Editor’s note: We’ve already had some discussion along these lines, most recently here and here. But the blog rally is a worthy idea! –David
We have all read recently about the threat of possible closure faced by the Boston Globe. A number of Boston-based bloggers who care about the continued existence of the Globe have banded together in conducting a blog rally. We are simultaneously posting this paragraph to solicit your ideas of steps the Globe could take to improve its financial picture:
We view the Globe as an important community resource, and we think that lots of people in the region agree and might have creative ideas that might help in this situation. So, here’s your chance. Please don’t write with nasty comments and sarcasm: Use this forum for thoughtful and interesting steps you would recommend to the management that would improve readership, enhance the Globe’s community presence, and make money. Who knows, someone here might come up with an idea that will work, or at least help. Thank you.
(P.S. If you have a blog, please feel free to reprint this item and post it. Likewise, if you have a Twitter or Facebook account, please add this url as an update or to your status bar to help us reach more people.)
Why not? I’m in for 2 bucks.
I’m happy to participate, but at the end of the rally, who is going to collect all of the comments and suggestions from all of the blogs that are doing this?
At $1000 apiece- offer: $10 million for the Globe.
That’s not even close, is it? This business stuff is harder than it looks. đŸ™‚
Take it private, turn it into a non-profit owned by the community. If the NYT doesn’t want it, we do. I generally like the NYT, but there would be a certain satisfaction in picking it up for $1 for the Commonwealth and New England generally, then recapitalizing it on a non-profit basis. The Sulzbergers might have to cut back a bit, I guess. A good deal for us, I suppose, assumes the union stands firm and refuses the givebacks the and the company really is forced into insolvency as a result. Green Bay Packers:
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And, it’s worth noting, that shares in the Globe could be purchased by folks nationwide interested in maintaining another strong newspaper… bloggers, public interest non-profits, etc.
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p>It’s worth noting that the major sports leagues will never allow another ownership model like the GBP; they hate that there’s a team which isn’t interested in profit, only winning. It’s clarification of purpose puts it at a competitive advantage because it isn’t hampered by greed.
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p>Of course, unlike newspapers, sports teams have grown in value far exceeding inflation for about 50 years now, particularly so since ESPN was created. Newspapers don’t have that kind of return on investment.
The NYT has a market cap of ~$750M these days; surely they’d let the Globe go for $250M (or less)?
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p>This was loosely my plan to buy the Red Sox before JWH and crew showed up.
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p>Co-ops are under-rated.
The Globe is hard to read on the T or in bed [no snickers,please]. How about a format change where articles don’t require searching between sections, and the paper itself can be read on the T, or in bed, without winding up taking up two seats, or needing to shed paper all around to follow an article!
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p>Maybe the newstand edition and the home delivery edition need to be different, and could sell advertisements accordingly?
the Post ran a very, very popular (and free) “Metro” paper that was at all the subway stops. While I interned in DC, it was not infrequent to see every single person in the subway either reading the Metro or playing Sodoku… and more were reading the metro.
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p>A mini-metro edition of the Globe that one could be read entirely during the morning commute would not be a bad idea. Other papers do that currently, but if it was a Globe version it may just do better. That said it would be an investment and could lose money as they compete for market share over the first few years, so I kind of doubt it would happen.
since the incredible shrinking act (both page size and content) has essentially been reduced to a 15 minute read already.
The Boston Metro which is already distributed for free at T stations and incorporates Globe content already exists. It is designed to be read in 15-20 minutes but isn’t really suited to reading in bed unless you fall asleep really quickly.
Sell the paper, preferably to someone who a) loves and understands news &/or sales and b) someone who gives a shit about Boston and media. Get it out of the NYT’s hands.
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p>If the NYT refuses or can’t sell, stall. Keep the cuts away from the news desk. Go figure out what the LA Times is doing right with online sales – and duplicate it.
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p>Many of the current problems fix themselves when the economy gets better, so the newspaper just has to hold the line for a few years tops. (And if the economy isn’t better by then, well, we’re all fucked anyway and the Boston Globe will be the least of our problems.)
Another, along a similar line, is to spin off the financial support for certain aspects of news and feature coverage into a separate non-profit corporation that could receive donations. Let’s say, for example, that we had one that focused on the arts, theater, dance, music (opera, David!) and the like, where people could make tax-deductible donations that supported reporters working in those areas. A win-win between the non-profit arts and cultural organizations and the newspaper, and those of us who would like more coverage of those activities in the community.
After all, arts may actually pay for themselves thanks to ads for theater, movies, etc. Same goes for the cars section and the real estate section.
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p>In my opinion, the most important part of the Globe — the part most worth saving — is the New England angle on national news, regional news, state news, and regional news. That’s what makes the Globe important to me, and there’s nobody else to pick up that slack. Pure national news? NYT, WP, AP, et al. Pure local news? Local papers. The middle ground though, that’s where the Globe has value. That’s the part most worth saving.
Really? They’re next to fold, on-line edition included. Perhaps if they actually delivered the news they’d have a chance of surviving … they recently identified Istanbul as the capitol of Turkey. Why bother reading if they can’t even get their capitol right?
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p>The problem with the Globe is two-fold:
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p>(1) The product stinks because the reporting stinks (bias aside). Improve the reporting. I want accurate, timely reporting. The Boston Business Journal often beats the Globe in reporting on business matters. How pathetic is that?
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p>Do more local news reporting, i.e., deliver the news. Why am I reading the Globe if 75% of the content is off the AP or Reuters wires?
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p>Improve the reporting by improving the editing. Stop letting reporters write however they want, get editors that will discipline reporting standards, or get new reporters and editors. Emulate the WSJ in this regard.
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p>(2) All of the above is academic unless the Globe heaves ALL union employment overboard. No more pensions, no more lifetime employment, no more Dorchester printing plant. Outsource. If you can’t control costs, you’ll end up like the Christian Science Monitor.
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p>The Metro model isn’t so bad.
You complain about the wire content of the Globe and then say the “Metro model isn’t so bad”? The metro is a total waste of paper and a waste of time. The Globe has declined, but you can still get more real news reading 1/2 of the front page through the window on a vending box than you can reading the entire metro cover to cover.
The LA Times is still profitable.
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p>Less spin, more reality — please.
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p>The parent company is in trouble, the kid’s doing freaking fantastic, all things considering.
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p>Given that it’s the Boston Business Journal, I don’t know.
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p>Apart from those things, I don’t disagree with you.
A Blog Rally is the first good idea, and we welcome all the others to come. We’ll be reading everyone’s thoughts with great interest. Thanks.
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p>Steve Ainsley and Marty Baron
Go Globe!
Local ownership would be the key.
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p>New York doesn’t care about Boston, and all they are doing with the Globe is bleeding it dry. We’ve got to get the paper back in local hands if there’s even a prayer to save it.
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p>I like the “Metro” edition idea that was posted earlier. It’s always annoyed me that in order to finish a story in the Globe you’ve got to go hunting through pages and sections. Unless I’m spread out on my kitchen table, it’s very cumbersome.
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p>Alas, I’m part of the problem; I cancelled my daily subscription when it became obvious that I was reading stories in the print edition that I read online 24 hours ago; I think that’s the real problem. Perhaps an “exclusive” content section with more local news and politics, that’s PRINTED first, then posted online 24 hours later?
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p>You can watch a Charlie Rose discussion here with Walter Isaacson, Mort Zuckerman, and Bob Thomson.
Transcript here.
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p>Rupert Murdoch’s take is here.
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p>2. Maybe it’s just me. I don’t think they get it. They remind me of McLovin. Outsmarted themselves buying WSJ and Daily News at peak prices. Don’t like to admit mistakes.
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p>3. This is a blog entirely devoted to the question of the future of newspapers.
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p>4. Some local journos taking matters into their own hands in Denver.
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News is news. The internet and the daily printed newspaper are simply delivery mediums. If priced right, both can work together as a single brand.
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p>There are benefits to both. The WSJ has, I think, the right strategy in offering a web edition and a print edition. Both have their strengths and weaknesses. I will pay for both if I have to.
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p>PRINT I love reading the WSJ print edition. It’s delivery bandwidth is vastly larger than the internet edition. I can get a broad picture of the news (mostly business oriented news but general news as well) in 3 minutes because of the layout of the paper: vertical bullet points on the left of page 1, inside Section 1 pages 2-4, op ed pages, and the fronts of each section. I cannot do this on the WSJ web site, or in the Globe’s print edition.
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p>ON-LINE The WSJ web site is excellent if you know what you’re looking for. But no-on line edition can deliver the print’s general-interest bandwidth. It is very hard to scan the news in general on the web. It’s actually slower. What do search for? “What’s happenin’ today?” But if looking for specific news topics or writers, data, stock prices, or past articles, I head to the web site. (Why the continue to print stock prices is beyond me.) The on line edition also is key to the WSJ’s mobile strategy which is excellent although even more narrow spectrum delivery system.
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p>I tried to use the on-line edition alone, and it is less rewarding that the print/web combo. Web subscription is $39.95, web+print is often discounted to $99. I think that’s a good price level. Works for me. What’s a Globe subscription w/o the Sunday edition? $150? $200?
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p>Print, desktop, and mobile: three different delivery systems for the same product & brand. (Too bad the Globe brand sucks.)
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p>Why can’t the Globe do this?
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p>If it kills off the unions and their oppressive work rules and legacy costs and fixed-plant print presses and excess real estate, it can. Otherwise, they will never climb out of their financial hole.
i get one thrown at my office door each AM. it just started showing up one day a couple months ago. i wonder if it is included in the circ numbers.
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p>i love that paper, but don’t have enough time to read it, so mostly it hits the bin. it’s yours for $19.99
In the past, each newspaper market was a bubble. Boston’s population read Boston’s newspapers, Chicago’s population read Chicago’s newspapers, and so on. Papers within each semipermeable bubble strove to cover everything their region’s readers might want to hear about.
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p>With the Internet, this is quickly breaking down, and papers that survive will be ones that are the best, or among the best, at a few things. Covering national and international news is not it: every major paper does that. The few who are best at it will inherit the field, and most papers that continue to put significant resources into this stuff will fail.
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p>Put simply: We don’t need the Globe to cover national news well if the LA Times is doing it and we can read their articles just as easily. Print readership of papers is mostly limited to older generations who are dying off, and those of us who read online can indeed read the LA Times just as easily as the Boston Globe; more easily, in fact, if they have the better article on something, because we’re more likely to get that link sent to us or posted somewhere where we can see it.
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p>There are a few things the Boston Globe is positioned to be absolutely the best at, and #1 among these is investigating Massachusetts state government. Focus. Be the best at something important like that. Don’t spend time and effort on things multiple other papers can and will do as well or better at.
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p>P.S. Given what the Globe’s prospects for things it can be best at are, I agree that local ownership is key. I think without local ownership, the Globe will wither and die. It could be an angel investor, a worker-owned collective, or whatever, as long as it’s based here.
Can the Sulzbergers swallows their pride, and do similar to the P-I/Times deal in Seattle, and look into operations sharing between the Globe and Herald.