"ALM needs to be shamed," writes a desperate media employee drowning in the stank hellhole that is his office. Read and marvel at the depths to which what was once Steven Brill's prize jewel has sunk

OK. I got over, sort of, our furlough week (the unpaid vacation we all had
to take). The ever changing company name unnerves, but I'm a peon. As long
as the paycheck clears my money could come from the South Carolina GOP and
I wouldn't care. But this company has pushed me over the edge today. For
some reason I work with men who think it's cool to leave their reading
material in the bathroom. As the day moves on the bathroom is filled with
printed articles from ESPN and a few newspapers. Occasionally the stuff
left is work related. Only occasionally. All of this is left on the floor
as if the restroom is the private world of these media giants. And don't
get me started about seeing the number of people who walk out without
washing their hands!

Now I know you probably think I'm some neat freak who counts his paper
clips. I'm not (394 in case in you are wondering), but come on! Are we such
bottom media feeders we can't respect our co-workers, wash our hands AND
throw out our bathroom readings? Are we so ashamed of writing about lawyers
(shudder) that we forget courtesy to the person in the next pod?

Shame us Gawker. Tell us what slobs we are and to pick up our game. Point
to other media companies where this behavior is frowned upon. Remind ALM
employees that washing your hands is probably a good thing. Tell us the
restroom is not our home bathroom and to stop treating it as such! Please.
You are my last hope.

The restroom is not your home bathroom, ALM employees. Shame on you.


Irresponsible members of the liberal media at the Boston Globe published and disseminated to the public a suggestion for a Halloween pumpkin design that "called for decorators to create a pumpkin with a three-foot flame." After a stern warning from the fire marshal, the paper has removed the suggestion from its website. Score one for law and order.


Nifty: The Toledo Blade is offering $1 subscriptions to the unemployed. Since the unemployment rate in Toledo is one million percent, this should just make the Toledo Blade fold faster than ever. But, nice gesture.


A tipster sends more info on yesterday's layoffs at Glamour:

they let go two of the most beloved, smartest and most hard-working deputy editors, both of whom had been there around a decade. people left behind wonder how the magazine will even get printed without these two women.
also lost:
an accessories associate
fashion credits editor
articles editor
what most would agree were the best photo editor and the best graphic designer
a production director
and others
yikes
layoffs seemed very political...though the word was "reorganizing"...

[Bathroom pic: Flickr]

Though just last month the company <a href="">seemed poised to unload it, Chairman Arthur Sulzberger Jr. and Chief Executive Janet Robinson announced today they are, in fact, keeping the paper in their clutches. They're keeping a tight lip on their backstage conversations, but according to a very short memo they sent out they knew what they were doing all along:

[The paper] has significantly improved its financial footing by following the strategic plan it set out at the beginning of the year. All along, we explicitly recognized that a careful restructuring of the Globe was one possible route and, thanks to your hard work, that is precisely what has been done.

Considering the sad state of journalism today, one would expect the Globe newsroom would be flush with excitement. Not so. One source said the general feeling resembled that of "ambivalence" because most people wanted a new buyer to bring a "better day." As if such a thing exists!

Pinch Sulzberger paid a visit to Globe employees yesterday to give them the good news that now that they've finally agreed to those $20 million in cutbacks, their NYT Co. overlords are feeling slightly less pressed to sell them off immediately.

On Wednesday, the company executives thanked employees for their sacrifices and Mr. Sulzberger said that as a result, "our hand is not being forced. We are not in a situation where we must absolutely sell."

But the executives would not say how much the paper was still losing, or whether it was now in the black.

Yes, we could theoretically hold on to you and eat your now-marginally-smaller multimillion-dollar annual losses. But we probably won't. Punch, anyone?
[Pic: AP]

NYT Co. executives are trying to be smooth about the whole situation, like "Hey, we could sell, sure. Or not. Whatever. If not, we'll just keep it. We like it. So yeah. But make us an offer, if you want. Or not. But you should. Just make us one. Do I hear a dollar? One dollar?"

In fact, they hear $35 million, according to the Globe! That's how much San Diego-based PE firm Platinum Equity's offering for the paper. They're the same forward-thinking contrarians who bought the San Diego Union-Tribune back in March! How did that go?

Three days after buying the Union-Tribune, Platinum laid off 18 percent of the staff, or 192 positions.

The Boston Globe has a nice big chunk of real estate that could be sold, too. Called "Boston Globe headquarters." Not that Pinch Sulzberger would ever let that happen!
[Pic: Flickr]

Here's how the Globe describes its own balance sheet, roughly:

Real estate value: $48 million
Projected losses this year: $85 million
Total pension liabilities: $59 million

Mix those together mathematically and you'll see that a new owner could just eke out a profit if they were paid $100 million to take the Globe off the NYT Co's hands! Not that we are actually mathematicians. But perhaps these people are:

One group is led by Boston Celtics co-owner and Bain Capital executive Stephen G. Pagliuca and Jack Connors, the chairman of Partners HealthCare and a former advertising mogul. The other is led by Stephen E. Taylor, a former Globe executive and member of the family that sold the Globe to the Times Co. in 1993 for $1.1 billion.

If the original owners get it back, it would really help highlight just how completely the Sulzbergers got taken in this deal. And imagine, just a week ago the company was refusing to comment on "whether" they were planning on selling this paper. Jokers!
[Boston Globe. Pic: AP. Do not mistake our estimates for something "plausible!"]

The New York Times successfully got the entire news media establishment to agree not to report that NYT reporter David Rohde had been kidnapped by the Taliban for seven months. But now the paper is reporting on Taliban kidnapping of US army private Bowe Bergdahl, by traveling to his hometown, despite his family's request for privacy [see detailed discussion at NYTpicker]. Which would be perfectly normal, except for the Rohde precedent. The paper will probably come to realize the way it handled Rohde was philosophically inconsistent, then do the same thing when it happens again, because, safe/ sorry.


Wealthy New York mag owner Bruce Wasserstein is reportedly looking into buying BusinessWeek, though it's not clear how interested he really is. We think he should. Jon Fine says BW's losing around $40 mil per year, and Bruce Wasserstein is rich. So he would be a better buyer than a poor man would be, in terms of how quickly each would go broke were they losing $40 mil per year. Business is all about logic, okay.


The New York Times Co. says it will sell its stake in the Boston Red Sox by January, but CEO Janet Robinson refused to comment on, ha, "speculation" that the company wants to sell the Boston Globe. Ha. Can they afford not to sell it? It would be like not selling a pickpocket, that lives in your pocket. In other Boston-related media news, "Boston Herald to stop distributing gun catalog."


Hibbity hoo, Brits are crying into their handkerchiefs over the death of Fleet Street: "Agence France-Presse, the last major news organization operating in the legendary media thoroughfare, packed up its office and relocated to less romantic, if somewhat cheaper, premises elsewhere in the city." Actually, we're kidding. Nobody's taking any notice whatsoever.

Laurel Touby became a middle class millionaire after selling Mediabistro for $23 million two years ago today; now, she's officially free of the corporate yoke. She's a consultant (for Mediabistro). Despite everything we've ever said, Laurel Touby is clearly smarter than all of us.

A Boston Globe update! Haven't had one of those in a while. Newsroom union members are voting on their new package of cutbacks on Monday, after rejecting it last time, then deciding that wasn't so great after all. The alternative is the current 23% pay cut. But the outcome of the vote still seems unpredictable. Oh, Boston Globe. We don't envy you.

David Carr's profile of crazy-but-connected Hollywood blog supremo Nikki Finke makes the front page of the New York Times today, but not even the paper of record can turn up a new photo of Nikki. "Why is there only one Nikki Finke photo?" is Hollywood's greatest mystery.

Oh look some sort of cable news 'ad war' thing: CNN is running ads that say it's ""No. 1, with more viewers than Fox and MSNBC."

This came as a news flash to Fox and MSNBC, considering that both top CNN in the ratings. During the second quarter, Fox News — which has been handily beating CNN since January 2002 — more than doubled CNN's audience in prime time and for the entire day. Even MSNBC, a onetime also-ran in the cable news wars, topped CNN in weekday prime-time ratings for the first time in the second quarter.

At issue is the metric that CNN is using in the advertisement to back its claim. The cable news channel is attributing its No. 1 status to a cumulative number that reflects anyone who watched CNN for six minutes in a given month, a tidbit it chose not to disclose in the ad.

Why not just say you are less fucking stupid than the competition, CNN?

The image associated with this post is best viewed using a browser.Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya was murdered in 2006. Earlier this year, four men were acquitted of the crime. Now, the Russian Supreme Court has overturned the acquittal and ordered a retrial. The concept of "double jeopardy" is perhaps a little different in Russia, but, in any case, one more step towards justice. (Hopefully? We await Keith Gessen's guidance on this case).

The image associated with this post is best viewed using a browser.An editor at the University of Hawaii student newspaper has been let go after an investigation found that he made up at least 29 separate fictional sources in news stories over a year and a half. The same guy was also once accused of stealing $8,000 in liquor. Related, maybe?

The image associated with this post is best viewed using a browser.Journalism Online, the new startup by Steven Brill and others that's based on getting people to pay for online news, has revealed its business plan: it expects 10% of readers to pay. Other projections by other groups in the past have estimated that 2% of readers might be willing to pay. We, and the media at large, wish them success.

The image associated with this post is best viewed using a browser.Newsroom workers at the Boston Globe finally saw the details of their union's new contract agreement with the NYT Co., last night, which includes a 9% pay cut, increases in the cost of benefits, furlough days, and other cutbacks. Nobody's too happy about it, reportedly. "I'm voting ‘yes,' but not enthusiastically," says one Globe reporter. Well, that's about all you could ask for.

The image associated with this post is best viewed using a browser.Humble patron of the arts Les Moonves, the CEO of CBS, got a 76% pay cut this year, all the way down to $13.6 million, which is even a larger percentage drop than the company's stock price took (two thirds). Two thousand other CBS employees got 100% pay cuts.

The image associated with this post is best viewed using a browser.More on successful novelist Joe McGinniss, who yesterday bemoaned the terrible state of the Daily Beast's freelance contracts: the contract has a "confidentiality agreement," for one thing, which, what the hell could be the purpose of that, for a freelancer? Anyhow TDB says they'll pay McGinniss his $250 whether he signs it or not, so all other freelancers, take note.

The image associated with this post is best viewed using a browser.TruTV's 'In Session' programming is shutting down, which will leave up to 65 people out of work. And MTV Networks has laid off 75 employees from MTV, VH1, and Logo.

The image associated with this post is best viewed using a browser.Now that the Boston Globe's newsroom has finally reached a contract deal with management, it should be much easier for the NYT Co. to sell the paper off to some charitable Bostonian. That's just speculation, of course, but watch it happen, quick! But, please, you god damn heathens, respect the fact that NYT Co. CEO Janet Robinson "resents" all these rumors surrounding her company. Don't you "media" people have any respect at all, for the wishes of media CEOs? Christ.

The deal as it stands would force 670 Globe employees to accept an 8% decrease in pay, as well as reductions in benefits, which would save the paper an estimated $10 million annually in operating costs. More details of the agreement will be disclosed to guild members at a meeting scheduled for later today, and a member vote on the proposal is scheduled for July 20th.

Perhaps most importantly for all parties involved, the agreement helps the Times clear one of the biggest hurdles in their effort to find a sucker to take the Globe off of their balance sheet.

Several potential investors are considering whether to submit bids separately or as a team. The company bought the paper in 1993 from the Taylor family for $1.1 billion, and it was highly profitable for several years, but it has become the biggest drain on the company's finances.

In a deeply troubled industry, The Globe has suffered more than most from the steep declines in newspaper advertising and circulation.

People briefed on the thinking of potential buyers said that winning union concessions, particularly the elimination of job guarantees, would significantly improve the chances of a sale.

There's a lot of time between now and July 20th, and if any collection of saps can figure out a new and innovative way to screw themselves over, it's the employees of the Boston Globe.

The most remarkable thing about yesterday's NYT story on the whole Globe mess was the permeating sense that if both sides had just talked to each other honestly—and if they union had told its members exactly what the situation was—this whole thing could have been avoided. Reporters are smart enough to understand that a lower-paying job is better than no job.

But no, the union wanted to "stall," and management wasn't particularly proactive, and so the union ended up rejecting a pay cut of less than 10% in favor of a pay cut of 23% Which made the union first say it would fight it out with the labor regulators; but now, it seems, everyone's coming to realize that this paper just doesn't have all that much (or any) money, and that rejecting the original deal was a mistake. So they're almost back where they started:

Like the original proposal, the new agreement would cut $10 million in wages and benefits and eliminate lifetime job guarantees for about 190 workers.

The main difference this time around is that the union wants to swap a smaller pay cut for steeper benefit cuts. The original proposal would have reduced wages by about 10 percent.

Surely they could have gotten this done two weeks ago and saved the old, homebound citizens of Boston some stress. Their lives are hard enough having to live with the Red Sox.
[NYP, BG]

The image associated with this post is best viewed using a browser.Henry Blodget, who's a pretty smart dude, says the TV industry is headed down the same path as newspapers, and there is "no way" to save its business model, which will inevitably crumble in the face of the internet's superiority. Crikey. What about moving Nightline to the 10 p.m. slot? Would that do it?

The image associated with this post is best viewed using a browser.Things in the magazine industry may be getting slightly less apocalyptic! A new five-year forecast predicts that ad revenue will start rising again by 2013. Four-More-Years! Yes.

The image associated with this post is best viewed using a browser.A magazine called Sang Bleu is billed as "possibly the most highbrow publication ever devoted to tattooing." Among the editor's own tattoos: "a tribute to Georgia O'Keeffe that I tattooed myself on top of my left ankle." Yep, he qualifies.

The image associated with this post is best viewed using a browser.Boston Globe "bargaining" update: union officials put off a meeting with the National Labor Relations Board because they're still bargaining with NYT Co. officials about the 23% pay cut. What's taking so long? "There's only so many ways you can get to $10 million without hurting people," a union official says. Hey, if there is one way to do so, that would be a win.

The image associated with this post is best viewed using a browser.Did you see the NYT magazine this weekend? It's slightly smaller! Also the paper has chosen a new font to help it squeeze more words on the page, in response. Every penny saved on newsprint these days helps, you know. Unfortunately the magazine also changed the layout of Deborah Solomon's weekly interviews, which was the best thing about them.

The image associated with this post is best viewed using a browser.What is happening at the upheaval-wracked Boston Globe today? Upheaval! Of a minor sort. The union is meeting with the NYT Co. to discuss that 23% pay cut. The union says it's still in "negotiations," but management says negotiations are over so I guess the meeting is just kind of a friendly consolation thing? David Carr goes out and gets estimates of what the Globe might sell for—the estimates range from $250 million to less than nothing. Maybe go ahead and sell to the guy who said $250 million?

The image associated with this post is best viewed using a browser.The Congressional Black Caucus thinks that the Sunday news shows should have more black guests and commentators. Which is possibly self serving and also true! "White people talking about Obama all the time" is not the same as "diversity," television people. Clarence Page can only be one place at a time!

The image associated with this post is best viewed using a browser.Among the every-magazine-in-the-world doing poorly these days: Forbes. If only we had a flat tax, things would be different!

MediaBistro's Hunter Walker files this weekend, noting that "if you were looking for a single anecdote to illustrate the sad collapse of print media, this is it." At first I read this as hyperbole, and then slowly realized he was right.

In an effort to drum up publicity for their cause, members at the Boston Globe newspaper guild are having some kind of sad barbecue they've cheekily titled the "Farewell to Fair Wages" party, when the paycut goes into effect tomorrow afternoon. They'll have a bluegrass band and hot dogs, which, as previously mentioned, they'll be trimming by 23%. Per their release:

On the day The Boston Globe plans to impose a 23 percent pay cut on nearly 700 reporters, editors and other employees — and the day before the New York Times Company and the Boston Newspaper Guild return to the negotiating table — union members and their families will gather in a reporter's backyard for a barbecue in the name of camaraderie and solidarity. There will be pot luck fare, a kiddie pool, a keg of beer, bluegrass music, and hot dogs — trimmed by 23 percent. Globe union members will be available to talk about the pay cut's effect on their lives. They will also discuss their hope that both sides can reach an agreement Monday that doesn't harm families so deeply — and that allows everyone to concentrate on producing the agenda-setting journalism that makes the Globe so vital to Boston and New England."

The image associated with this post is best viewed using a browser.

Walker also noted that the above release came from the PR/lobbying firm the guild hired for "strategic messaging," O'Neill and Associates. Sure, it's great to get the word out there, but wouldn't the Guild's cash be better spent on, say, subsidizing some of the more in-need members, or hiring lawyers to sort the entire thing out?

Apparently not. Instead, you've got newspaper people trying to drum up support amongst themselves after the first serious hit has already been taken. As opposed to, you know, getting with the times (pun unintended). Or creating some kind of strategy that would make their jobs less a relic of the past and more a profitable, necessary enterprise. Or at least a manageable one.

They've already taken the Boston Globe's owners, the New York Times Company, to task with the National Labor Relations Board for supposedly bargaining in bad faith. I'm almost willing to believe the Times' side, though, because maybe they're not paying attention to what's going on in New York, but their bosses' crystals balls don't exactly hold fiscal solvency in them.

The fact is: labor unions are great and important until they drive up the value of labor in dying industries unable to adapt to, well, the present. These are companies that can't afford to have anything overvalued because they spent the last five years ignoring the problems they're facing now. GM just went bankrupt. Sound familiar?

Then again, given the habitual pity-partying and more-than-sufficient self-interest Old Media types have in their own demise, pulling their shit together could prove impossible at this point. This might sound a little tough, but honestly guys? Put down the fucking hot dogs, and get to work. It's time to stop bitching and start figuring out how to keep the house up. And you can start by canning your terrible PR firm.

Boston Globe Staffers Throw Sad Pay Cut Potluck Party [MediaBistro]

The image associated with this post is best viewed using a browser.Respected Israel newspaper Haaretz did something different on June 10: they had their reporters take the day off, and they "sent 31 of Israel's finest authors and poets to cover the day's news." How'd that go?

The TV review by Eshkol Nevo opened with these words: "I didn't watch TV yesterday." And the weather report was a poem by Roni Somek, titled "Summer Sonnet."

As expected.

The image associated with this post is best viewed using a browser.The Boston Globe is spending up to a million bucks on an ad campaign to promote itself, even as it's cutting tens of millions from its budget. Yea, ad people will tell you it's an investment that will pay for itself, blah blah. We're not so sure. How about running a million bucks worth of ads in the Boston Globe, then? Bigger news hole, too! Oh and more Boston people are interested in maybe buying it.

The image associated with this post is best viewed using a browser.Tomorrow is the one-year anniversary of Tim Russert's death. Read some reminiscences from his pals, here. He was not so bad compared to the current menu of options.

The image associated with this post is best viewed using a browser.AVN Media, the king of porn industry trade magazines, is consolidating four of its six monthly magazines into one. Let's hope Novelty Business Magazine is not finished—in these times, Americans need novelty more than ever. Especially the children.

The image associated with this post is best viewed using a browser.David Kao, a 49 year-old "marketing executive at World Journal, the largest Chinese-language daily newspaper in the United States," was beaten, strangled to death, and robbed by two teenagers in Queens last week. Police say the teens had specifically targeted Asians for robberies before. They stole $115 from his wallet and used his car for two days of joyriding before being caught. Terrible.

The image associated with this post is best viewed using a browser.Esteemed journalistic enterprises Sears and AOL have teamed up to launch Good News Now, and internet news site that features happy news only, where they "count down the days, minutes and hours to the weekend." Do we not do that here, already?

The image associated with this post is best viewed using a browser.Longtime 'VJ' (strange term, no?) John Norris was laid off from MTV late last year. Are you in withdrawal and seeking your John Norris fix? Well buck up: he will be blogging about the Northside (Williamsburg indie music) Festival for the L Magazine this week. That' John Norris, blogging for the L Magazine, about the indie music festival in Williamsburg. Pay him a visit.

The image associated with this post is best viewed using a browser.Look, Intercontinental Real Estate Corp. is reportedly interested in buying the Boston Globe. Real estate and newspapers, two businesses that have something in common right now.

The Globe's union rejected a package of cutbacks this week that management said were absolutely necessary, resulting in a 23% pay cut for everyone. Which the union is challenging as illegal.

The Globe reports that the company was planning to offer the paper for sale no matter which way the union vote went, and apparently there are some humans out there interested in maybe buying the paper, for some reason.

Bid now: you could become the owner of a paper with heavy pension liabilities, an $85 million loss this year, an intransigent unionized work force, and no real prospects for an economic turnaround! And here's the union's argument, now:

"For the Times Co. to be in a position of strength with regard to selling The Boston Globe, it will have to reach a fair wage agreement with the Boston Newspaper Guild," Totten said, "one that forgoes the punitive action of cutting the wages of members by 23 percent. This will diminish the value of the paper by forcing the very best workers to go elsewhere."

Elsewhere where?
[Pic: AP]