In your merciless Wednesday media column: attorneys general come after Backpage.com, a photo editor bravely falls on his sword, a new CFO at NewsBeast, Conde Nast figures out the internets, and the amusing NYT-Yahoo rumor.
The New York Times Co. has found it in its corporate heart to keep the Boston Globe. Why? Because the company's union-busting cutbacks totally worked.
Globe-flattening mustache habitrail Thomas Friedman, who's never met a hype-spouting CEO he wasn't incredibly impressed by, is no friend of the working man, this we know. But he's currently ruining labor talks at the Boston Globe, just by being his annoying self.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average hit a five-year low today, closing down nearly 450 points. And the New York Times Co. had an even worse day. The company's stock dove almost 10%, lower than it's been in decades. And just after the close of the markets came the payoff: the company is cutting its dividend to six cents…
Times editor Bill Keller's hand was suspected in the May departure of Michael Oreskes from the Times-owned International Herald Tribune. "Fiercely ambitious" Oreskes once vied for editorship of the Times itself, the Post's Keith Kelly reported at the time, and may have been made to pay for a "long history of…
So. Remember how Harbinger Capital Partners is buying and destroying the New York Times and the very institution of journalism itself? Almost 500 of you should! While we've focused mainly on jocular idiot Scott Galloway, the marketing professor Harbinger forced onto the Times' board, we neglected to mention that the…
The Sulzbergers' grip on the New York Times has loosened, a bit. The Times Company announced today that they've given in to the hedge funds that have ammassed 19 percent of the company's publicly traded stock and given them two seats on the company's board of directors. Harbinger Capital and Firebrand are now free to…
Harbinger Capital, the investment firm that is trying to BUY THE NEW YORK TIMES, has formally proposed adding four directors of their choosing to the paper's board. The Times is all "no thanks we have plenty of directors guys!" but Harbinger will probably point out to the SEC that they own 19% of the damn company,…
When we spoke to New York Times flack Catherine Mathis on Tuesday, she told us that the "$14 to 16 million" in planned staff reductions for this fourth quarter of the year were "not unusual." Mathis said she had "in front of me a chart that goes back to the first quarter of '06 and we've had buyouts in place in every…
Today's New York Times Company annual shareholder meeting is expected to be, in the words of the Times itself, a "contentious" affair. What with "dissident investors" like Morgan Stanley's Hassan Elmasry calling for the Sulzberger family to change the dual stock-structure that allows them to control the paper, the…
Dear Boston Newspaper Guild,
Remember the big-deal Punch Awards announced by the New York Times Company a few months ago? The big-deal cash prizes for stellar NYT Co. employees who did like ol' Arthur Sulzberger Sr. and demonstrated "a commitment to [the] Company's Core Purpose, Core Values and Rules of the Road"? Well, they've been announced,…
• Howell Raines' new book — The One That Got a Way — has an unoriginal title. [WWD]
• Bidding for Plame memoir reaches seven figures. And it sounds like the Howell Raines book party was boring. [NYP]
• People named Time Inc.'s mag of the year, for its excellent coverage of, among other things, the ill-fated…
The third paragraph of Arthur Sulzberger Jr.'s speech to the Times Co.'s annual shareholders meeting, as delivered two weeks ago and noted to us just the other day:
• NYT Co. searches for outside PR help in recent stock spat. Our tip: Go with Rubenstein; then the Post will be nice. [NYP]
• NYDN looks to buy Philly newspapers. You know, because Mort manages such a smoothly running ship here. [Philadelphia Inquirer]
• The latest Seventeen brand extension: A mag for rich girls. [WWD]
…
• Hey, Pinch, there's an upside to keeping your stock in the toilet: It's your chance to take the Times Co. private again. Who to fund the deal? Your buddy Steve Rattner, of course! [NYO]
• Did Jann Wenner try to finagle a discounted rate from the Strokes for the RS 1,000th issue party?? Or did the Strokes try to…
• Scott McClellan resigns as White House press secretary. Don't get too excited; not like the next one will be much better. [WP]
• Morgan Stanley reassures that it's not trying to force the sale of the Times Co. No, it's just trying to turn it into another Gannett. [NYT]
• This week, Conde Nast discovers internet…
• Pulitzer winners lunch together — before the awards are announced! Scandal! [E&P]
• Morgan Stanley wants to end NYT Co.'s two-tiered stock structure, which keeps the Sulzbergers in control. Much as we like to make fun of the Sulzies: Dear God, are these people insane? [TheStreet.com]
• A day after the Times…
• Steve Friedman, former NBC and CBS morning guru, returns to CBS News. Just in case there weren't enough variables in the Katie-Diane-Charlie-Evening News-Wall News Tonight morning-show calculus. [NYT]
• Remember the big launch of the Discovery Times Channel? Yeah, us barely, too. Turns out the Times Co. has a chance…
