I believe last year, before some union concessions, the best bid for the embattled Boston Globe was 0$ - i.e. just an assumption of debt and liabilities. (Recall Newsweek sold for only $1.)
Valuing the Globe is really beyond my skill-set as I simply don't know how ironclad the union contracts are. Though I'm quite sure the paper with the old salaried-journalist model is in fact worthless.
Someone in a comment thread made a remark about the political persuasion of the buying group and that leads me to believe that this prospective buyer is a consortium of new Boston Morons. So I will skew my bet accordingly high.
I say they'll bid $40 million - even though I think it's probably worth more like $15 million, at best.
One note about the salaried-journalist model...
I would write for the Globe from home, in my briefs, if they paid me, say $100 per article for 100 articles over the course of a year. They could offer that ten grand to scores of eager and talented bloggers and aspiring journalists and produce much better content at a fraction of their current costs. They'd save handsomely on healthcare, office rent, technology, etc. I'd gain stature, exposure, even more ego, and I'd drive traffic to my website.
Of course the current management would NEVER do something as *liberal* or as intelligent as this.
And I sincerely doubt the next one will either.
See also:
Boston Globe - Full of Nothing!
Bob Ryan - Defining Joke
Help Me, Please
"Homeschooling" Censored at the Boston Globe
Boston Globe - A New Nadir.
Hard Evidence Smacks Globies In The Face!
Newspapers - There Goes *Internet Growth*
5 comments:
I bet if they did follow the 10k model with 20 writers, they would no longer suck.
But, they need to let me pick the writers.
I don't think they could possibly make that paper profitable.
You see, the real knuckleheads in Boston, the core market(?), won't tolerate a diversity of opinion or coverage in their paper.
There was a story today in the Globe about how three Maine newspapers just eliminated *comments* from their sites.
On that Globe article were scores of Globe readers urging their paper to do the same - ELIMINATE COMMENTS.
Story here.
In other words, say a Rupert Murdoch type bought the paper....whatever new readers he brought in might scare away the illiberals.
I have never really had any contact with Bostonians, but from reading your blog, feh, ain't no loss.
"Hey, you know what would make this online paper really good? NOT ALLOWING FEEDBACK."
Hey, you know what would be a really good idea? Vote to PAY income taxes. And that one was not even close, if memory serves.
Yeah 70% voted FOR the state income tax. With support like that they ought have asked them to raise taxes on themselves.
The reason you haven't met any Bostonians is....because they never leave!
Provincials, all of them. Blueneck rubes if you will.
In a couple of weeks, I'm guessing we will vote against reducing the sales tax to 3%.
Because we all know that there is no way the state could function on just income tax, gas taxes, lottery money, excise taxes, fees, alcohol taxes, federal money, corporate taxes, cigarette taxes, fines, etc. etc. etc.
Post a Comment