Boston's guild unanimously votes to accept New York Times Co. proposal
And now, finally some good news from the newspaper world. Six weeks to the day The Boston Newspaper Guild narrowly rejected a concession proposal from The New York Times Company, thrusting the possibility of having to close The Boston Globe’s doors for good, the union unanimously approved a new contract Monday night, allowing newspaper lovers all up and down the east coast to breathe a sigh of relief.
The vote: 366-179.
From The Associated Press:
“We are very pleased that the members of the Boston Newspaper Guild ratified their agreement. With this vote, all of the Globe’s major union contracts are now settled,” Boston Globe spokesman Bob Powers said in a statement. “We deeply appreciate the sacrifices that Guild members are making to help sustain The Boston Globe’s mission of delivering high-quality journalism to the greater Boston community,” he added.
According to Poynter, the guild will take a 5.94 percent pay cut under the new deal. In addition, other reports cite the unfortunate notion that The Boston Globe is projected to lose $85 million dollars this year, and, along with the nearly six percent pay cut, the contract includes unpaid furloughs, a pension freeze, a reduction in health care benefits and the elimination of lifetime job guarantees.
“I’m relieved, but it’s sad because we gave up a lot and it was a very difficult negotiation,” Beth Daley, a reporter who cast a ballot against the new contract in the first vote, but changed her mind Monday, told The AP. “I don’t pretend the plight of the Boston Globe to be over by any means - but whatever it’s going to be, we’d get there quicker with this vote. We voted no with a narrow margin and we went back and we eked out a marginally better deal, marginally is the operative word. It was clear to me that if we were not going back to the table, it was going to prolong the agony.”
The deal obviously isn’t perfect, and we all understand that though this dispute is now finally over, that doesn’t mean The Globe’s workers aren’t going to feel any type of hit. But the silver lining in these dark clouds is the mere notion that the deal did get done, period.
Had this problem dragged itself out through more months, there was a very real possibility that one of this country’s premier newspapers would have had to shut its doors. That doesn’t have to happen now, and though it seems as though neither side truly won this war, the newspaper industry as a whole gained a vitally important victory Monday by displaying a sense of companionship and rationale when it needed to the most.
Yes, it isn’t ideal, but for the first time in a long, long time, positive news has finally come from the world of newspapers and modern-day journalism. And who knows? Maybe the industry as a whole can look at this development and keep the momentum moving forward somehow. Positive thinking, journalists. Positive thinking.
Look at this ‘normal’ news report from the acclaimed Associated Press news wire machine, marking this day, January 25, in history. It is a very correct example of how our media has seduced us into seeing Michael Jackson. This is exactly it. Despite his accolades, the American media portrays this entertainer through his dissent, rather than the fact that he has sold millions of albums more than Alicia Keys, the magic mulatto the press is favoring these days.
That’s stardom for you—we consume them & spit them out. People worshipped Michael Jackson at one point, so I guess he was uppity and had to be taken down. It’s one thing to acknowledge his faults, but quite another to vilify a person as such. We choose how we see and remember.
It’s not just that this day in history chooses to show the freed captives of Iran, and ignore the (expensive and embarrassing) Iran-contra scandal (and the destructiveness of Reaganomics). America’s moral authority was the casualty for which we’ve just stopped mourning. Nor even is the contention here a fact of Michael Jackson’s story is the only embedded news fact given a follow-up, as if to drive home the fact that the news got it right: Jacko is Wacko. Nor is the contention with such remembrance solely tied to admiration for a recently deceased pop icon.
Two bits of news reminded me of a story I wrote last summer for PopMatters. In the first, CBS Sports reported that, after Xavier’s Jordan Crawford threw down an ostensibly hellacious dunk on LeBron James, Nike operatives confiscated all videotapes of the event. Predictably, the Internet uproar over this has reflected far more poorly on James than even the worst dunk could have.
But even more predictable is the fact that James would fuss over his image. James is, by all accounts, a supremely decent person and a positively extraterrestrial talent, but, as I wrote in “LeBron James and the Beat Book”, which surveyed the surprising number of books about LeBron James, he’s also “the most hands-on athlete today—remember, he created his own sports marketing agency.”
Which brings us to the second piece of news: Buzz Bissinger just co-wrote a new book with (and about) LeBron. Do you suppose it will have any Friday Night Lights-like revelations?
That was the difference Monday night when The Boston Newspaper Guild voted 277-265 against a new contract with the New York Times Co. that would have, if nothing else, guaranteed The Boston Globe a lifeline for a little while, at least. Instead, the paper now stares at the possibility of shutting its doors more intently than ever, considering the Times Co. said it needed at least $20 million in annual savings from Globe unions — half of that number slated to come from the Guild.
From the Associated Press:
The Times Co. demanded the concessions amid an increasingly dire financial situation at the Globe. The newspaper like others has struggled as readers migrated to the Internet, advertising revenue declined drastically and circulation fell. The Globe had $50 million in operating losses in 2008 and had been projected to lose $85 million this year.
Six other Globe unions have approved concessions — but they hinged on the Guild’s ratification of new terms.
The Times Co. had said that if the Guild rejected the proposal, it would try to impose a 23 percent wage cut. It also has threatened to close the newspaper, which would require giving 60 days notice to employees and the state.
In a statement released after the vote, the Globe said it was disappointed with the outcome and had no “financially viable alternative” but to declare an impasse and impose the deeper wage cut to achieve the necessary savings.
“This evening we have sent a letter to the Guild stating that as a result of the rejection of this proposal, we have reverted to our alternative Final Record Proposal which provides for a 23 percent wage reduction for all Guild members,” the statement read.
The cut would take effect next week. The Globe said the newspaper would be willing to meet with the union this week to review implementation of the cut.
The story continues to quote a bureau chief who makes the obvious point by saying a 23 percent decrease in pay would cost the paper “a lot of very talented journalists.” Another reporter is quoted as saying the Times needs to “take away the gun pointed at our heads.” Naturally, he voted against the contract.
This is rough, but monumental nonetheless. If The Globe goes down, having already seen the Rocky Mountain News fold and the Seattle Post-Intelligencer move to online-only content over the course of the past year, the demise of The Boston Globe might just be the proverbial white flag the newspaper industry has been trying so hard to avoid through these incredibly hard times.
And it’s utterly impossible to point fingers at this point, too. Workers need to get paid and companies need to make money. Both of those things have become increasingly hard to achieve in the world’s flailing economy, let alone a business that has been doing all it can to simply keep its head from being completely submerged in water.
Is this the end? Can something be worked out for both the Times Co. and The Globe? Can advertising dollars rebound in the second half of the year? Even more so, when the global economy happens to be fixed, will the newspaper industry benefit from that at all, or will it simply be too late? Is there hope?
If nothing else, these two parties need to come to an agreement when they sit back down later this week in order to salvage the humungous hit the industry’s morale would take should The Globe have to go under. Because while this problem may seem to come down to the mere value of dollars and cents, there is so much more at stake here than simply money.
When I approached PopMatters about what has turned into somewhat of a revitalization of “Sources Say”, I already had in mind a few people I wanted to talk to about the issues this particular blog was slated to tackle. One of those people was Jason McIntyre, the man behind The Big Lead, a sports blog that also does a pretty good job at keeping an eye on both print and broadcast media.
McIntyre, a former assistant news editor at Us Weekly, started the blog along with his college friend David Lessa in 2006, and has since achieved somewhat of a superstar status within the sports blogosphere. The Big Lead has been cited numerous times on various ESPN platforms, has been profiled by—among other publications—Sports Illustrated and The Chicago Sun-Times, and, on average, welcomes in over two million visitors a month and around 25,000 visitors a day.
So for the man behind it all to take some time out of what must be a busy, busy schedule, and answer a few questions about the current state of blogs, newspapers and the like, is awfully kind. Should you have an extra five minutes to spare sometime within the next day or two, and you happen to love sports, you may want to venture over to www.thebiglead.com. For now, though, the following is the culmination of a Q&A e-mail exchange I was lucky enough to partake in with him about where he thinks this mess we call print media may end up. The following is both introspective and suggestive, and it all comes from someone who really is quite accomplished in the media world.
I will try and do this more as we go along with different individuals from all walks of media. But for now, please enjoy a quick interview with The Big Lead’s Jason McIntyre.
Well, this is sort of interesting. Remember a long, long time ago when a public outcry roared louder than police sirens in Baltimore on a Saturday night about the proposition of bailing out huge, corporate entities? “Oh, no. We just absolutely cannot afford to watch the government give out money to the auto industry time and time again. Those loan companies? Insurance agencies? Goodness, gracious. When will it stop?”
Well, as has been profiled throughout various media outlets recently, one place it isn’t going to stop at is the newspaper industry. Grumblings have recently surfaced that a new bill has been introduced to congress regarding the possibility of bailing out newspapers.
