Monday, May 4, 2009

Not really local, but still MAJOR news...

We received this through our subscription to Washington Post's breaking news alerts...and this is a blockbuster.

The New York Times Company, which not only owns the NY Times but the Boston Globe, says it will notify federal authorities today that it plans to shut down the Globe in 60 days. This coming after negotiations failed between the Times and the Boston Newspaper Guild, which represents 600 editorial, advertising and office workers at the Globe, among other unions.

The Post reports:

The Globe says the parent company is seeking $10 million in savings from the Newspaper Guild -- the paper's largest union -- as well as $5 million from the mailers, $2.5 million from the drivers and $2.2 million from the pressmen.

By our calculations, this comes out to about $19,700,000, give or take a few thousand.

Bottom line: Unless the concessions happen quickly, this could result in the closure of the largest and oldest newspaper in New England.

And to give this a somewhat local connection...at the end of 2007, the Cincinnati Post had to shut down its operations when circulation dried up and the agreements between them and the Cincinnati Enquirer ended.

4 comments:

Pat Jenkins said...

thanks for the breaking news jeremy!! and how about this!!

Cliff said...

Seeing that Cincinnati CC will be providing news to the Boston CC stations, I guess technically this is local for you.

But it is sad that many folks who had their morning coffee while reading the newspaper for many years will not have that luxury much longer.

J. Moses said...

Cliff,

You're partially correct. But as noted a couple days ago, CC/Cincy doesn't have much to offer CC/Boston. We haven't heard of any format flips in the market, at least that would make this more notable in the local region.

You're right about something else, too. The folks in Boston might not have the luxury of reading the Globe over their morning coffee past around July 3 or so.

J. Moses said...

Whoops...never mind it looks like!

Click here for the latest...a deal struck maybe?