Tag Results for New York Times Co.

Trying to figure out where the Boston Globe stands in the New York Times Co. firmament is a little like analyzing the ins and outs of the old Soviet Politburo based on their position on the podium during the May Day parade.

Nevertheless, I couldn’t help but be struck by a story in today’s Times (it also appears in the Globe) reporting that Times content will soon be featured on 850 screens in public places in five cities — including Boston.

The content, according to the story, by Times media reporter Richard Pérez-Peña, will be shown on screens owned by RGM Networks in places such as coffee shops, casual restaurants and newsstands at airports.

Last year, of course, the Times Co. tried to sell the Globe after months of angst, including a threat to shut the paper down, if the paper’s unions wouldn’t agree to $20 million in givebacks. The sale was called off amid reports that neither of the two bidders was willing or perhaps able to come up with sufficient cash.

The Globe remains the Times Co.’s second-biggest paper. So you’d think that the company would avoid doing something that would benefit the Times at the expense of the Globe.

Not to make too much of this. It’s a modest venture, and it’s not as though the Times Co. never promotes its flagship in Boston. But it does play into the notion that, once the economy improves, Arthur Sulzberger and company will put the Globe on the market once again.

Former Boston Newspaper Guild president Dan Totten (photo) signed another union official’s name on his paycheck in order to circumvent a dispute involving unauthorized expenses Totten had rung up on his union credit card, according to an audit conducted by the U.S. Department of Labor.

The results of the audit were laid out in a Nov. 17 letter from the Employment Standards Administration of the Office of Labor-Management Standards (OLMS) in the Department of Labor’s Boston office. The letter was sent to Patrice Sneyd, Guild treasurer. The Guild is the largest union at the Boston Globe, and was involved in a months-long dispute last year with the Globe’s corporate owner, the New York Times Co., over a management demand for $10 million in union givebacks.

The Guild removed Totten on Dec. 2 after allegations of improprieties arose. (See previous posts.) Totten has appealed his removal and maintained he did nothing wrong. The Department of Labor letter is a public document, but it was missing from the agency’s Web site until recently. (Read the entire letter.)

Although the letter lays out numerous deficiencies in Totten’s administration of union business, one of the more intriguing unanswered questions has involved allegations that Totten signed someone else’s name on his paycheck — an issue in the Guild’s decision to remove him. The letter offers an explanation.

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With 2009 drawing to a close, it’s now possible to say something that would have been inconceivable six months ago: the New York Times Co. is still the owner of the Boston Globe and the Worcester Telegram & Gazette, and is likely to remain so for the foreseeable future.

Was it all a dream? Starting last spring, and stretching well into the summer, there was nothing but tumult. First the Times Co. demanded — and ultimately got — $20 million in concessions from the Globe’s unions. The drama was high, as management threatened to shut down the paper if the unions refused to meet its demands, while the Boston Newspaper Guild — by far the largest union at the Globe — rejected one set of concessions before finally bowing to the inevitable.

Then the Times Co. put both papers on the market. And, for a while, it looked like a significant restoration was in the works. A group headed by former Globe executive Steve Taylor emerged as a leading would-be possible buyer for the Globe, and former T&G editor Harry Whitin looked like he might be moving into the publisher’s office at his old paper.

But Times Co. executives decided to hold on to the Globe. Then, yesterday, they announced that the T&G was no longer for sale, either. (Photo is of Union Square in Worcester.)

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Boston Globe reporter Sean Murphy, who was the prosecutor in the Boston Newspaper Guild’s ouster of president — now former president — Dan Totten spoke with me a little while ago. Murphy is highly critical of remarks Totten made in an e-mail reported yesterday by the Boston Herald’s Jessica Heslam. Says Murphy:

All I want to say is that this was a prosecution, not a persecution. Mr. Totten was not the victim of a political vendetta. He was a victim of his own bad conduct. I was asked to be the prosecutor and agreed to do so. It was done by the book. There was no personal animosity. Any suggestion otherwise is false. Any suggestion that I was biased is false. I was well known to be a “no” vote on both contract proposals, which was in line with the position of Mr. Totten. I did not participate in any recall efforts. I was known to eschew recall.

Murphy adds that, though he did attend a meeting to discuss Totten’s possible removal, Totten “knows full well I expressed great skepticism.”

I asked Murphy whether there has been any talk about whether the accusations made against Totten by the union could result in the involvement of law enforcement. Murphy’s response: “I have not broached that subject nor has anybody in my presence.”

Both the Boston Globe and the Boston Herald today report on the ouster of Boston Newspaper Guild president Dan Totten, whose leadership during the union’s months-long standoff with the Globe’s owner, the New York Times Co., was widely criticized.

Each story raises more questions than it answers, starting with the use of the word “guilty” to describe the internal ruling against Totten on Wednesday. That’s a pretty loaded term, but neither account gives any indication whether it’s one that the union specifically uses, or if it’s just a less-than-legally-precise description of what happened.

As for the charges against Totten, let’s take a look at the specifics:

• He was found to have signed the name of another union official to his own paycheck.
• He was found to have improperly used his union credit card to buy $254 worth of personal items.
• He was found not to have produced receipts in a timely manner.

Are any of these accusations the sort of thing that law enforcement would find interesting? Perhaps the second item, although — not to downplay the seriousness of the allegation — it probably wouldn’t be worth the time given how little money was at stake. But it would seem to me that if Totten is not under any sort of criminal investigation, then we should tread carefully before labeling him a union crook.

As for the two other items, you could argue whether Totten should be punished for signing someone else’s name so that he could cash his own paycheck, but it was, after all, his own paycheck. Not producing receipts in a timely manner? You’ve got to be kidding.

I want to make it clear that I’m not sitting in judgment of anyone. Perhaps Totten really was, uh, guilty of serious malfeasance. My only point is that we don’t know.

I’d really like to see someone dig into this and find out whether we are truly talking about malfeasance, or if instead Totten was sacrificed because his members are unhappy with the way he dealt with the Times Co.

The Guild-Times Co. standoff was the biggest local media story of the year. Totten’s fall is an important element of that.

With New York Times (NYT) stock at $7.65 a share - it was flirting with $40 five years ago - NYT shareholders might feel somewhat down on their luck.

Then again, maybe they're overlooking the White Knight scenario.

This morning, in the wake of Warren Buffet's massive offer for Burlington Northern Railroad, CNBC suggested that the Times might also find a willing suitor. Google, the network noted, pledged just six weeks ago to make one acquisition a month. And with NYT hovering near historic lows and Google currently topping $533 a share - boasting $5.94 billion in revenue last quarter - might a potential marriage be in the offing?

Google CEO Eric Schmidt has long admitted that newspapers have been crucial to his company's success. Now, perhaps, we'll see the favor returned.

The NY Times has decided not to sell The Boston Globe.  What’s behind the decision? What’s it mean for Globe staffers and readers?

New York Times publisher Arthur Sulzberger and CEO Janet Robinson have sent a note to employees of the Boston Globe, saying that the newspaper is no longer for sale, but that the Worcester Telegram & Gazett remains in play, Boston.com is reporting.

The Sulzberger/Robinson memo cites recent cost-cutting moves, including reductions of union and management salaries and printing plant consolidation as well as new revenues from increased newstand and home-deliver prices, as proof that the Globe "is on a path to a more secure financial future."

Other than that, the memo appears to raise many more questions than it answers. Questions like:

* What happened to the two bids that reportedly came in from the two groups - members of the Taylor family and Platinum Equity -  that were attempting to the buy the paper?

* Did the cancellation of the sale have anything to do with the recently-reported increased pension liabilities for the Globe?

* Will the Times Company now launch a Boston regional edition of the New York Times, like the ones it recently unveiled in San Francisco and Chicago?

I have to admit that this one caught me by surprise. I had viewed a Times sale of the Globe as a lead-pipe cinch, and I appear to have been wrong. But then again, that prediction was based on an assumption that the Times would act rationally in its own best interest, which hasn't always been the case either.

Anyway, we'll see what Wall Street thinks of the decision tomorrow.

UPDATE: At 2:21 p.m. Thursday, New York Times shares were essentially unchanged after announcement, down about half of one percent.

One can only imagine the glee that folks at the Boston Globe must have felt when they came across a photo of prospective owner Tom Gores looking like he’s starring in the community-theater remake of “Saturday Night Fever.” The photo leads a long piece on Gores’ tenure at the San Diego Union-Tribune.

Wearing a flamboyantly pinstriped black suit jacket over a black shirt strategically unbuttoned to show off his smooth chest (and don’t miss the black-and-white polka-dot handerchief), Gores comes across as an exceedingly unlikely candidate to stabilize the Globe’s finances while preserving its journalism. The story dwells in some detail on embarrassing facts about Gores’ personal life as well.

I should note that the photo is credited to Gores’ firm, Platinum Equity. So he must be quite proud of it.

Still, you never know. Platinum is one of two groups in the running to purchase the Globe and the Worcester Telegram & Gazette from the New York Times Co. The other, favored by most people I talk with, is headed by former Globe executive Stephen Taylor and former Globe publisher Ben Taylor, prominent members of the family that sold the paper to the Times Co. in 1993.

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After a few weeks of simply printing them, the Boston Globe is creeping back into its own headlines.

The latest story, out today, has members of the Newspaper Guild unit at the paper launching a petition drive to remove the union’s top leadership. The recall is based on what some members are calling a lack of basic communication between leadership and membership. The issue caused considerable consternation during the recent contract negotiations, and recently flared up again when the already-bruised rank and file learned about a surprise possible rise in their health-plan costs.

Earlier this week, business reporter Beth Healy reported that Celtics co-owner Stephen Pagliuca and former advertising executive Jack Connors had officially ended their bid to buy the Globe, given Pagliuca’s decision to run for the US Senate. With it ended the only non-profit bid in what had been a three-way sweepstakes to buy the Globe from the New York Times Co.