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Who Wants Yesterday's Paper?

Personally, if a NESN commentator is going to buy the Boston Globe, I'd rather it was a partnership between Jerry Remy and Hazel Mae, not Jack Welch.

Snark aside, the front page story in today's Globe that former GE CEO Welch and advertising wheel Jack Connors are exploring creating a local syndicate to purchase the paper from the New York Times corporation casts a bright and unflattering light on my former business, and an equally unflattering light on the reported buyers. If businessmen want to do civic good works, they should give money away, not make an investment that's trying to be charitable and profitable simultaneously. That's an impossible parley.

Of course, the story could be a wild exaggeration. There's a major difference between holding meetings and commissioning due diligence on an investment and actually ponying up a half-billion bucks to make it. There's also the little matter of business transactions needing both a buyer and a seller. The Times' decision to purchase the Globe in 1993 for $1.1 billion was a spectacular mistake, one that could've been easily avoided, too. While his family controls the corporation's voting stock, CEO Pinch Sulzberger might be loathe to take a 50 percent loss on the deal. That kind of red ink is WAY thicker than blood. The history of American business is full of dynastic family enterprises, many of them far larger than the Times, where said family decided it had put a twit in charge, canned him, and brought in outsiders to straighten out the mess. The Wrigley Co. did so just this week.

As an intellectual exercise, however, let's assume the story's gospel. The local worthies headed by Welch are serious about buying the Globe, and the Times is seriously considering the proposal. If that's the case, here are a few unsolicited observations on the deal, some of which are serious.

1. Welch, Connors, Joe O'Donnell, Steve Karp-there's one thing about the Globe's suitors that stands out. They all wanted to own the Red Sox, Patriots, or both and didn't get 'em. If they're now seeking to buy the Globe on the emotional rebound from their first attempt to own a visible Boston institution, their doom is inevitable. Hang in there, Pat Purcell! A year or two more of fooling the wolf at your door, and you might own the city's only daily newspaper.

2. Everyone in the newspaper business would like it to be 1983 again. I'd like it to be 1967 again so I have another shot at the girls of my youth. Neither's gonna happen.

Our burg's already got a newspaper aimed at older Irish people-the Herald. Every Friday night, my former paper's cosmic dilemma is on display all over eastern Massachusetts. That's wake night. Every town in the area big enough for a stop light also has a funeral home with an Irish or other Catholic name. And every time I'd drive by one on Friday and see the lights on, I'd think, "damn, there goes another loyal reader."

Gentlemen, try to run a Globe aimed at people who remind you of yourselves and you'll lose money faster than Jeff Gordon can drive the 24 car at Talladega.

2a. I know his wife is a big wheel at Bank of America. But if you hire Mike Barnicle, the whole city will laugh at you. Loudly.

3. The working headline for today's front-page political story in the paper you want to buy was, no shit, "Healey: Her Mom Still Likes Her." Don't waste time wondering why people don't buy the Globe as frequently as they used to. Spend fifty cents for a copy, and answer will jump out at you.

4. There's an AMAZING amount of human talent stockpiled at the Globe. Much of it goes wasted each day because the paper's trapped in rote thought, the rote that produced the story I cited in item 3. In my opinion, you're going to lose money with the Globe no matter what. If you want to be REAL benefactors of society in the process, experiment with your product. If any of the experiements succeed, you'll be doing a service for both your home town and journalism in general.

5. Perhaps the Welch-Connors consortium has done this already. If they haven't, they should make a lunch date with the only Boston newspaper proprietor who ISN'T losing money right now-Steve Mindich of the Phoenix.

Mindich has always been something of an outre figure in this ossified burg, a fact that's doubtless been to his advantage. He was my boss for almost a decade, and it's true he can be let's say tempestuous at times. But with age and experience if not wisdom, I've come to appreciate Mindich more and more. Perhaps that's because I've learned how damn difficult it is to BE a newspaper owner.

Last week I received an invitation to an upcoming 40th anniversary party for the Phoenix. Those years have witnessed both the greatest boom and the greatest busts in American newspaper history. Through it all, Mindich has managed to evolve his business to cope with every challenge. The Phoenix chugs along, and one never reads stories about it being on the block.

So Mssrs. Welch, Connors, et. al., get together to Mindich. Ask him any question you can think of. Then ask him if he'd like to be part of your little group.

It Steve says no, head for the hills yourselves.

posted by Michael Gee @ 8:24 AM