Tonight's Friday News Dump IS the news: NY Times Co. threatens to close Boston Globe

[KamaAina]

that would be the first case where the larger of a city's two dailies closed, leaving the capital of one of the Bluest states with only the RW fishwrap Herald. :scared:

But, as with Hearst and the SF Chron, it could just be union-busting posturing:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20090404/us_nm/us_media_newyorktimes_globe

BOSTON/NEW YORK (Reuters) – The New York Times Co has threatened to shut The Boston Globe unless the newspaper's unions quickly agree to $20 million in concessions, the Globe reported on Friday, quoting union leaders....

If the Globe closed, it would join a growing list of big city dailies that have shut down this year, including EW Scripps Co's Rocky Mountain News and the print edition of Hearst Corp's Seattle Post-Intelligencer. Hearst's San Francisco Chronicle might join that list.

Possible concessions at the Globe, the 14th-largest U.S. daily paper by weekday circulation, include pay cuts, the end of pension contributions by the company and the elimination of lifetime job guarantees for some veteran staff, the paper said, quoting Boston Newspaper Guild president Daniel Totten....

Separate media reports have said that the Times may try to sell the Globe to drum up cash to pay off debt. As recently as two years ago, the Globe was considered to be worth more than $500 million. The Times bought it in 1993 for $1.1 billion.

Any buyers out there, you think?

[Muttocracy]

1. !!!!! :-(

[lonestarnot]

2. Richies are so scared of unions, they will do anything to bust every last one of them. Slave labor

is the goal of the entire busted economy.

[Warpy]

3. If those bastards shut down the Globe

and leave people but nothing but the Herald Fishwrap, expect to see the weekly tabloids grow by huge leaps.

I don't think a city like Boston will be without a decent newspaper for long, in other words, no matter what the union busters try to do.

In the long term, it might not be that bad a thing, getting Boston's prime newspaper out of the hands of a conglomerate and rebuilt from the ground up by locals.

[SurfingScientist]

4. Boston is so very pro-union, blue collar, and politically blue...

... this city has a soul. Losing the Globe would be really bad, but I wonder if Bostonians could actually restart or buy it. There will be tons of people here who would not go near a RW rag unless they ran out of toilet paper... :hurts:

[Warpy]

6. I know, that is what kept me there in those horrible winters

for over 20 years.

There are a lot of well heeled people there who would crack after a month of nothing to read on Sunday morning but either the NYT or <shudder> The Herald Fishwrap.

I have a strong feeling Boston is one of the few cities that would let their decent paper die.

[roseBudd]

5. Don't fool yourself, as each newspaper goes there won't be any investors rushing

to invest in a business whose revenue model was disrupted by Craigslist.

What are they going to do, disrupt Craigslist by being even more free?

[SurfingScientist]

7. You may be right. Question is, how much...

... would people be willing to shell out for their paper each day?

For the sake of forests, it would be awesome if newspapers went mainly online / kindle / smart phone etc anyway, which would also save them some printing $$$.

Still, they would need to ask money if the ad revenue does not come back, and probably more for the online issue than the current price of the print copy (?).

[roseBudd]

10. The problem is online ads have not made up the slack, because of k weight issues, we're

talking online ads being in the range of 30-40 kilobytes, they don't really replace inserts from target or macy's, Home Depot, etc.

Losing Classifieds to EBay & Craigslist is huge.

Regarding pay to read we are so spolied and expect free.

Slate attempted to charge. So dod NYTimes for their most popular offerings, their columnists.

If you care about newsgathering take the time to click through to the originating newspaper. Don't read that article on Common Dreams.

Page views are how newspapers burn through the online ads, and determine how much they can charge for CPM.

[KamaAina]

11. When did Slate attempt to charge?

Either that was really really early on (i.e. before I discovered it), or you're thinking of Salon, which charges to this day, or makes you sit through an ad to get a "day pass".

[roseBudd]

12. It was really early like late 90s...

Salon had a subscriber base that was then replaced with we'll let you read if you watch an interstitial ad first.

NYTimes pay to read top columnists was the most recent attempt to monetize. They lifted it eventually and of course anyone who really tried could still find their Krugman fix on some blog that ignored the embargo.

[SurfingScientist]

8. dupe, deleted

[opihimoimoi]

9. The Republican Exploitation of the working masses continues as long as they can get away w it

K&R

Hey dere ole Friend

:hi: