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Cox selling Palm Beach Post, Austin American-Statesman

Discussion in 'Journalism topics only' started by BTExpress, Oct 31, 2017.

  1. Fran Curci

    Fran Curci Well-Known Member

    He'd be a swell editor, eh?
     
  2. LanceyHoward

    LanceyHoward Well-Known Member

    But my question is why is Cox cutting now? If a billionaire was buying he would not have a central desk somewhere and would have to keep many of those people. But Cox is firing now. So the timing leads me to believe that Cox has a pretty good idea who is going to buy both papers.

    I agree that Hearst is the likely buyer in n San Antonio. I think you underrate the chances of Gatehouse in Palm Beach. While I think Tronc is the likely winner Gatehouse bought Columbus, Ohio even though Gannett was printing Cincinnati there. So I could see them out hustling Gannett for Palm Beach if Tronc for some reason passes.
     
  3. Fran Curci

    Fran Curci Well-Known Member

    I would think Cox is cutting now merely to improve profits and to make the books look better for a potential buyer. Cox isn't worried about keeping talent on board for a new owner.
     
  4. Bronco77

    Bronco77 Well-Known Member

    Oh ... probably because they can.

    But I think Fran's post above probably is a good explanation. Not to mention there'd reportedly been a copy desk reorganization in the works up there for more than six months that would have resulted in steep cuts anyway. This gets much of the post-sale dirty work out of the way beforehand.

    And anyone who buys the Post and doesn't have access to a Gannett-, GateHouse-style central desk can bring back a skeleton crew of copy editors and designers (just not the roughly three dozen employed up there now).

    GateHouse certainly could emerge as a Post buyer, but Gannett and Tronc (because of nearby properties) or local billionaires (because they have money to urinate away on something that will sell for a low, low price) just seem to make a bit more sense on paper. GateHouse does own quite a few Florida papers, but I think the nearest to Palm Beach is in Daytona.
     
  5. Fran Curci

    Fran Curci Well-Known Member

    I wonder if the Palm Beach Post's site is worth more than the newspaper. Not a joke -- West Palm Beach is a pretty hot real estate market, right?
     
  6. Raiders

    Raiders Member

    Hasn't the site been up for sale for years? No takers so far.
     
  7. Fran Curci

    Fran Curci Well-Known Member

    I was trying to find some clips to see if Raiders is correct and stumbled across this story from May about the Palm Beach Post. It looks like it's from some local gossip website, but sort of interesting:

    "In related news Timothy D. Burke, the Post‘s publisher who dutifully presided over the firings for more than 1,000 people from the newspaper, just spent $830,000 on a townhouse in the fancy Tierra Del Sol neighborhood.

    This isn’t the first time Burke has shown a tone-deaf lack of understanding of what his employees are going through.

    Two years ago we reported Burke’s daughter Riley received a $2,000 from the company’s Pathfinder Awards scholarship designed to help low-level employees’ children."
     
  8. wicked

    wicked Well-Known Member

    Former APSE president, no?
     
  9. Bronco77

    Bronco77 Well-Known Member

    There's a back story to this. This gossip columnist is Jose (pronounced Joe-Zay) Lambiet. He worked for the Sun Sentinel in the late '90s/early 2000s (he was paid well over $100K a year, drove a red Corvette and hung out with former Florida Panthers star Pavel Bure). He also was a first-class newsroom prima donna whose columns couldn't be changed without permission from the assistant ME who was his supervisor.

    After leaving the Sun Sentinel, he went to the Palm Beach Post. He left the Post a few years later, and the departure was acrimonious. So whenever he sees a chance to embarrass Tim Burke in his internet gossip column, he pounces on it.
     
  10. BTExpress

    BTExpress Well-Known Member

    He was on the celebrity beat during one of the Super Bowl's visits to South Florida (Broncos-Falcons, I believe). Filed columns daily leading up to the game.

    Had a half page budged for him on Super Sunday for the Monday paper. Around halftime we get a call saying to scrap the column. How come? "He says there's nothing to write about."
     
  11. Fran Curci

    Fran Curci Well-Known Member

    I've heard stuff like, too (although not that extreme). Of course, that raises the question: Who the hell was his boss?
     
  12. Michael_ Gee

    Michael_ Gee Well-Known Member

    If my memory serves me, that was the Super Bowl where on Saturday night a Falcon was arrested for soliciting the services of a prostitute. No gossip to write about?
     
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