The Future: Private or Corporate Owned?

I've said it before, I'll say it again: Given the chance to work for a corporation that is at least accountable to somebody or an individual/family with an agenda and an ax to grind, I'll pick the former. Mooninite's situation sounds fabulous, but I suspect that is the exception these days.

 

The problem with a public company and a huge corporation is two-fold.

1. In a public company the shareholders a want returns on thier investment immediately. The daily stock price really can drive a company. If a stock price starts to take a dive because revenue and earnings are short, the paper tries to cut costs to give both a boost. This causes cuts in newsrooms (which in reality is an expense, not the product) despite a paper being profitable. I think this leads to shortterm fixes that hurt longterm quality.

2. In a huge corporation, bad manangement elsewhere can casue you to suffer. If the huge metro is suffering, even if your paper is doing well, you feel the brunt.

I find that public corporations' goals are not healthy for a newspapers onjective. The quality of the newspaper shouldn't suffer if for some reason the market isn't supporting the business side as robustly as expected. I think a private equity group with deep pockets can live with smaller growth and margins for longer.

I guess to be simple, the equity group answers to themselves and can make a longterm decision over short term gain. The group also doesn't have to answer to the SEC (Wall St one, not the football conference)/

Now, the problem with these private groups is that they demand results and earnings, as opposed to hitting numbers and getting the stock price to inflate. They need the thing to generate cash, and there is little they won't do to achieve this.

Edit: Also, I am in a family owned (not a billionaire) and the agenda can really be forced upon in these envioronments. You don't get a pass and it tends to be micromanaged. And, those new laptops yo get every two years...GONE.