Globe Watch

When I came down to Breakfast, The Globe was here, a sign that it did not fold its tent and quietly steal away in the night.

The Lowell Sun had an AP story on page 2, but not on its web site.  An interesting point was that a 60 day notice to Globe employees and Massachusetts regulators is required if the paper is going to shutter.

The Boston Globe itself had the story on page 1, below the fold and linked here.

The latest problem is that there was a $4.5 million error in the original numbers:

Negotiations between the company and the Guild have been the most contentious.  Over the past few days the already difficult negotiations became complicated by what union officials described as an accounting mistake by management, which, late Wednesday night, suddenly removed $4.5 million in potential givebacks from the table.

In calculating the value of potential concessions, management had mistakenly included 80 Guild employees who have left the Globe through buyouts, layoffs, and resignations since January, according to union officials.  Once the wages and benefits of those employees were factored out, it reduced the value of the potential concessions available to the Guild.  When negotiations began a month ago, the company provided a menu of possible salary and benefit cuts that it valued at $14 million, but now that same menu is valued at about $10 million.  There has been no clear public explanation of how 80 people could have such a dramatic impact.

The article has no public explanation as to how The Globe can continue to operate when it is so statistically challenged.  Whenever I see a statistic in The Globe I immediate suspect it it is wrong. As Damon Runyon, a newspaper man himself, would say, that is the way to bet.  We are dealing with serious long term innumeracy at The Globe.  This little accounting error should not have been a shock, given the track record.

My wife and I are in agreement that we hope The Globe does not go away.  We like sharing it over breakfast.  We both feel it has an editorial line that leaves a lot to be desired, but it does provide the news sports and comics we like to check out in the morning.

Regards  —  Cliff