Friday, April 3, 2009

Times threatens to shut down the Boston Globe without union concessions

All I can say is, Wow: ["Times co. threatens to shut down Globe"]. ["Globe faces $20M in cuts or closure"].
Actually, if the Globe is going to be closed, all I can say is that it couldn't happen to a bunch of more deserving people. Beyond Yvonne Abraham and a couple of other people, the majority of the crew over there are a bunch of arrogant, obnoxious, suck ups who have done more to manipulate and ruin Boston than probably any other media outlet in the city. They've reported biased journalism that has brought harm to a lot of people over the years.
For all the talk about what a loss it would be for Massachusetts, I don't know. It is a shell of the newspaper that it once was. And there are a slew of other newspapers out there that cover many of the communities that the Globe covers.
GateHouse New England, the company I work for, covers 110 cities and towns in Massachusetts with weeklies and dailies. Our company also has West Roxbury, Roslindale, and Allston-Brighton weeklies, as well as vibrant Cambridge and Somerville weeklies.
There are a lot of inner city weeklies like the Boston Courant, the Beacon Hill Times, the Back Bay Sun, the Fenway News, JP Gazette, and newspapers tailored to the black community, in the Bay State Banner, the Boston VOICE, and two Dorchester newspapers.
The Boston Herald will also remain, despite its alleged teetering. There are also weeklies like the Boston Phoenix and the Dig, covering both news and arts.
Potential former readers of the Globe can also find national and international news online, since they aren't doing much of that anymore.
In other words, the Globe probably won't be missed. Or, another daily newspaper operation could potentially open without the expensive union.
It is difficult for me to say, coming from a union household, but newspaper companies just can't pay reporters $50K annually to write a couple of stories or a column a week. Those salaries are not sustainable in the current economic environment and they haven't been for a long time. In order to survive, the Globe has to scale back to become an online edition or, stay in print, and bust the union. The owners have to say, Look, this is what we can afford to pay you. If the workers don't want to take the concessions, they can stock groceries somewhere. The simple fact is that no one is going to pay them that kind of money anywhere. So, if they want to work in the craft they love, they have to go down to what the market is willing to pay.

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