Comments on: Blog Rally to Help the Boston Globe

By: Rupertscoming

Rupertscoming — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 22:04:18 +0000

Heard in the NY Times boardroom 8 months ago

Punch: “Alright…who’s this guy Craig…and why’s he got a list??!!

By: Jimmy

Jimmy — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 17:40:22 +0000

Sounds like the Times is using threats like this to scare the union during a negotiation. Seems to me both sides better figure out a way to stay in business or both sides will be out of business. The Globe is an institution in this town, although since I only read the sports page, I would be happy if they only published that. These are scary times for newspapers. Remember when Jack Welch, and Jack Connors, and Ed Eskandarian made a 50cents on the dollar offer for the Globe in May 2007? How’s that deal look now???
Save the Globe!!

By: Bruce

Bruce — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 15:31:07 +0000

Most of the bloggers who are participating in this are not “media critic” types. They’re just people who happen to live in Boston and blog about stuff – mostly other than what the Globe publishes on a daily basis.

By: Al Boondy

Al Boondy — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 14:38:39 +0000

This isn’t meant to be sarcastic, but surely people don’t believe that this is a purely altruistic move on the part of bloggers … Most blogs (heck, nearly all of them) don’t do any actual investigative and/or journalistic work; they simply read what “old school media institutions” like the Globe are reporting and then comment on it.

Basically, if the Globe is removed as a major resource for material, then a lot of bloggers (in the sports field and otherwise) will be left with nothing to talk about … The ulterior motives behind this “movement” are really striking, if you think about it.

By: Pip

Pip — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 13:51:50 +0000

As if the NYT cares about the opinion of bloggers? The only way bloggers can save the globe, is if each of the blogs involved in this project get 100 people to subscribe to the Globe. And even then we are talking a 50/50 chance the Globe will last 5 years.

By: Lance

Lance — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 13:31:09 +0000

When I read the headline in the Globe it was my first thought. The Globe could get rid of their high priced muckraking journalists – who no one pays to read anyway. If their sports could concentrate in coverage rather than garbage then I would feel compelled to help their cause. As it is; CHB and the Mazz types have kept me from subscribing to the Globe.

By: jon

jon — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 13:25:36 +0000

They could become a barbecue restaurant. Who doesn’t like ribs?

By: Nopointe

Nopointe — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 11:32:55 +0000

Fire Shaughnessy, and I’m not being nasty or sarcastic, he contributes nothing and gets paid too much. He’s a symbol of the past and has the streak of self entitlement to match. Close the door on overpaid columnists who stick around simply because they have stuck around.

By: Boda

Boda — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 10:46:29 +0000

There’s very little the Globe can do to stay in business long-term. Its business model is dying quickly. Short-term, it’s up to the unions. The NY Times is desperately trying to conserve and raise cash to meet its debt obligations. The future of the Sulzberger family is at stake. I don’t think they will hesitate to shutter the Globe if they can’t get it to stop bleeding cash.

Similarly, the paper can’t be sold without eliminating, or severely restructuring, the union deals. The Globe has an infrastructure and a cost structure that was built based on a distribution base that no longer exists, and on a classified advertising base that migrated to craigslist. There are, of course, lots of other costs beyond union deals that must be cut. But new management can make those cuts unilaterally. That’s not the case with the union contracts, making a sale unlikely.

The Globe was an important (and sometimes destructive) community resource back when the distribution of news to a wide audience was expensive. In today’s world, that distribution is free. While I understand that nostalgia plays a role in much of the angst over the idea of a Globe-less world, it’s really not a scary thought.

In a world of free distribution of news, oligarchies like the Globe never would have appeared in the first instance. Trying to “save” it as a newspaper is a fool’s errand. The sooner it focuses on the inevitable – being an online news site – the better the chances that at least a part of it will survive.