Sizing up the paper’s future as it approaches the deadline from hell

What would Boston’s media landscape look like without the BostonGlobe?

It still feels strange to ask the question: local press watchers (including me) have long assumed that the tabloid BostonHerald would die before its bigger, more sophisticated, more popular broadsheet competitor. Not anymore. On April 2, the New York Times Company — which purchased the Globe from the Taylor family in 1993 for $1.1 billion, and has seen its value fall catastrophically since then — said it would close the Globe if the paper’s unions didn’t make $20 million in concessions within a month. And on April 23 — the same day that Times Co. chairman Arthur Sulzberger Jr. spoke soothingly about placing the Globe on the “path to sustainability” — his corporate counterpart, president and CEO Janet Robinson, told Globe reporter Keith O’Brien that the May Day union-concession deadline was still very much in effect.

The total disappearance of the Globe isn’t the only possible bad outcome here. Not quite as gloomy, but still ominous, for example, is a scenario in which the paper could end up online only, with a skeleton staff, à la the Seattle Post-Intelligencer. Or, as Herald business writer Jay Fitzgerald has suggested, the Times Co. could wrest concessions from the Globe’s unions — then take it into bankruptcy anyway while searching for a buyer.

Still, the worst-case scenario has to be taken seriously — which is precisely what the state’s congressional delegation (minus Congressman Steve Lynch) did when it sent a letter of concern to Sulzberger this Tuesday. Curiously, in terms of readership (as opposed to circulation), the Globe is actually doing well: while weekday print circulation dropped from about 382,000 to 302,000 in the past two years, boston.com, the paper’s Web site, attracted 5.7 million unique visitors in the month of February. (The Herald’s weekday print circulation fell more steeply, from 201,000 to 150,000.) And the circulation revenues for the Times Co.’s New England Media Group, a subgroup of publications that is dominated by the Globe, are almost unchanged ($38.5 million in early 2007, $38.1 million in early 2009).

The problem is advertising. For a bevy of related reasons — including the shift to online readership, the Craigslist-induced death of classified advertising, the incredible shrinking US economy, and the fact that online advertising simply isn’t that profitable — the Globe’s ad revenue has plummeted, from $97.2 million in the first quarter of 2007 to $55.7 million today. Inevitably, the paper’s bottom line has suffered: the Globe lost $50 million in 2008; this year, it’s projected to lose $85 million (including severance costs).

Meanwhile, the Times Co. itself is in enough trouble that it’s borrowing $250 million, at high interest, from dubious Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim Helú — a man described in the New York Times‘ “Editorial Observer” column in 2007 as a latter-day “robber baron” — and, in return, giving Slim warrants that could ultimately land him control of 17 percent of the Times Co.’s common stock. Compared to that leap of faith, shutting down the Globe would be easy.

It would also be devastating. The Globe has plenty of critics (again, including this reporter). But there’s no denying the outsized role it plays in setting Boston’s news agenda. The paper has Boston’s only full-time religion reporter, five health and science reporters, 36 metro reporters, 122 reporters total in its newsroom. And thanks to this staffing depth — as well as the skill of many of its journalists — the Globe produces good, sometimes great work that dominates the local conversation. Tune into WBUR-FM or WBZ-AM in the morning, or local TV news at night, and you’re more likely to see or hear a follow-up to a Globe story than you are a story that originated anywhere else. It’s true that the Globe’s demise would create major opportunities for other news outlets, including the Phoenix. But even as a group, it would be exceedingly difficult for the rest of us to fill the post-Globe vacuum.

‘Much bigger than us’
Given all this, Globe editor Marty Baron’s April 23 speech at Boston’s Seaport Hotel was packed with dramatic potential. Would he rail against his corporate overlords? Or urge the Globe’s unions to act quickly for the greater civic good? Or plead for a local savior — perhaps Red Sox principal owner John Henry, who’s reportedly interested in acquiring the paper?

He would not. Instead, Baron immediately depressurized the proceedings. A joke at the expense of George Regan — the Boston PR bigwig who was sponsoring the speech, and who’d collapsed after a recent appearance by Boston Mayor Tom Menino — helped relax the room. (”George, it’s great to see you looking well. Please try to stay upright during lunch.”) So, too, did an early disclaimer: rather than holding forth on the Globe crisis, Baron would reprise a speech he recently gave at the University of Oregon — coincidentally, on the very same day that the Times Co. was first delivering its ultimatum.

But there were some telling deviations from the original. Baron began with a brisk, relentlessly comprehensive synopsis of the crises hitting newspapers around the country, regardless, he noted, of location, ownership structure, or ideology. For Bostonians inclined to blame the Globe’s woes on the Times Co.’s out-of-town ownership, or the Globe’s alleged liberal bias, the message was clear: this problem is much, much bigger than us.

But how to interpret Baron’s apparent acknowledgment, near the speech’s close, of Fourth Estate fallibility? “No one pretends that we in journalism are perfect at what we do today, or what we’ve ever done,” he allowed. “In fact, we’re highly imperfect, as people in any profession are. But most of us — I firmly believe that, at the Globe, we strive to meet high standards.” The meaning here depends on that final, ambiguous pause: was this a peace offering for those who’ve accused the Globe of arrogance, or conversely, a proud editor indulging in some modest end-of-mission reflection?

Once the Q-and-A started, it took five minutes for the Globe’s possible closure to come up — and when it did, the questions were softballs. In response to one query, Baron said he’d been heartened by Boston’s overall response to the crisis, the gleeful malice of certain anonymous boston.com commentators notwithstanding. He struck a grimmer note, though, when asked about the union negotiations. “They’re very critical,” Baron said of management-labor discussions. “If the revenue’s not there, the cost can’t be there. That’s a fact of life. So the company is seeking to lower costs, as other newspapers have — including newspapers here in Boston, by the way.” That last bit actually seemed to invoke the Herald (though not by name) to justify the Times Co.’s current threat.

Based on conversations I’ve had, the Globe newsroom is generally comfortable with the measured tone Baron has struck since the Times Co. made its threat. One staffer put it this way: “His hands are tied. I think he’s fucking heartbroken that he can’t do more.” (Side note: while there’s a rumor that the Times Co. told Baron he couldn’t participate in Senator John Kerry’s hearings this week on the future of newspapers, Baron says he chose not to testify given long-standing Times Co. tradition, and that he had no desire to appear.) But at the Seaport, Baron’s muted tone didn’t exactly inspire optimism. After the editor took his seat, a gentleman at my table offered his assessment. “What we’re seeing here,” he predicted, “is the death of a newspaper.”

MIXED MESSAGE: A Faneuil Hall rally in support of the Globe had its moments of clarity and inspiration, but was mostly overcome by misplaced speakers, clumsy tactics, and an air of depressed defeatism.

A union divided

There have been rumbles of dissatisfaction from some members of the Boston Newspaper Guild — which is the Globe’s largest union, and represents both newsroom and non-newsroom members — for a while now. The current crisis has ratcheted up this frustration: on April 7, for example, the Herald reported that Globe reporter Donovan Slack sent a testy e-mail to the paper’s editorial employees after the Guild failed to promptly inform its members of the Times Co.’s threat. (”With all due respect,” Slack reportedly wrote, “I’m starting to wonder about our union leadership and whether we are going in the right direction.”)

Broadly speaking, (dis)satisfaction with Guild leadership has correlated to age and job description, with younger journalists the most likely to express frustration. On April 10, an e-mail from Guild head Daniel Totten seemed to implicitly recognize this friction between the union’s journalists and non-journalists: Totten praised the Guild’s newsroom members as “some of the most skilled and intelligent communicators in the industry,” and said that their assistance would be vital as the Guild worked to make its case to the public.

Judging from a recent meeting of the Guild’s membership, though — also held on April 23, hours after Baron gave his South Boston speech — the union still has some serious cohesion problems. Two factions went at it that night in Dorchester: critics (mostly from the newsroom) who accused Guild leadership of being unresponsive to members, and union defenders (mostly not from the newsroom) who accused the critics of weakening the Guild.

One major point of disagreement: whether the Guild has paid sufficient attention, or any attention at all, to the surveys it distributed on April 13, asking its members what they would and wouldn’t be willing to give up. As a reporter noted at the April 23 meeting, Totten had seemed to rule out certain concessions — including, apparently, changes to the paper’s seniority structure and the elimination of the lifetime-job guarantees some members possess — in a public statement he made before the results could possibly have been tabulated. This, the reporter said, suggested that Guild leadership might not actually care what the surveys said.

The union official who responded to this critique sounded irked, too. After giving the reporter a crash course in Negotiating 101 — you start strong and aggressive, and save the concessions for later — he complained that some members, particularly those who’ve publicly questioned the union, are coming close to betraying the union as a whole. In effect: we’re doing our best for you, and you’re kicking the crap out of us. (The surveys, it was later explained, would be taken into account by Guild leadership, though it wasn’t exactly clear how.)

Whether this acrimony was worse than you’d expect from a union under duress — particularly one comprising workers with radically different job descriptions — is an open question. Maybe the April 23 meeting provided a catharsis that will bring the Guild’s members together. By the meeting’s end, this antagonism had given way to professions of mutual interest and respect. (The following day, I got an anonymous call from a woman who identified herself as a Globe journalist, and said the Guild’s critics were beginning to “get it.”)

Even if that’s true, though, the Globe’s journalists have to be kicking themselves right now. The union’s executive committee is currently dominated by non-journalists — men and women who, given the jobs they do every day, naturally find it difficult to envision (let alone embrace) a post-print future. And this situation exists, in large part, due to the newsroom’s long-standing disinterest in union matters. If the Globe manages to survive, expect that to change.

Rallying in vain?
Given the stakes involved, it would be nice to report that the Guild’s “Save the Globe” rally — held at Faneuil Hall on April 24, the day after Baron spoke and the Guild’s detractors and defenders duked it out — was a smashing success. But that would be going too far.

First the good news: there were moments, this past Friday, when the indignation of the Globe’s supporters was truly righteous — moments where you actually felt that, if the bigwigs of the Times Co. took just a minute and listened, they’d see the error of their ways, hang their heads in shame, and commit to doing whatever was necessary to keep the Globe alive.

Unfortunately, most of these moments came in veteran reporter Brian Mooney’s speech. “I’m worried about keeping my job, but that’s not the point,” said Mooney. “What’s important is the survival of the Globe itself. . . . We go wider and deeper in our coverage than anyone. The Globe starts the conversation and referees the debate, 365 days a year, and now 24 hours a day.”

If there was overstatement here, there was also a considerable amount of truth. And Mooney deserves extra kudos for his devastating dissection of the perks that Times Co. chairman Sulzberger and CEO Robinson have enjoyed (one-time bonuses awarded in the very bad year of 2008, Sulzberger’s $11,000 spin that same year in the Times Co.’s private jet) — a sustained takedown that led, at one point, to a nifty little call-and-response with the audience: “Shame on the New York Times Company!” “Shame on them!”

Also noteworthy: Boston Globe Magazine writer Charlie Pierce’s irate take on the way the paper’s crisis has been covered by the Herald, which has combined strong reporting with gleeful malice. (That day’s Herald offered 10 suggestions for saving the Globe. Here’s number seven: “Persuade Legislature to mandate all fish must be wrapped in Metro section.”) “I’ve never been more embarrassed by the time I spent at the Herald [as a sportswriter] than I have been in the last two weeks,” Pierce later told me. (”I guess tough coverage is only okay if the Globe happens to be the paper dishing it out,” replies a long-time Herald employee, calling the Globe’s coverage of the Herald’s 1982 near-demise “a relentless barrage the entire town interpreted as a calculated attempt to put us in our grave.”)

But back to the rally. Did the organizers really have to enervate the crowd, pre-rally, with slightly funereal marching-band tunes? Or distribute placards to the hundreds in attendance that tried, confusingly, to cast the Globe’s survival as a First Amendment issue (SAVE THE GLOBE/PRESERVE FREE SPEECH)? Or to cede control of the podium and the proceedings to speakers like Jeannie Shimkus, a charming 39-year Globe veteran, who explained that she’s just not that into the Web (”We want to get the whole story, not the tidbits from the Internet!”), or William McGuinness, editor of the UMass-Amherst Daily Collegian, whose main point seemed to be that if the Globe closes, he’ll have one less place to try to get a job?

To be fair, it’s not easy to imagine a pro-Globe rally that would really get the adrenaline pumping. And it’s equally difficult to imagine any such event actually making a whit of difference to the Times Co. brass in New York. Sulzberger, Robinson, & Co. aren’t threatening to close the Globe because they think it doesn’t matter to Bostonians. They’re threatening to close it because they need to keep their company solvent, and because the Globe is making that job considerably harder.

Still, the net effect of Friday’s rally was somewhat depressing. There are all sorts of reasons people want the Globe to live, apparently; some are good, but some aren’t. And even the paper’s staunchest partisans already seem to be bracing for defeat. Let’s hope they’re wrong.

– By ADAM REILLY

To read the “Don’t Quote Me” blog, go to thePhoenix.com/medialog. Adam Reilly can be reached atareilly@phx.com.