Editorial, Opinion

STAFF EDIT: Global threat

Some say newspapers are a dying breed, but a sudden shutdown of The Boston Globe would shock even the most pessimistic of doomsayers. Fewer people are reading newspapers than before, but even so, it is hard to imagine that Boston, which has been home to The Globe since 1872, could call The Boston Herald its only major newspaper.

The closure of The Rocky Mountain News and The Seattle Post-Intelligencer ceasing to print its newspaper garnered a lot of attention from the media, but a potential Globe shutdown would be no where near the same scale. The Globe has the 14th largest circulation of any newspaper in the United States and its website, Boston.com, has also been very popular.’

Bostonians would still receive comprehensive local news from The Herald, but regardless of which is a ‘better’ newspaper, coverage would still suffer.’ Without the healthy competition provided by The Globe, there would be no other major newspaper to pressure The Herald into reporting as accurately, quickly and objectively as possible.

This threat from the New York Times Company to close The Globe if its unions don’t accept $20 million in concessions is nothing more than a bullying move. There is no way that these unions won’t accept concessions, because if The Globe were to really shut down, its union workers would be without jobs entirely. Most of the Globe employees represented by these unions are not the ones making the business decisions that have landed The Globe in its predicament, and they shouldn’t be punished too severely.’

Union members are absolutely justified in demanding that management officials take pay cuts as well. Furthermore, each union should be making the same concessions to ensure that no one group of workers is being forced to give up more than its fair share of pay and benefits.’

The Globe is just as much a part of the New York Times Co. as The Times is, and before the New York Times Co. demands that Globe employees make sacrifices, it must make cuts in its own management positions. All those who work for The Globe have shown they will go to great lengths to save the paper that has been a staple of Boston over the last century, and the New York Times Co. must no longer take advantage of this.

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