Newspapers

This morning my wife said that she was not sure it was worth $37 a month for The Boston Globe.  She thinks it has gone up $6 in the last few months.

Also in the AM I saw a Drudge headline saying that New York Times Executive Editor Bill Keller had commented that saving the NYT as up there as a cause with saving Darfur.  Well, I wanted to read this, so I plopped down $1.50 for a copy of today's Times.  A buck and a half?  Not counting Sundays, that is over $500 a year.

Oh, and the comments were not in the "Old Gray Lady," but on Politico.

Here is what Politico reporter Michael Calderone said:

On the NYT:  Keller predicted that the Times will be "left standing after the deluge."  Noting that readers have offered to donate money to keep the Times alive, Keller suggested that GM probably isn't getting similar offers.

Commenting on the keep-the-Times alive movement, Keller said:  "Saving the New York Times now ranks with saving Darfur as a high-minded cause."

I like getting The Boston Globe in the morning (well, Sundays it is definitely "late to need") and The Lowell Sun after lunch.  When I bring in The Globe I take the "G" section and read the comics and Alex Beam or whoever is on that page.  My wife begins reading the "A" Section or maybe the Sports Section.  When the "A" Section becomes available I read the front page, the OpEds, the Editorials and Letters and then look at pages 2 and 3.  And, I like the feel of holding the paper.

Could I live without The Globe?  Absolutely.  Would I want to?  No.  Will we give up The Globe?  It is entirely possible.  It depends upon the economy and the demands on our money.  This is not a good sign for the future of newspapers, Mr Bill Keller notwithstanding.

UPDATE

I wonder if Mr Bill Keller knew more than he was saying?  Todays big headline in The Boston Globe reads "Times Co. threatens to shut Globe, seeks $20 million in cuts from unions".  Find it here.

So there are 13 unions, the largest of which has 700 members.  Another union, the delivery drivers, has 200 members. Let us assume the other 11 unions have an addition 300 people.  That is a lot of folks putting out the newspaper, 1,200 guesstimate, not counting management.  If they earn an average of $50,000 pa, then it is a total of $60,000,000 in salaries (and lets guess another 10 or 15 percent for benefits--I am just guessing here).  That is roughly $69 million.  A cut of $20 million would be a big slug.  I am guessing a 29 percent overall cut in pay and benefits.  It might be less and it might be more, depending upon total workers and average salary.  Still that is the size of the probem the union folks are looking at.

Lynne Lupia, at Left in Lowell, blogged about this issue this morning.  She picked it up from Blue Mass Group.  Her blog post title was "Dire Straights for Democracy." She sees the debt accumulated during various consolidations and suggests:

We need new anti-consolidation rules for our media, like we used to.  It’s sort of like those gianormous banks and insurance companies that have been created over the last couple of decades - AIG, Citi, Bank of America, who are too big to fail ...

I am not sure anyone is too big to fail. I am also not sure the newspapers will survive as they are.  I hope someone is trying to visualize a new paradigm for collecting and distributing news.  The current one is crashing and the recession is only expediting it.

Another proposal is to allow newspapers to have "non-profit" status.  Here Mr Conor Clark of The Atlantic takes on the proposal by Senator Benjamin Cardin to that end:

Senator Benjamin Cardin has an op-ed in this morning's Washington Post, defending his proposed law to let qualified newspaper companies obtain non-profit status.  I've written about the law before, and I still wish, where Cardin writes things like "Newspapers provide a vital service," that he instead said "newspapers provide a vehicle for vital newsgathering."  There's nothing vital about a bundle of dead trees!  When people get worried about the fate of the industry and the fate of democracy, they're worried about a decline in the amount and quality of information available to citizens.  They're not worried about the medium for transmitting the information.

I think Mr Clark has it exactly correct when he says "newspapers provide a vehicle for vital newsgathering."  Well, news gathering and news dispensing.

Maybe the future is weekly and monthly newspapers and magazines, publications like The Economist and The Atlantic, with lots of small local newspapers.  Plus The Washington Post and The Wall Street Journal.

Regards  —  Cliff