N.Y. Times: Three New York Moguls in Talks to Buy Newsday

BYH · Mar 21, 2008

I buy it out of habit, PHINJ. It's depressing though.

Good point on Newsday.com. They've got some interesting web-only content on the sports side, particularly Neil Best's Watchdog BLOG!!! (Hi Neil. We know you lurk, I saw the SportsJournalists.com link on the blog. Keep up the good work) And more and more of the Sunday section is heading online only.

If the powers that be were smart, they'd pour a lot of money into that side of things. There's no way to properly cover the entire Island on their skeletal staff, but I'd imagine they could become a viable force if they proved reliable re: breaking news. But that requires money, and Tribune ain't spending.

PHINJ · Mar 21, 2008

fishwrapper said:

Do you gag and vomit and the offal miraculously hits keys to form words?
Click to expand...

This might be better than the quote I just put in my sig.

cranberry · Mar 21, 2008

Frank_Ridgeway said:

I can understand the vote for Dolan -- wouldn't be overlap of staffing that you'd find if Newsday were under the same ownership as either the Daily News or the Post so fewer jobs would be lost, and if either the Daily News or Post teamed up with Newsday it could kill whichever paper was left by itself. That aside, I have to admire Murdoch and Zuckerman despite their shortcomings. The Post and Daily News probably wouldn't be alive if not for them, and Zuckerman just announced he's buying new state-of-the-art presses, an unsual leap of faith when many are saying print is almost dead.
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There will be job losses, probably many, no matter which party prevails because the winner will typically overpay and immediately move to recoup purchase costs (see Philadelphia). The cuts would likely be more massive if its bought by Murdoch or Zuckerman because they'll also want to shed redundant business-side operations, like accounting departments, etc.

derwood · Mar 21, 2008

Would Dolan merge the paper with News 12 Long Island?

PHINJ · Mar 21, 2008

cranberry said:

Frank_Ridgeway said:

I can understand the vote for Dolan -- wouldn't be overlap of staffing that you'd find if Newsday were under the same ownership as either the Daily News or the Post so fewer jobs would be lost, and if either the Daily News or Post teamed up with Newsday it could kill whichever paper was left by itself. That aside, I have to admire Murdoch and Zuckerman despite their shortcomings. The Post and Daily News probably wouldn't be alive if not for them, and Zuckerman just announced he's buying new state-of-the-art presses, an unsual leap of faith when many are saying print is almost dead.
Click to expand...

There will be job losses, probably many, no matter which party prevails because the winner will typically overpay and immediately move to recoup purchase costs (see Philadelphia). The cuts would likely be more massive if its bought by Murdoch or Zuckerman because they'll also want to shed redundant business-side operations, like accounting departments, etc.
Click to expand...

I don't know if this is necessarily true if Murdoch gets it. I may have missed something but I don't think he's eliminated positions at the WSJ. Murdoch doesn't do layoffs. You cannot say that the man slashes jobs for the sake of his bottom line or that he doesn't invest in newspapers.

patchs · Mar 21, 2008

I thought I read someplace that this may be an auction, not a sale.
That might change things a bit.

PHINJ · Mar 21, 2008

Good point.

Jimmy Breslin weighs in via Jeff Bercovici:

Breslin on Murdoch Buying 'Newsday': Who Cares?

You might think Jimmy Breslin -- crusading columnist, Iraq War critic, and pugnacious champion of the powerless -- would be dismayed to hear that carpetbagging mogul Rupert Murdoch might soon be adding his longtime newspaper, Newsday, to News Corp.'s vast holdings.

He's not.

"What's the difference?" Breslin asks when informed of the news. "What the hell do I care? The fucking days are gone when you can worry about who owns what. Are people going to get paid? That's all I care about. He's a great newspaper owner if he pays."

That's a surprising sentiment, perhaps, for someone who once wrote of Murdoch, "In a political campaign, his right-wing newspapers become campaign pamphlets and his television becomes a right-wing campaign film," and called him "one of the cheap yes-men" of the Iraq War.

"I've been critical of him. I've done a lot of stuff about him," he acknowledges. "But that doesn't mean my copyreader is supposed to go broke. You've got to be pragmatic on behalf of other people."

And it's not as if Newsday has such a great owner now. Asked what he thinks of Sam Zell, Breslin says, "I know he rides a motorcyle, don't he? Fucking bullshit. If he's starting to cut and it's the first time around, well -- the Chicago Tribune, you can't cut that. It's the most overrated newspaper in America."

"I'd like to have grand principles and espouse them and shout," he adds, "but it's a different world. Nobody's got any money."
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cranberry · Mar 21, 2008

I've always been a Breslin fan but, let's face it, it's was time for him to walk away at least 15 years ago. He overlooks that the bidding will drive the price pretty high in a declining newspaper market and bring about staff cuts no matter who takes over. Maybe even his copyreader.

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