foot in mouth disease, etc., etc. Simply because the Globe chooses to give limited converge to one group of nuts does not equate to the Globe having some sort of bias against news stories related to Government Waste. Personally, when I hear Carla Howell's turning up somewhere, I know I can promptly tune out that event.

[pelhamhall]

Well, I guess the proof is in the viewership and readership numbers.

The Globe editorial page promotes government waste on a daily basis then acts surprised when it all backfires.

This shouldn't be about media bias, whether Wednesday's protest was just crazy people (please try to show me a protest - any protest - that isn't crazy people), this should be about the Globe opting to not cover news.

Here, I can do it quickly in full Globe bias:

Urged by Foxnews 2,000 people protest paying taxes in downtown Boston

A boisterous crowd of very dumb people clogged downtown Boston yesterday... etc. etc.

Jane Doe, some pathetic loser who uses poor diction and probably hates blacks, said, "Yee haw! Ain't this fun!" while waving an offensive sign showing our African-American president depicted with his hand in a presumably white person's cookie jar.

While Associate Professor of Political Science at Wheelock College said, "These people don't know how dumb they are, Foxnews is forcing them to do this and we should feel bad for them. Obama is literally the best president ever. Ever!" as tears rolled down his eyes and onto his hemp vest.

***

There, at least that would have reported the news, Globe style!

[pelhamhall]

By the way, Michael Graham of WTKK is the person, I believe, who organized yesterday's rally. Again, it's hard to tell with the media blackout.

If you have some super secret evidence that Foxnews was behind it, then please share!

Hard evidence, not sloganeering please!

[Beton Brut]

Is it wrong that my favorite source for current events is Robin Quivers?

[Ron Newman]

Who is he or she?

[Beton Brut]

She's been a key part of the Howard Stern Show since he was in DC. Topical, edgy irreverent; goes great with my morning coffee and granola.

[underground]

If using Google is super secret, than yes, the fact that Fox News Astro Turfed these events is a super secret.

Here's the funny version. (http://videocafe.crooksandliars.com/heather/colbert-report-fox-news-tea-parties)

[czsz]

Good god, the Globe doesn't flood the zone and has less comprehensive local coverage than the Herald for one event, and less comprehensive national coverage for the nationwide phenomenon than the AP story...which they print! And all this fuss?

The Globe isn't North Korea; only a government can black out news. You have a choice of thousands of news organizations on TV, online, or even that are other local newspapers covering this.

[briv]

Let both the Herald and the Globe die, and let the meek inherit the Earth.

[tobyjug]

The Globe is callow. Other the sports page and a couple of writers, there isn't much worth reading.

[statler]

^^Where do you get your local news from?

[tobyjug]

Local news? A messy mix of Globe, Herald, Courant, WEEI, internut, gossipy pals, Lawyers Weekly.
TV news too, I guess. Frances Rivera is kind of hot. Liz Brunner is a cougar. Maria Stephanos, in a big hair Tia's kind of way.
Dated a couple of weather girls. Used to piss off the wife when I was just trying to catch the weather. Drag.

[bosdevelopment]

I love The Big Picture, but most of the site is cheesy as hell. It would at least be nice for the Globe to have a slightly more independent looking page.

I once applied with a position at boston.com as a roving street interviewer. They asked me what I would ask people and I trotted out a list of controversial topics of the day. They came back and said "we were thinking more along the lines of 'what are you doing this weekend?' or 'isn't it hot out?'"

Some awesome journalism there.



In my building in Cambridge the deliveries are about 1/4 Wall Street Journal, 1/4 New York Times, and 1/2 Boston Globe. Two days ago there was an angrily written note in the lobby demanding someone return a Globe "because it's what I look forward to every day".

figures

[bosdevelopment]

Exploitation is what these people do. It is what they survive on.


These people? What do you mean THESE people?

[Justin7]

These people? What do you mean THESE people?

The blacks and the jews.

I hope you understand the difference between criticizing a political party and criticizing the above.

Who do you think I mean? The leaders of today's Republican party. They exploit history, patriotism, fear, religion, race--anything they can--for their own gain.

(This thread is clearly way off track and these posts should probably be moved. Perhaps keep this thread to the Globe's survivability and not whether or not it's failure would be a good thing or a bad thing. Arguing about politics is on the internet is pretty silly and I apologize.)

[kmp1284]

2009 Pulitzers ... surprise, surprise, no awards this year.

http://www.pulitzer.org/awards/2009

[czsz]

They won last year.

Any paper that's not the NYT or Washington Post is lucky to get one, ever.

[Ron Newman]

Globe did have a finalist in the arts criticism category, however (Sebastian Smee).

[pelhamhall]

Is it true that a Pulitzer Prize and two bucks gets you a ride on the T?

[statler]

Winning a Pulitzer allows you to write something like this (http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050811/REVIEWS/50725001).

And I think we can all agree that the world is a better place for it. :D

[pelhamhall]

That was the best review I've ever read!

And it didn't appear in a newspaper.

We don't need newspapers, do we?

[statler]

^^ Newspapers haven't really figured out how to get a revenue stream from on line content.

Most of their revenue still comes from subscriptions, boxes and print ads. Most of the on-line stuff is still 'value-added' stuff. The dead tree stuff still pays Ebert's salary (for now).

They have tried charging for online content, but there were not enough people willing to pay for what they could get for free elsewhere. (I disagree with those people, but I'll admit I'm in the minority).

Ebert is pretty much part of the last generation of journalist writers. There will be no one left to pay for the next generation. :(

[Ron Newman]

That was the best review I've ever read!

And it didn't appear in a newspaper.

It didn't? I thought all Ebert movie reviews originated at the Chicago Sun-Times.

[pelhamhall]

A rep. from the Boston Globe ad sales department recently said something to me that really stuck with me.... When I told her that I had advised my client to work with a well-known real estate advertising agency, she looked disgusted and said "but that's the advertising agency that tells their clients not to do any advertising!"

This is one of the best, brightest agencies for real estate marketing, and its quite telling that they generally don't recommend newspaper advertising anymore - except in rare circumstances.

The money has moved into the splintered world of web media where every site will jockey and cut prices to get the revenue - and all ad behavior can be tracked.

Here's another 2009 scenario: A ten-story, temporary wall scrim hanging/billboard costs about the same as two Sundays in the Boston Globe. A Globe ad may indirectly drive a small handful of consumers to the site, but you really need to be in there for a couple of months to get full brand awareness. The wall scrim directly generates 25-40% of the entire property's direct sales leads. And it costs the same as two full color ads.

The newspaper model is just so dead on so many levels.

[Ron Newman]

A ten-story, temporary wall scrim hanging/billboard costs about the same as two Sundays in the Boston Globe.

An idea for Province Street?

[statler]

and all ad behavior can be tracked.

I have a friend who works in the Sun-Times organization (he is a reporter for one of their suburban papers). He has told me the problem they are having is opposite. Most of their ad revenue comes from local shops, restaurants and establishments. Most of them won't buy online ads because they don't know exactly where the ad views are coming from. With the print product the paper can tell them that x number of papers were sold within x miles of your store. They can't do that with online ads. And since fewer and fewer people are buying the print product...

The newspaper model is just so dead on so many levels.
:(

[pelhamhall]

Would be a perfect spot, and could be changed seasonally. The worst part of that building becomes it's identifying and beloved feature. Voila!

The Hotel Indigo in Newton tried to do this on their ugly, blank wall but the ugly, blank neighbors complained.

Is it art or is advertising? I'm on the fence, to be honest. But I do think it's better than the ugly brown brick wall.

http://i307.photobucket.com/albums/nn302/pelhamhall/Photo1.jpg

[kennedy]

For a closer example, look at the huge FP3 sign.

[czsz]

Sen. Kerry is convening a hearing in a couple weeks to consider a law to allow newspapers to reorganize as 501(c)(3) nonprofits. The only tradeoff would be that they could no longer make political endorsements.

[Lurker]

If newspapers still aren't making money tax exempt status isn't going to help out very much. I also don't think it would be ethical for shareholders to be collecting any profits, should they ever exist again, from a tax exempt entity. Given that tax exempt organizations are required to reinvest all monies into running their organizations rather than dispense payments to investors.

[czsz]

Actually, beyond the internet, newspapers being taken over by conglomerates that care more about profit than product has been one of the industry's biggest problems. A lot of papers were gutted of good content in this way well before they faced competition online. Reorganization might help at least a little - although it could be too little, too late.

The shareholders would be wiped out anyway if newspapers were allowed to die.

[Ron Newman]

The St. Petersburg Times, which won two Pulitzers this week, seems to be doing just fine as a non-profit. It has long been one of the nation's best regional newspapers.

[statler]

A point (http://www.boston.com/news/local/breaking_news/2009/04/advocates_rally.html) in Pelham's favor.

(Don't say I never gave you anything. :))

[statler]

Oh, and oddly enough the Weekly Dig did a fairly balanced story (http://www.weeklydig.com/%5Bcatpath%5D/200904/protesters-teabag-common) on the April 15th protests (ignoring the juvenile headline, of course)

[czsz]

Henry eyes Globe in deal for NYT's Sox stake

By Ben Klayman

CHICAGO, April 28 (Reuters) - Hedge fund manager John Henry is looking at taking control of the money-losing Boston Globe newspaper as part of a deal to buy New York Times Co's (NYT.N: Quote, Profile, Research) stake in the Boston Red Sox baseball team, a source familiar with the situation said on Tuesday.

The Times put its 17.75 percent stake in New England Sports Ventures (NESV), which owns the Red Sox, their home field of Fenway Park and adjacent real estate, up for sale in January.

A spokeswoman for Henry, who led the group that bought the NESV assets in 2002 for $700 million including debt, referred questions to the Red Sox. Spokeswomen for the team and the Times declined to comment.

The Times acquired its stake in the ownership group at that time for an estimated $75 million. The Red Sox have won two World Series titles since then.

NESV also includes half of the Roush Fenway Racing NASCAR team and an 80 percent stake in the NESN regional sports cable TV network.

Before the markets deteriorated last year, analysts and bankers had estimated the Times stake could be worth up to $200 million. A Barclays Capital analyst last year valued it at about $166 million.

However, the stake's lack of voting rights and Henry's ability to control who buys it likely makes it far less valuable, analysts have said. Tight credit makes the possible list of buyers even shorter.

The U.S. newspaper industry has been losing readers and advertisers as more people get news online, forcing publishers to cut budgets and jobs and to sell assets.

The Times said in January that the Red Sox sale did not include the possibility of selling the Globe, which the Times bought for more than $1 billion in the 1990s.

The Times has threatened to shut the Globe unless the newspapers' unions agree to $20 million in concessions, the Globe reported earlier this month.

http://uk.reuters.com/article/marketsNewsUS/idUKN2854670520090428?pageNumber=2

[pelhamhall]

A point (http://www.boston.com/news/local/breaking_news/2009/04/advocates_rally.html) in Pelham's favor.

(Don't say I never gave you anything. :))

Haha, Statler, I owe you a drink!

The Boston Globe, Tawdry Journalistic Failure:
50 person rally to raise taxes - big local coverage with a dedicated local reporters, including a photo (precious real estate in the PR world)

2,000 person rally to cut spending - the Globe picked up Tennessee-based AP wire report, ignoring the goings-on within the city of Boston.

It doesn't get much more black and white than that.

Nowhere in the "raise taxes" article did it disparage these protesters or paint them as kooks or yahoos. Having personally dealt with one of those non-profits, I know how easy that would have been.

And nowhere does it explain why public school students were used as props and stooges in this theater, when they should have been in school. I would hope the teachers that orchestrated that aspect of the stunt lose their jobs without delay.

[pelhamhall]

Wow, that Weekly Dig article is some of the best print journalism I've seen in quite some time in this city. Very surprising!

But that article was all I was asking for when I picked up the Globe on April 16th - a little synopsis of this huge 2,000 person rally, who was there, what went on, and what it all meant.

There just isn't a need for the Globe anymore.

[statler]

There just isn't a need for the Globe anymore.

http://i183.photobucket.com/albums/x176/bstnstatler/bullshiat.jpg

Despite its commie, librul bias, the Globe is a valuable institution and city will be much worse off after it departure.
Of this much I'm sure.

[bosdevelopment]

Another liberal rag.

[statler]

Sure it is, but just because it doesn't conform to your world view doesn't mean it is worthless. That's just absurd thinking. Especially considering that a large portion of their content is apolitical.

Edit: And when I say 'your' I mean it in the general sense, not you specifically bosdevelopment, as I'm pretty sure the whole 'ultra-conservative' bit is just act, a la Colbert. :)

[Lurker]

The problem with the Globe is that it has cut back on the apolitical content, particularly the local news, since the Times acquired it. Who buys a local newspaper wanting to read the same slanted garbage repeated in every newspaper owned by the Times or to read some story by a wire service which is carried everywhere by everyone? Slanting to one side alienates half the customer base and cutting the unique content eliminates any reason to buy a newspaper in the first place.

The Globe should have realized original local reporting was key to their survival. It's the local stuff which is unique enough to maintain a market share. Cable news and the internet carry all the global and national news so quickly, newspapers shouldn't even bother unless they have a really in depth article. Essentially the Globe should be a Courant on steroids which covers the entire metro Boston area.

Unfortunately the NYT could care less about running a paper like that and the unions are too busy trying to milk a dry cow to figure out there needs to be dramatic reorganization.

[statler]

^^The problem is that they buy into their own myth. They are the 'paper of record' and such papers carry all the important national news front and center. They didn't (and still don't) want to consign themselves to provincialism. They want to be an important player on the national stage. Not a bad ambition, but as you say the stage is getting too crowded.

BTW, do you really think a liberal slant would alienate 'half' of there readers? This is New England after all. :)

[tobyjug]

Being the "standard bearer" isn't a guarantee of survival. Chubby Checker was the "artist of record" for the Twist. Last time I checked, the Peppermint Lounge was closed.

[statler]

Absolutely.

Hell, I'm not even sure we will see a NY Times in paper format within a few years.

As the man says, the Globe got 99 problems but a liberal slant ain't one.

[Lurker]

I'm surprised no one noticed trouble brewing when the Globe couldn't seem to find Mike Barnicle's various professional misdeeds ethically bankrupt, and damaging to the reputation of the paper, enough to fire him.

Having the number of unions in your organization in double digits and ever agreeing to 'guaranteed life time work' agreements should have been hints problems were on the horizon.

[Ron Newman]

The Mike Barnicle and Patricia Smith affairs came to light 11 years ago, long before any version of this forum existed.

[pelhamhall]

I heard a surprising statistic:

More people in Boston read the Herald than the Globe.

How many small, local stories has the Herald broken this year? Too many to count. Sure, they're aren't earth shattering, but these are the kinds of stories that shape the discussion in the city. This is a local newspaper, constantly breaking local controversies. So what if it does it with juvenile graphics and silly headlines? It's a fun read.

The Iraq War? Obama's massive government expansion? Pig flu? Who the hell cares what a pack of losers over on Morrissey Boulevard think about any of that? People get national news from national sources, not from some tweedy-jacketed yahoos over at the New York Junior Times branch office in Dorchester.

[pelhamhall]

That post lacked the point... the point is, for a local paper to stay alive, it should be local.

The New York Junior Times is not local.

[Ron Newman]

I would hate to see the Herald fold, either. But the Herald has no discernable plan for what to do if the Globe fails and they suddenly become the monopoly paper of record. You can't easily grab the Globe's audience share if you're gleefully trashing not just the Globe's owners and writers, but also their readers.

The Herald's paper circulation is shrinking even faster than the Globe's (http://www.boston.com/business/ticker/2009/04/globe_herald_re.html), by the way.

[statler]

However, what the Globe has done is give excellent coverage on issues that actually relate to Government Waste. They've been the leader on coverage of Public Pension Abuse, MBTA waste, Turnpike Authority waste, the do-nothing job to Aloisi's sister, DiMasi's shady Cognos deal, DiMasi's shady ticket broker deal, Alan LeBoveridge's continuous foot in mouth disease, etc., etc.

Yeah, who needs 'em?!

[tobyjug]

I'd hate to see any newspaper go away. In my life, the Record, the American, the Record-American, the Traveller, the Herald Traveller, the Herald American, the Boston Evening Globe, Boston After Dark, probably others, I forget. The decline in the fishing industry has really taken its toll.

[Ron Newman]

probably others, I forget.

The Real Paper. (http://www.geocities.com/uridfm/r/realpaper.htm)

[Lurker]

The short lived "Boston Now"

[Ron Newman]

Nobody will miss that one.

[pelhamhall]

In 10-15 years, the newspaper industry will be gone, it will be sub-division of a broader "news-gathering industry"

There will be 3-5 of these national news outlets and they will encompass newspapers, TV and print. Plus whatever new media we don't know about yet.

- Wall Street Journal/Fox/Murdoch's new newswire service - one right wing media outlet, tightly controlled by one company

- USA TODAY? ABC News/CNN - one center-left media outlet. CNN & ABC continue to dance with a merger, and why wouldn't they? ABC has no national cable presence. Plus, USA Today floats out there as a really interesting paper component of the news-gathering industry that is unaffiliated with TV. People don't laugh at the USA Today anymore, and you can buy it in Berlin and Tokyo - you can scrap the brand and keep the distribution channels. I can already envision the logo mix on the newspaper masthead: "CNN TODAY"

- New York Times/NBC/MSNBC/CNBC - a probable fit is that when the NYTimes ultimately fails, it will combine its news gathering with NBC (or perhaps CBS)

Companies like Bloomberg and Reuters/Thompson will fall in line with a conglomerate too.

All cities will offer these 4 or 5 media outlets along with local coverage. So imagine you are a fan of the CNN/ABC/USA TODAY conglomerate, for simplicty sake, let's say they rebrand as just CNN. You turn on channel 5 and watch the "CNN News - Boston " at 6pm with Natalie Jacobson. Then the CNN Nightly News comes on at 6:30 hosted by Ted Koppel. Both newscasts are tightly produced in the same manner with the same set design only the backdrop changes to a shot of Boston for Liz Walker's stage .

In the morning, you could buy a copy of the "CNN TODAY - Boston Edition" - which features articles and features from the Ted Koppel crew over at CNN National.

It would be like buying a national paper today, the difference is that you would have a separate pull-out section of the national paper that has local editorials from well-known local columnists, where Liz Walker makes an appearance again in print, and in-depth articles surrounding local news. This pull out section is what one may have been known as "The Boston Globe"

The only person who seems to really and truly grasp this new reality is Rupert Murdoch. And he has no competition out there in right field, while all of his competitors trip over the media crowds in left. As he launches his wire service, he is going to sign up plenty of local newspapers (like the Herald I'm sure) and is going to end up controlling the content of much of these papers - which will rely more and more on the national wire service. So someday you can watch Maria Stefanos on Fox Boston, Shep Smith on Fox Nightly News, then pick up the Fox Street Journal in the morning, with its Boston Herald pull-out section.

Voila - the future of news.

(or I'm just a little too drunk at the moment from after work cocktails)

[kennedy]

Pelham your vision mimics mine very closely, however, I see it going even farther with the conglomerates. What about NBC+NYT+GE+Microsoft+Ford? The future of media, not just news, is a few mega-corporations offering streamlined content and organization from the local level to the national level. For sake of an example, I'm going to use the Globe's name regardless of if they survive. As the Boston component of the NYT/NBC company, we'd pick it up in the morning (or more likely, open up an e-ink paper that refreshes each morning). That evening, we'd watch the local news on channel 5 (called NBC Boston, none of this jumble of letters like WCVB 5). Then, as Pelham said, it would switch to the national news, the NBC Nightly News (just NBC, not MSN or C). If we wanted more information, we'd go to "boston.nbc.com." Then again, our we'll probably watching TV through on our Microsoft computer via the internet-no more separate broadcasts. Live, streaming TV. On the internet. Consolidated and streamlined. That's the future for you.

Wow, this is way off of architecture.

[Arch101]

^^^ LOVE how ABC and CNN are described as CENTER LEFT while that awful, oppressive FoxNews is described as only as RIGHT. Give me a break

[pelhamhall]

Someday very soon we laugh and say "Did you know that in 2009 there were 189 daily newspapers in the United States and when some major story broke, that meant 189 reporters from Ann Arbor Michigan to Tulsa Oklahoma would sit at a computer and type up the same story??"

In the future, 5-6 major outlets will write these articles and 189 outposts will distribute them.

There's no need for the folks over on Morrissey Boulevard to have spent the time and money to write this:

http://www.boston.com/news/nation/washington/articles/2009/04/29/senator_specter_bolts_gop/

When it was readily available here in full left-slant:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/30456741/

And here in full right-slant:
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/04/28/source-specter-intends-switch-political-parties/

And then available in all other daily newspapers. Why devote the time and money to it?

Hubris. The dying old man still has his pride, Goddamnit.

[jass]

Imagine a Boston where the only paper media is the Phoenix and the Metro.

[kennedy]

The Phoenix and Metro are basically printed blogs and "happenings" websites. They'll be the first ones to go all-digital, for sure.

[pelhamhall]

Wow, after we talked about this today, look at what Sumner Redstone (Chariman of CBS/Viacom) just now had to say:

"I'm not sure there will be newspapers in ten years"

His thoughts on Murdoch's purchase of the Wall Street Journal differ from mine, because the Journal isn't just a 'newspaper' it's much more than that, it's an important business brand that he'll migrate to the web and TV, but it's still an interesting read:

http://www.reuters.com/article/businessNews/idUSTRE53S9C520090430?feedType=RSS&feedName=businessNews&rpc=23&sp=true

[tobyjug]

The Real Paper. (http://www.geocities.com/uridfm/r/realpaper.htm)

Is the Whole Earth Catalog published anymore? I used to like the cartoons.

[czsz]

Oh, I wonder why the chairman of CBS and Viacom is pumping the death of newspapers...

The Phoenix and Metro are basically printed blogs and "happenings" websites. They'll be the first ones to go all-digital, for sure.

The Metro basically owes its existence to the few minutes of the day when people don't have access to the internet, so I doubt it will falter so.

And the Phoenix is always useful to grab when out to see what is going on.

Both these papers know this about how they're used, and consequently can continue selling ads for the most part as they have before.

[bosdevelopment]

Even if the Globe withstands this most current scolding from its owner, i'd be willing to bet the tangible print Herald outlasts the globe by 5-10 years.

[Ron Newman]

The Herald's weekday circulation dive over the past year is even worse than the Globe's -- a 17% drop. That's going to either push advertisers away or force ad rates down.

[czsz]

Yeah seriously, the "Herald prints more local news and will therefore survive" idea fails to account for a number of variables. For one, the Globe dominates the market among people who are actually willing to read newspapers, and the respectability factor plays in that segment. The Herald also faces a lot more competition from local TV news in its more natural demographic. I'm sure that creating boston.com, a glib, provincial version of the Globe, hasn't helped boost the Herald brand, either.

[Ron Newman]

boston.com, a glib, provincial version of the Globe

I'm not following you here.

[statler]

^^ They have all the blogs, 'things to do', editorial cartoon roundups, a 'Moms' page (which they thankfully renamed from BoMoms, ugh), 'Odd & Ends (funny stories! ha!), the 1998 era boston.com 'wave' logo, etc. Not to mention the god-awful blue color scheme.

czcz is right, Boston.com doesn't really carry the same weight as the Globe.
Personally it doesn't bother me too much as long as the real news is still there front & center. The frilly stuff surrounding it is disappointing, but not a deal breaker.

[bosdevelopment]

After advertising with the Globe for over 25 years, my company has since stopped. We do however, continue to run ads in the Herald daily. We get literally twice as many phone calls for condos for sale or rent in the Herald.

[bosdevelopment]

boston.com, a glib, provincial version of the Globe


Well put, considering the story "10 things to miss about Boston" with a picture slide show and "WTKK's Severin Suspended" is above the headline "Obama gets high Court Pick."

Which is the more important story? Boston.com is for female administrative assistants that don't do SHIT at work.

[czsz]

UPDATE: Today is the deadline for the shutdown. The union is stalling for time with NYTCo., and John Henry has announced that he won't be buying the paper. The NYTCo. has not yet begun the formal process of shutting the Globe down.

http://www.boston.com/business/articles/2009/05/01/union_seeks_more_talks_on_globe/

http://www.bostonherald.com/business/media/view.bg?articleid=1169322&format=&page=2&listingType=media#articleFull

[statler]

Under the federal plant closing law, the Times Co. would have to provide 60 days' notice of a shutdown to the state and to employees, according to Ken Messina, manager of Rapid Response, the state program that provides services to employees affected by plant closings and mass layoffs.

If this is a national law why was the Rocky Mountain News allowed to close down so quickly?

[Ron Newman]

The federal law is called the 'WARN Act'. Are you sure that the Rocky didn't in fact give the required 60 days' notice? The Rocky shutdown (and that of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer) was expected for months.

[statler]

Was it? For some reason I thought it was done suddenly. I knew they were in trouble (like all papers) but I don't remember hearing any shut-down talk before it happened. I thought it took everyone by surprise. I could be wrong

[Ron Newman]

Maybe I'm just addicted to web sites that discuss this kind of thing (Poynter's Romenesko column, Dan Kennedy's Media Nation), but I recall hearing about these two newspapers' problems long before they died.

The Tucson Citizen is next on the endangered list; it was supposed to close last month but has been put on week-to-week life support while the owner evaluates offers from two potential buyers.

[Ron Newman]

Boston.com is primarily for people who want to learn about LOCAL news. The top story, Harvard Dental School shut down by flu, seems appropriately placed to me.

[czsz]

That's fine, but does it have to be cluttered with all kinds of cheesy lifestyle fluff? It's embarrassing for Boston that this website serves as a sort of media front door to the city.

And why not an alternative portal for Bostonians who want local news, but also a dignified website that makes national and international stories prominent as well? Something for people who don't want to cycle between local news websites and nytimes.com or news.bbc.co.uk? Boston.com/globe doesn't cut it for a newspaper's homepage. It should be more independent, more prominent, and more dynamic if the Globe survives.

If this is a national law why was the Rocky Mountain News allowed to close down so quickly?

The Rocky Mountain News had a joint printing agreement with the Denver Post by the time it shut down, meaning that the printing plant they used didn't close.

[pelhamhall]

The Herald wrote about the WARN status awhile back:

http://www.bostonherald.com/news/regional/view.bg?articleid=1164216

This is the most telling part of the article: "The Rocky Mountain News filed a WARN notice in Febuary on the same day it shut down. The notice said employees would be laid off effective April 28."

The Herald - breaks more local news than the soon-to-be defunct Globe. Seriously, an article like this is the smartest, most insightful piece of journalism on this whole Globe travesty, and the subject is the Globe, and the Globe loses the scoop to the Herald?

[statler]

http://wpcomics.washingtonpost.com/feature/09/05/04/nq090504.gif

[Lurker]

That comic seems to ignore the fact newspapers are mostly comprised of cookie cutter content from wire services, which already posted online. Figure in some local vetted bloggers, or stringers on commission, and the pretty much covers what pitifully shallow content most newspapers carry these days.

[czsz]

Still, the price structure is going to have to change to accommodate at least the wire services (Huffington Post can't keep piggybacking off them for free), and the newspapers that do publish valuable information, like the Times.

[statler]

And who is going to pay to keep the wire services in business if all their customers go belly up?

Assuming you don't count television 'news' as journalism, after print media dies all we will have left are bloggers and infotainment. Good luck with that.

[Ron Newman]

Also, where does all of that 'cookie-cutter wire service content' come from? Much of it is rewritten from reports by LOCAL newspapers in the cities where the events in the story happened. Take away the local papers and where does that leave the Associated Press?

[JohnAKeith]

Sunday, Monday, and Thursday. Why else exist?

[statler]

Currently, the second lead story on Boston.com:

From Remy to Nietzsche: most popular dog names in Newton, Wellesley

I understand that animal stories get attention and are popular, but this sort of thing doesn't really scream, "We are done wasting money". :(

[czsz]

And the Nietzsche reference (plus focus on upscale suburbs) makes it actually fairly highbrow for boston.com content.

[statler]

I'm comfortable with the current line-up of stories:

Bernanke: Recession should end later this year
Maine House OK's gay marriage bill
Opera House, Orpheum, Paradise sold
Actor Dom DeLuise dies
Globe to resume talks with largest union

A nice mix of national/regional/local. The only fluff being Deluise, but he was a fairly popular star in his day.

[kennedy]

Is it ironic that the Globe must report on it's own death?

[Ron Newman]

No, I don't think that is an example of 'irony'.

[statler]

Boston.com
Mike Reiss, the Globe and Boston.com?s prolific NFL writer, is departing to join ESPNBoston, the sports network?s second city-specific site as it attempts to strengthen its national brand with a local online presence in the nation?s largest and most passionate sports cities. The site will launch Sept. 14, an ESPN spokesman confirmed.

This sucks. He was hands-down the best sports reporter they had on staff.

The exodus begins (continues?)

[Justin7]

Globe says 2 bidders visit the Boston newspaper

(AP) ? 8 hours ago

BOSTON ? Two groups with an interest in buying The Boston Globe have reportedly toured the newspaper's headquarters in the past week, while a bid from a third group is looking less likely.

The newspaper, citing unnamed sources familiar with negotiations, reported Tuesday that a group headed by Stephen Taylor, a member of the family that sold the newspaper for $1.1 billion to The New York Times Co., and a second group led by private equity investment firm Platinum Equity of Beverly Hills, Calif., met with Globe executives.

The newspaper says the groups have each offered about $35 million for the Globe and the Worcester Telegram & Gazette.

The Globe says a group led by former advertising executive Jack Connors and Boston Celtics co-owner Stephen Pagliuca may drop out of the bidding.

[statler]

Boston.com (http://www.boston.com/business/ticker/2009/10/wall_street_jou.html) - October 29, 2009

Wall Street Journal will close Boston bureau
October 29, 2009 12:22 PM E-mail| |Comments (1)| Text size ? +

By Johnny Diaz, Globe Staff

The Wall Street Journal is closing its Boston bureau by the end of the year, officials told employees today in a memo.

The bureau, which is in downtown Boston, has 12 reporters and editors. The bureau, which has won at two Pulitzers in the last five years, will close Dec. 31, said Bob Christie, a spokesman for the Journal.

Nine employees will be laid off and three will stay with the company, Christie said. No other bureaus will be closed. The laid off employees will be able to apply for other jobs within the paper.

In a memo to employees today, managing editor Robert Thomson wrote: ?The economic background to the closure is painfully obvious to us all."

The investigative team, which includes two employees, will remain in Boston. Coverage of the Boston mutual fund industry will switch to the Money and Investing team. And the Journal will create an enhanced New York-based education team.

The news comes after the Audit Bureau of Circulations reported earlier this week that the Wall Street Journal had surpassed USA Today as the country?s largest newspaper. The Wall Street Journal, owned by News Corp, added 0.6 percent to its daily weekday circulation to 2,024,269 copies in the six months ending in September.

It was the only newspaper of the top five US papers that gained circulation.


Managing editor Robert Thomson's memo to employees

Colleagues,

Today we told our team in Boston that we are closing the bureau in its present form. The economic background to the closure is painfully obvious to us all. An investigative function will remain in Boston, but the core reporting team will be disbanded, though all nine reporters affected will certainly be able to apply for openings elsewhere on the paper. Coverage of the Boston mutual fund industry will switch to the Money and Investing team and we are creating an enhanced New York-based education team.

Any such decision inevitably stirs apprehension and uncertainty, but there are no plans, nascent or otherwise, to close any other US or international bureau. Meanwhile, the Newswires bureau and the MarketWatch team in Boston will remain at their present staffing levels.

That there has been truly great reporting under the generalship of Gary Putka out of Boston over many, many years is not in doubt. But we remain in the midst of a profound downturn in advertising revenue and thus must think the unthinkable.

Robert

Does this say more about the economy, the state of newspapers, or Boston?

Given the parts I've bolded I'd say it's more about Boston. :(

[czsz]

One relevant question is where the other US bureaux are. DC is obviously important for them, as is Chicago for the commodity markets. They probably need at least one West Coast presence, and maybe they have Miami to report on Latin American business. From that perspective, Boston looks like the most logical branch to close, especially because it's a short train ride away for NY-based staff and you can relocate the Pulitzer-mill types pretty easily, and because, despite local hubris about the industry, education really isn't "based" here in the same way that, say, financial services are based in NY - that team is probably aggregating nationwide/worldwide news anyway.

As for their circulation numbers: WSJ has been inflating them wildly since 2003, because they're the only major paper to count online subscriptions. These are exactly indicative of the same profitability, whether from subscriptions or (especially) from ad revenue.

[Lurker]

This was bound to happen given that we've recently lost our stock exchange and fewer companies are headquartered here. Sadly the city and state is slowly slipping into stagnation again, much like it did during the Curley era, for roughly the same reasons. I only pray we don't see similarly bungled renewal efforts at the tail end of the epoch.

[czsz]

That's totally overstating the problem. Financial services aren't growing here the same way they really did, and the stock market was probably more or less sidelined by the internet, like a lot of regional bourses. That doesn't mean Boston doesn't have, say, a biotech industry that's the envy of every city in the US (NY is desperate for some of that business and can't get the ball rolling, for example).

What the state should really do is make sure that successful companies it incubates manage to somehow share revenue/prosperity locally. Why did Facebook move from Cambridge to Silicon Valley? If it was access to venture capital, let's lure more of that here (it's certainly fertile ground for it). Or let's give universities incentives to aggressively claim they contributed to the development of intellectual property, either giving them a stake in new ventures (and an incentive to locate them nearby) or requiring that, to do so, they must demand innovators stay nearby.

[ablarc]

Sadly the city and state is slowly slipping into stagnation again, much like it did during the Curley era, for roughly the same reasons.
It's not hard to see.

I only pray we don't see similarly bungled renewal efforts at the tail end of the epoch.
If you're referring to the West End and Government Center, aren't we seeing this already at the "Seaport", Kendall and Longwood?

[Lurker]

Ablarc I'm referring to the carte blanche demolition of run down, but entirely functional, neighborhoods in favor of new anti-urban developments specifically aimed at wooing wealthy surburbanites back into the city. All those lovely people whom then clamor for more open space, wider roads, and fewer shadows until the city is utterly de-urbanized.

To be analogious: cities are living organisms where one problem can feed another until the host dies. Bad planning and development is akin to cancer or an immune system disorder compounding problems systemically to eventually result in death.

The "Seaport" and Kendall at least were post-industrial wastelands which represent a lost opportunity rather than the destruction of something somewhat valuable to begin with. Longwood is a medical area, as much as it would be nice for it to be mixed use, I doubt anyone really wants to live in a 24/7 ambulance siren zone surrounded by every kind of radiological, biological, or chemical hazard from the facilities themselves.

[statler]

Which neighborhoods do you think would be in danger? The core neighborhoods (Back Bay, Beacon Hill, N. End) were all spared even during the darkest days of Boston woes. While there is nothing to suggest they would be so lucky the next go-round, the idea of losing them is currently unthinkable.

[czsz]

Plus I don't think even Boston's politicians are dumb enough to think that the city's current problems are caused by suburban flight (if anything, they might have to do instead with the city not being able to keep up with the demand for more urban space).

[Ron Newman]

I can't see any wholesale demolition of neighborhoods ever happening again here. All the trends are in the other direction, towards gentrification and infilling (as in SoWa, for instance).

[statler]

Is SoWa really a thing? Really?

[czsz]

What would you propose? South South End?

[statler]

What was called before SoWa? Let's go with that.

[Ron Newman]

It didn't have a name before it was SoWa -- it was just the part of the South End that was south (or east) of Washington Street. It was an industrial and warehouse area, not a residential district. Before that it was water -- but the names South Bay and South Cove are both already in use elsewhere.

Most names of this type are silly, but this one is genuinely useful.

[JohnAKeith]

SoWa is a branding effort by South End developer / landord Mario Nicosia and his GTI Properties.

Although I can't stand that type of thing, he actually has had some success. He puts out a quarterly advert in the South End News and hosts the SoWa Open Market during the summer and has a street of shops and stores w/ similar signs and designs.

He worked hard to brand it, he deserves some credit.

http://www.gtiproperties.com/

[statler]

Meh...I prefer when these things evolve naturally rather than having them forced down peoples throats via marketing campaigns.

[czsz]

None of these acronyms began as anything less than branding efforts.

And many urban neighborhoods in cities around the world (even 17th century townhouse squares in London) began as subdivisions named by developers.

[vanshnookenraggen]

Even Beacon Hill was a branding campaign. That area used to be Mt. Whoredom, the red light district.

[statler]

^^I think Beacon Hill got it's name from the large beacon that sat atop the hill during early settlement days. I'm sure the developers co-oped the name while selling the homes but it existed prior to the developers. Same with the North End, South End, Back Bay, etc. All terms used to describe an area prior to development. More the work of cartographers than marketers.

Not sure if you can say the same about SoWa, Ladder District, Downtown Crossing, etc...

[Ron Newman]

'Bay Village' is a name that arrived long after the area was developed, but I don't know exactly when or how the name began.

[czsz]

Okay, so it's a trend that's relatively new to Boston. Still, we use branding terms all the time without thinking about it. "Downtown Crossing" as a term is only something like 30 years old. There have been other efforts that haven't caught on as well. The Ladder District, the "South Boston" Seaport...

Arguably we can include real estate agents' attempts to emphasize microneighborhood names over "Dorchester" as part of this phenomenon as well.

We're also now seeing a revisionist rebranding of Charles River Park back to the West End.

[statler]

OK, I'll fess up.

I just don't like SoWa because it's a cheap imitation of SoHo, and (due to my lingering anti-NYC bias) I hate when we try to mimic things already done better in New York.

[Pierce]

OK, I'll fess up.

I just don't like SoWa because it's a cheap imitation of SoHo, and (due to my lingering anti-NYC bias) I hate when we try to mimic things already done better in New York.

and Noho, Nolita, Tribeca, Dumbo. And every middling US city that is trying to establish an arts district where vanished industry has left empty warehouses. I agree with Statler, i'm biased against the acro-named neighborhoods for no other reason than we can be a bit more creative and original.

Though i think pack-mentality is pretty well coded into Real Estate genes, but hey ask one of your architects for marketing ideas!

[czsz]

we can be a bit more creative and original.

North End, South End, South Boston, West End, East Boston, Back Bay, Bay Village, South Bay

Boston does not exactly have an amazing tradition of creatively named neighborhoods.

[statler]

^^Yeah but most of those are just geographic references. If you are going to attempt to be clever, the least you can be is original.

SoHo: clever & original. SoWa: neither.

[Ron Newman]

'Boston Garden' was a shortened form of the original name 'Boston Madison Square Garden'

[statler]

^^ I did not know that. Huh.

Edit: Well, would you look at this (http://www.bostonmadisonsquaregardenclub.org/history.html).

The things you learn here.

[kennedy]

St. Louis is one of those "middling U.S. cities" and there are plenty of examples. How true that sentiment about the industry to arts district is! We've got the "Loop," an old streetcar strip, similar to Mass Ave. "Soulard" is an old Cajun neighborhood, very urban, very old, and in a slightly disheartening state of disrepair. The "Central West End" is perhaps the most commercialized. They market it as the "CWE" or just the "West End," as a trendy loft and boutique neighborhood. Some urban sectors, some not so much.

Point is, neighborhoods ARE brands. Some are good and convey the identity of the environment through their name well (SoHo,) while some suck and fail to 'match' their identity, as they just mimic the successful neighborhoods and ignore their own environment (SoWa).

[statler]

Boston.com (http://www.boston.com/business/ticker/2010/09/globe_to_offer.html) - September 30, 2010
Globe to offer two websites: one free, one pay
September 30, 2010

Robert Gavin, Globe Staff

The Boston Globe next year will split its digital news brands into two distinct websites, keeping Boston.com free while establishing a subscription-only pay site, BostonGlobe.com, which will feature all the content produced by the newspaper's journalists, publisher Christopher M. Mayer said today.

The change, scheduled to take place during the second half of 2011, is aimed at building an audience of paid subscribers online, a strategy that newspapers across the country increasingly are moving towards. With this approach, the company also aims to maintain high traffic to Boston.com, one of the nation?s largest regional news sites and a site that generates revenue from advertising.

Boston.com will continue its focus on being a "one-stop source for all things Boston" that offers breaking news, sports, and weather, from a variety of sources, as well as classified advertising, social networking, and information about travel, restaurants and entertainment, Globe officials said. Boston.com's audience will have limited access to journalism that appears in the newspaper, but will have wide-ranging access to content the Globe?s newsroom produces throughout the day for the website.

BostonGlobe.com, designed to closely approximate the experience of reading the paper's print version, will contain all the stories and other content from the day's paper as well as exclusive reports, in-depth news, analysis, commentary, photos and graphics, plus video and interactive features.

"Our research shows that Boston.com currently attracts several different types of users. Some are readers whose main interest is breaking news and things to do, while others want access to the entirety of The Boston Globe,? Mayer said. ?These two distinct sites will allow us to serve both types of readers with maximum effectiveness, while continuing to provide advertisers the large engaged audience they have come to expect from Boston.com.?

Subscribers to the Globe newspaper will have access to BostonGlobe.com as part of their subscription at no additional charge. The cost of a digital-only subscription has yet to be determined.

The paper is also developing a range of Globe-branded digital products for smartphones, tablets and other devices.

"We want to deliver our content when people want it, where people want it and how people want it," Mayer said. "Two brands create exciting opportunities for us."

Newspapers are launching paid websites as they seek new sources of revenue in the face of dwindling print circulation and advertising. While digital advertising is growing rapidly, it does not yet generate enough money to support the costs of extensive news gathering operations. As a result, publishers across the United States have dramatically cut the size of newsrooms in recent years.

The Globe is the latest newspaper to announce or launch a pay system, although its "two brands" model appears to be the first of its kind. The Wall Street Journal, which has long charged for its online version, allows readers free access to a limited number of articles, but requires a subscription for most content. Gannett Co., the nation's largest newspaper publisher, is experimenting with online pay systems at its papers in Tallahassee, Fla., Greenville, S.C., and St. George, Utah.

In Massachusetts, the Worcester Telegram & Gazette, which is also owned by the Globe's parent, The New York Times Co., last month introduced a so-called metered model, in which print subscribers get free, unlimited access to the website, but non-subscribers are limited to 10 staff-produced articles a month. After that, they must pay a fee of $1 for a day's access, or $14.95 a month.

Earlier this year, the New Bedford Standard Times implemented a similar model for its website. Meanwhile, the New York Times plans to adopt a metered model next year, although it has yet to disclose details.

The Globe considered those and other pay models before settling on the two-brands approach, Mayer said. He said the paper was in a unique position since Boston.com, started 15 years ago, had established a separate brand identity, in addition to its affiliation with the Globe. Today Boston.com attracts about 5 million unique visitors a month and is ranked by Nielsen NetRatings as the nation's eighth largest newspaper website.

Market research, meanwhile, showed Boston.com attracts two distinct audiences: casual and occasional visitors interested in quickly accessing listings, classifieds, and specific articles; along with committed readers who immerse themselves in stories produced by Globe journalists for the newspaper. That second group, Mayer believes, will be willing to pay for more extensive stories and other information.

Some Globe content, such as breaking news, will remain on Boston.com, but the precise mix has yet to be decided, Mayer said. Boston.com will also try to expand the ease and range of goods and services people can buy directly through the site. BostonGlobe.com, with the goal of creating a "lean-back experience" for readers, will have a simpler, newspaper-like design with less intrusive ads, he said.

At the same time, the two sites will allow advertisers to target different audiences, Mayer said. 'If you want to expand market share," he said, "you expand the product base."

The Globe, like many newspapers, has struggled in recent years as more readers and advertisers have moved from print to online. Last year, with the national recession accelerating the decline in ad revenues, and the Globe losing millions of dollars, the Times Co. threatened to close the paper unless unions agreed to deep concessions, which they eventually accepted. Compensation for Globe managers was also reduced.

Since then, the financial situation has stabilized. Ultimately, said Mayer, the goal of the Globe's pay system is to support a news operation that has won 20 Pulitzer Prizes. "Our objective is to continue to provide quality journalism," he said.

[BarbaricManchurian]

lol that is just beyond retarded

[czsz]

And the Globe just left whatever part of the national conversation it was still a part of.

[KentXie]

I think this is a great idea. Before the internet became widely use, you had to pay to get the newspaper or wait until the 10 o clock news. They are just implementing the same system into the internet while keeping viewers coming at the free site.

[BarbaricManchurian]

^^or they could just go to a free site owned by the SAME COMPANY with higher quality news, nytimes.com

[Suffolk 83]

Isn't The Times making ppl pay for stuff too?

[BarbaricManchurian]

nope

[kmp1284]

Not quite, The Times is going to be charging for unlimited access starting in January. Non-paying readers will be allowed a set number of free articles per month before they have to pay.

[Suffolk 83]

knew it

[BarbaricManchurian]

no, that's the Worcester Telegram & Gazette, which is owned by the Times though.

[BarbaricManchurian]

http://paidcontent.org/article/419-nyts-telegram-gazette-turns-on-its-meter/

[kmp1284]

The Times to Charge for Frequent Access to Its Web Site

Taking a step that has tempted and terrified much of the newspaper industry, The New York Times announced on Wednesday that it would charge some frequent readers for access to its Web site ? news that drew ample reaction from media analysts and consumers, ranging from enthusiastic to withering.

Starting in January 2011, a visitor to NYTimes.com will be allowed to view a certain number of articles free each month; to read more, the reader must pay a flat fee for unlimited access. Subscribers to the print newspaper, even those who subscribe only to the Sunday paper, will receive full access to the site without any additional charge.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/21/business/media/21times.html?_r=1

[czsz]

The Times model is better, because you won't have any specific content locked behind a wall. The meter allows at least limited access for people who aren't subscribers, meaning that if you click on a link to a story behind a wall, you should be able to read it if you aren't over your limit. That's called staying relevant and actually considering the potentialities of being on the internet, rather than wishing the whole thing had just been a bad dream and old revenue models can be easily reimposed.

The Globe is just going to lock all that content away unless you are already a subscriber, meaning no one but regular readers will be accessing it.

I read the Globe online from time to time now, but I'm likely to just ignore it if I have to pay for it. And while I'm likely to pay for the NYT, it should be noted that there will still be plenty of free news out there for these sites to compete with. The increasingly internationalized Guardian, for example, plans to remain free and cast its lot with increased pageviews from pay site refugees driving up ad revenue.

[kmp1284]

Globe circulation down 15.6% over last six months

http://www.boston.com/business/ticker/2010/10/circulation_dec.html

[BarbaricManchurian]

lol, who actually reads news on a paper newspaper anymore?

[BostonUrbEx]

lol, who actually reads news on a paper newspaper anymore?

People who have the Metro put in their hands for free.

The only time I find someone reading the Globe is because they dug through a Metro recycling bin looking for one.

[statler]

I'm generally a defender of the Globe, not really a big fan of Wasserman's work or BoA and really want the MFA's new wing to be wildly successful, but this is just wrong (http://www.dankennedy.net/2010/11/14/what-was-missing-from-todays-boston-globe/).