The last thing Sulzberger wants right now is a protracted PR contest that certainly would have centered on the expensive new Taj Mahal headquarters the Times built for itself opposite the Port Authority bus depot, and the laggard New England properties “led” by the Boston Globe. The Times today reports that overall ad revenues sunk 6.6 percent in February, driven downward by an 11.6 percent drop in New England.HCP and FP are now “insiders” who have been neatly neutralized by Pinch. They are but two of 15 NYTC directors. They would be more effective change agents as "outsiders."
Pinch now has some breathing room for the next battle royale. That is the fight for survival that is shaping up with News Corp.’s Rupert Murdoch and his Wall Street Journal property.
Pinch’s old adversary, Howell Raines, has a good piece in the April Portfolio that previews the coming battle between Pinch and Rupe.
Raines believes Murdoch will “spend whatever it takes to undermine the Times’ standing as America’s leading general-interest paper.” His nightmare is for “Murdoch or some other unsuitable purchaser buying the Times through a combination of financial and psychological pressure on the strong, but hardly ironclad, Sulzberger family trust that controls the vast majority of the company’s voting stock.”
To Raines, there is no more important question in American journalism than the future of the Times. He fears the journalistic profession is not taking the threat posed by Murdoch seriously enough.
Sulzberger has bought the public silence of HCP and FP. That’s a good short-term move. He should begin plotting the long-term financial future of the paper by giving the guys at Google a call.