The Boston's Globe management and a key union are working together to give the newspaper a chance to survive. A deadline with the Boston Newspaper Guild has been extended another day in hopes that a compromise can be reached. If not, in spite of the support from many readers, it will go the way of other big-city newspapers.
History of the Boston Globe
The Boston Globe was started in 1872. It was originally a daily but began publishing a Sunday edition in 1877. It remained a private company until 1973 when it became an a subsidiary of Affiliated Publications. One year later it started publishing the Boston Evening Globe which lasted for one hundred years. On October 1, 1993 it was purchased by the New York Times. In hopes of increasing their circulation, the Times purchased the Worcester Telegram & Gazette in 1999. To meet the increasing need for being a multi-media source of news and information, it added Boston.com on the Internet in 1995.
Efforts to Save the Globe
The New York Times Co., which owns Globe had threatened to shut down it down if it could not cut costs and get the concessions from the union because it stands to lose $85 million this year. In a statement to the press, Daniel Totten, said that the union members had already taken cuts in pay and benefits that would save the Globe.
Big City Newspapers Challenge
If the Globe closes, it will be following other big-city newspapers that were also losing money because of the recession and the way readers habits of readers have changed since the Internet became more popular. The Seattle Post and Rocky Mountain News were forced to close as readership online increased. Another factor is that advertising revenue has been shrinking as the U.S. economy tightened.
Support for the Globe
The Globe still has many supporters among its readers, including Senators Edward Kennedy and John Kerry. Kerry wrote a letter to Times Chairman Arthur Sulzberger, urging that he find a way to keep the Globe alive. However, the managers of the newspaper say that they need $20 million in concessions and has already cut costs at its other properties, including the New York Times itself.
Whether the Boston Globe will survive depends upon whether the the cuts in operating costs and union pay and pension benefits will give it reprieve long enough for it to survive in the rapidly shrinking newspaper media.
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