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From Northeast Public Radio, this is the Media Project, a weekly discussion about issues
confronting the media.
Oh news papermen meet such interesting people.
They know the lowdown now it can be told.
I'll tell you, Christ, reliably off the record.
About some charming people I have known.
Or I meet politicians and grafters by the score.
Killers play in fancy...
Wow, we have a lot to talk about this week in the Media Project, so we had better get underway.
Which by the way is two words if your copy editor is out there.
Underway is not a single word in AP style.
That's correct.
Isn't that interesting?
The publisher, the editor, and the professor here.
I have a fast-filled long-time publisher of the Daily Freeman in Kingston, New York,
and other publications down that way.
Good day.
Good day sir.
The CEO of Northeast Public Radio, Dr. Alan Shartock.
What have...
And I'm Rex Smith, editor of the Times Union.
Here we are to talk about...
A bunch of old guys to talk about old media.
Here we are.
It's a great thing actually.
These are big days for my line of work for what I have done,
newspapering.
We have suddenly new ownership of the
venerated Boston Globe and the venerable of Washington Post.
And that's a lot to...
Or as they say on NPR,
is the morning people say, Washington Post.
Who put the R in Washington?
Cookie Roberts I think, dude.
That's what they say down there.
Before we begin, you're right.
These two major papers have been sold.
And so newspapers are in a lot of trouble.
In a lot of trouble, that sounds like good news.
If somebody's buying newspapers, I don't know what that's a lot of trouble.
No, no, no, they are.
Because they got a lot less than they paid for them.
Oh, I see.
So, here's actually their trouble.
Now Rex, which is calm down.
As opposed to radio, which is thriving these days.
It is thriving.
And I've been authorized by our Board of Trustees to have you on in 25,000 dollars for the time too.
You know what's interesting is that the size of a newspaper is not predictive anymore of its value.
Yeah, size doesn't matter.
It's so true.
Because the bigger papers, many of them like the Boston Globe,
are those that have been hurt the most by the decline in ad revenues because they've
depended on national ads that are no longer on in their pages.
Papers, the size of the Times Union, or I think of Iris Daily Freeman are still at the
board deals.
Well, but beyond that, I and others have been saying that the larger papers are more at risk
for, among other reasons, the fact that their content is not as unique as the local papers.
So that the print life of a paper, your size, or my size, may be extended by at least years,
if not infinitely, then a New York Times or a Washington Post.
There are just too many other places where you can learn about the presidency or Iraq.
Let me ask you both a question.
It occurs to me.
I'm sure it's occurring to everybody who's listening.
If two of the most venerable papers, the Boston Globe and the Washington Post goes south,
or get bought for very little money relative to what was paid for them, what's going on at the
Times?
I mean, they're selling the Post.
At the Times?
Yeah, at the New York Times.
So in other words, I'm trying to take a look at the way it's all going.
Do either of you have any insights?
I think it's great news.
I think that for the Times, this is an opportunity to shed an asset that is not as productive in terms
of cash flow as the major paper is the New York Times, which is doing well.
Just to clarify, what you mean is that the Times sold the Boston Globe, which then shed
the times of that asset and also injected more money back into the bank for New York Times.
So it'll be much less than it paid for the Post.
Right.
But Greg's just answered my question.
I'll be not knowing.
He was answering my questions.
Which you said, it's doing well.
Well, New York Times is doing well.
I don't know that it's particularly doing well.
They're advertising revenue is not doing well.
They're boasting about their increased revenue and circulation largely because of the pay
wall that they put up on the website.
So again, I'm repeating myself, I don't think that that's a good sign because I don't
know that they can sustain their business long term on circulation website.
Paywall revenue, they need to keep and build their advertising revenue.
So, you know, short term, that's fine.
I think, but you knew asked if we had any insight about whether the New York Times might
be for sale.
Actually, I didn't say those words.
Well, that's how they do.
How they doing?
Well, I thought one of the things that struck me about the news of the Washington Post
sale beyond the obvious was the sense of shock that was reflected in the staff and in
the industry about the fact that the Washington Post was in fact sold by the Graham family,
which held that paper for 80 years and nobody saw it coming.
Even within what's going on in this industry, the talks to sell the Washington Post were
so hushed that nobody knew about.
And with the existing Washington Post on the Graham family on the Cracker Fortune?
No.
Speaking of Cracker's talent, the $250 million, sorry, you're about to say.
It is $250 million is not a lot of money to pay for a brand as powerful as you might
say.
But think about this.
The guy who bought at Jeff Bezos, the CEO of Amazon Inc, has opportunities with this to
become a real content creator.
The marriage of content which Washington Post has with the distribution network of Amazon.com
is, I think, potentially very powerful.
Now, of course, they've gone out of their way to indicate Bezos that he was using his own
piggy bank.
Yeah.
I mean, I think that $250 million, frankly, I'm not privy to his money, but I think it's
probably the same thing as if you handed me a $5 bill.
Exactly.
I think they said it was 1% of his worth.
Yeah.
Isn't that something?
Right.
So actually, I would hand you five bucks.
I know you less.
But it's a, yeah.
Yeah.
But still, it's just because the shareholders, it's because Amazon is publicly traded and
the shareholders would have killed him if he had used their money to buy this.
But I think he sees that there's some potential there and it's the same difference.
He controls Amazon.
He will now have access to that content that he can distribute on his network.
I remember famously, Bezos a couple of years ago predicted the death of print within 20
years.
Now, he is investing in print.
But you're right.
What is particularly interesting about this and hopeful for the Washington Post is on the
hopeful side, he is injecting money into that company that the Graham's did not have.
And although the Graham said they could have continued running the paper that they, you
know, they just saw the money drifting away.
And so he's putting in, he's putting in money that was not there.
And then the other thing is Rex alluded to it.
He's going to bring a fresh approach to that company and to the industry that precious
few people in the industry have shown so far.
And an exception, I believe, being the CEO of my company, which long ago said, this is
the way we're going to go.
And it's digital first and print is not going to last.
But it hasn't worked yet.
But it's got to start somewhere.
And he's starting.
I mean, I know you're, you know, I mean, I know.
I think, I think most people, even in the industry, recognize that Bezos is going to bring
something to the Washington Post.
What?
The what is we don't know?
Hey, Ira, come on now.
But what?
If you read the New York Times, if you read the New York Times article on this, it was fascinating.
It was a very good article.
They went through a whole review of everything that has been done by the industry.
Paywall, not paywall.
And in the end, nothing has worked yet.
So do we really think that Bezos has can bring something to the game?
You're talking about the business side and things.
Well, of course, I just want to point out that if that for most of us in this business,
we don't do it for money.
We come into it for journalism.
And Washington Post still produces terrific journalism.
I'll take a couple of things.
Well, well, well, well, I'm so sorry, Rex.
Yes.
But I just can't let that self-serving statement go that it doesn't, you don't do it for
the money.
Somebody does it for the money.
Right.
You have to pay for the, you have to pay for the journalism.
That's true.
But I just want to make the point that in your glee to say how awful things are in the
newspaper industry, I think you should point out that it is the business side that is
in trouble that good journalism is still being produced.
I have to have the right of reply.
All right.
You say in your glee and that's disgusting.
I never was gleeful about this.
In fact, I think newspapers are terribly important and I'm very upset about the fact that they
are going under.
I feel better.
No, I do.
I want you to know that.
I don't take any solace at all in this.
I was interested in something you said before, which is that the smaller papers seem to
have it a little bit better than the larger papers.
I was thinking about Warren Buffett.
Now didn't he make a decision to invest in smaller papers, even though he had a good deal
of check a change in at least one of these companies?
Yes.
He had a stake in the Washington Post Company.
He's bought his hometown paper, the Omaha World Herald, which is a regional midsize paper.
He has also bought a bunch of smaller papers.
I think that the difficulty, one of the things that a lot of papers confronted is that the
company's got over leveraged in buying up a lot of newspapers, companies borrowed money
to buy the newspapers to create small chains.
It's that debt that has killed a lot of enterprise.
Why did they do that?
In retrospect, at least, it looks pretty dumb, doesn't it?
Yes, I don't really know why they did that.
They made bad decisions.
I mean, historically, they might be because I'll have to use my former company as an example.
Our company was in an expansive mode.
It had spent $280 million to buy the former Goodson newspaper group, which I was a part
of.
That worked out pretty well.
Yes.
That worked out pretty well.
But then they spent $400 million to buy newspapers in Detroit right before the auto industry
and the economy collapsed.
So it was a bad decision.
It looked better on paper than it turned out to be the timing was bad.
That put our company in a hole that it has been since and through two bankruptcies.
To your question about what is Bezos going to bring that others have not, the answers
we don't know, but what he does bring is the expertise and view of somebody who has
not been in the industry.
Also, there are a couple of other things too.
I'll tell you, he has this means of distribution of the product.
If he wanted to, he could make the Washington Post the default app on every Kindle that
he sells.
He has the physical distribution.
I mean, think about how Amazon ships things all over the place.
He could do physical distribution as well, very effectively.
Amazon has great content already.
It has something called Business Insider that has been very successful with.
It has Amazon publishing, which is put out hundreds of books under a number of different
imprints.
The Post's website could be a major sales distribution platform for his other products.
You could end up finding out that Washington Post.com or whatever they want to call it, could
be an e-commerce effort for him that could actually kick money back into the Washington
Post.
How does somebody like you, Rex?
You're a senior guy now in terms of your extremely well placed.
New word for the very prestigious Hearst Corporation.
What happens?
Do the Hearst people take a careful look at what's going on with these other guys?
Oh, I think so.
Oh, yeah.
You've got to watch this and pay attention.
I think Hearst, plus I know that Hearst looks at every property that comes on the market.
It would be very surprised.
I have no insight information about this.
Let me say, but I'd be very surprised if the Graham's didn't contact Hearst to say,
would you be interested in buying our paper if they were quietly shopping around the Washington
Post?
I did have many people who had an interest as did the globe.
I think the globe had, I think I read something like 10 people, 10 different people.
I think the globe was interested in selling to somebody, John Henry, who was a little baby.
John Henry decided that he wanted it and they probably had some streak of real decency
about wanting somebody who could keep up the tradition as opposed to local ownership
and as opposed to Dorothy Schiff, who sold to Mernaq.
Yeah, absolutely.
We don't know to what extent either John Henry, we don't know to what extent, sorry, it
was nicely done.
I just couldn't help it.
We don't know to what extent either he or Jeff Bezos might have had in the back of their
minds that they want this because they want a platform.
The way Rupert Murdock wanted a platform.
I think that's a big part of it.
I mean, also John Henry paid a relative, a poultry, $70 million.
Can you imagine that that's what that paper sold for after what the times bought it for
to begin with?
The $1.1 billion.
Plus, then they ended up also paying $300 million to buy the Worcester Telegram Gazette,
which goes with it as well.
I think it's been said that Bezos, in particular, is interested in getting his, getting a platform
in Washington where so much of the policy affecting his Amazon business regarding taxes and
things of the likes.
That's interesting.
Yeah.
I think I was harking back to George Steinbrunner when he was...
You just say Harkin.
Harkin.
Oh, no.
And when George Steinbrunner bought the Yankees, he always said, he initially said he was
going to be an absentee owner.
And of course, he proved not to be.
Bezos is saying, as of right now, I'm going to be in the other Washington, meaning Seattle
and he's keeping Catherine Weymouth as the publisher and they're keeping Martin Beren as
the editor.
And the question is, well, isn't he going to get involved?
He has to get involved because the Graham's already admitted they don't know how to run
this place going forward.
So Bezos has got to get more involved.
If he doesn't, then things are not going to get better.
That's very well put.
Well, unless he decides to run it not as a business, but as a philanthropy, that is possible.
Sure.
But we need...
They need his ideas.
That's what is attractive to them beyond his money.
Well, well, but if Rex is right and has seen as a look, some of these guys who make
this much money, if it's only 5%, or 1% of his fortune, they can use the tax right off
getting money.
Right.
Right.
You know what is interesting too is that what was excluded from the transaction is the
Washington Post's digitally native slate slate slate.com is not in it.
And foreign policy, which is a magazine they own.
Oh yeah, but I tell you, we had a drug store in Great Barrington named Melvin's Drug
Store and they had every magazine you ever saw.
And they're in Melvin's Drug Store on Main Street of Great Barrington was Foreign Policy
magazine.
I tell you, you couldn't get your copy.
They were lined up with some of the store open and they came in.
So it's just...
Anyway, it's really surprising.
I was encouraged by it just because when you see investment in the industry, it makes
you think, well, somebody has an idea in mind here for what direction to go.
And I think it's true that none of us really are...
Nobody really has an idea of how to preserve these great old brands.
But we're all trying different things to see if we can make a business out of what is
clearly just such a revolutionary changing...
Yeah, that's not a good way to phrase it, but everything is changing so quickly.
That people are trying to figure it out.
I figure if somebody with the smarts and the resources of Jeff Bezos is investing in
newspapering...
This is the way they look.
There's another way to look at all of this.
You don't get to live forever.
None of us do.
And you know, if you've got a lot of money, you can't take it with you.
They're not going to put it in the coffin with you when you eventually go.
If you get a chance to buy the Boston Globe or the Washington Post, why not just...
Well, only accept these guys pretty much all have egos.
And if Bezos, who's the first paragraph of Bezos' obituary, is going to be how he invented
this giant, successful Amazon.com...
But also invented something a way to take it with him.
But what I was going to say is that he does not want the second sentence of that obit
to say he also purchased the Washington Post and oversaw its demise.
Yeah.
So, he may have an ego and he may have all these good reasons, but he wants to get something
done here because he doesn't want this on his own.
Well, you're very smart, right?
And I defer to you.
And see what the next chapter is.
And you're smart.
So this is really good for you folks to listen to.
A bunch of smart old guys talking about old media.
Actually, the next chapter will be what happens to those eight Tribune papers, including
the Los Angeles Times, that the Koch brothers are interested in.
Koch brothers, Washington, whatever.
And Eli Broad, they're both interested in the LA Times as well as all those other Chicago
Tribune and other folks in the roads.
And so this is...
We don't know exactly what's going to happen there.
It'll be really interesting to see what the next chapter is.
So you can follow that all here folks on the Media Project.
Ira Fussfeld, Alan Shartak and Rex Smith here joining you from lovely Albany, New York,
offering you our commentary analysis and even a little bit of insight into the media
issues of the week.
I have to say one thing and that is we all make mistakes.
Everybody does.
We shouldn't be seen as, you know, or for I shouldn't be seen as...
I know that at one point we bought an AM radio station for the right price, not as they
were.
And it turned out to be a real dog.
We had to spend a fortune fixing it up.
You know, unlike FM's which are one tower in modern and arrested, the AM's often have
four or five towers.
And they all have to be kept up and the site has to be kept up.
We got rid of it and we took a loss.
I gotta tell you.
It's interesting.
Yeah.
I thought I should admit that.
Speaking of getting rid of just the continuing saga of downsizing, Gennett Y. Gennett is the
largest company publishing newspapers in the US that has the most...
I see if I'm saying this right.
It is the most newspapers.
I think they have 86 American newspapers.
That's not the most anymore, is it?
Well, I don't know.
All I know is my company is second.
Yeah, huh.
Anyway, so Gennett had about 300 more layoffs over the past week including eliminating 11%
of the jobs at the newspaper in Westchester and Rockland counties, the Journal News, which
is based in White Plains.
So interesting to note that they got rid of 26 jobs there, dropping their total to 206,
and I think of those 26, 17 of them in the newsroom.
So...
But Rex, we have spent a lot of time on this program over the years.
And one section of the program is how many people are left being laid off at Gennett.
So this is nothing new.
Look, every newspaper has it.
I got to tell you guys, I have two apps on my phone.
One of them is Murdock and the Wall Street Journal, because somebody told me the Wall Street
Journal's great paper.
So I put it on and I have right next to it the New York Times.
And I get up in the middle of the night and I read both of them.
Well, you know, the Wall Street Journal may be a great paper, but it can kiss the toes
of the New York Times when it comes to comprehensive news.
People say, well, the editorial policy isn't that good, but the news is good.
I got to tell you, I don't see it.
You know, part of that is, don't you think it partly could be because you've been reading
the Times for a lot longer than the Wall Street Journal and you're comfortable with it?
Don't I?
This is actually, we in the newspaper, have been dependent on people growing comfortable
with our product and liking it.
People who say, you know, WAMC is the greatest radio station in the world.
Sure.
Maybe they haven't listened to, you know, BBC.
Oh, no, they always say that.
His what they always say.
I've traveled all over the United States.
I've heard 100 public radio stations.
And WAMC is far away.
The best radio station I have ever listened to, not only in the country, but in the world.
This product is brought to you by, absolutely.
Speaking of the best, so your effort, Mr. Rex Smith, to put us down, didn't go on
appreciate it.
Princeton Review actually does these funny surveys of colleges and they came out with the
best college newspaper every year.
They have a list of what is the best and just think it's worth noting that the number
one college newspaper this year is the Cornell Daily Sun.
And I've said New York number two is the Yale Daily News.
And down there somewhere is the number 10 is the daily gamecock of the University of South
Carolina.
That's a funny name, isn't it?
How about the crimson?
The Oracle is not on there for the 70 new points.
I'm afraid it's not.
The independent Florida alligator is, however.
So there you go, an independent alligator, not just any alligator.
So if you, whatever they may be, the alleging, if they are, if they are, if they are
alleging things, then they would be the alligator.
Now, almost the alleged.
I see.
Maybe you two guys know this.
Well, Alan runs the legislative Gazette, which is a product that's, uh, SUNY New
Paul's product.
Do the college newspapers still go the traditional way?
Are, are they printing web editions and do you know?
Well, the legislative Gazette, as I mentioned, I think last week is online only in the
summer.
And that saved us a lot of money.
They generally do all of the above, but I was talking to a couple of students who had been
editors of the newspapers at USC, you were sitting in California and they say the students
actually prefer to be able to pick up a hard copy.
They're, uh, it is interesting, though they do the digital stuff.
The students like getting their, their own newspaper.
Makes it interesting thing.
Yeah, absolutely.
Yeah, absolutely.
Speaking of changing times, uh, news hour has appointed female co-anchors.
Gwen Eiffel and Judy Woodruff will take over what used to be the McNeil Air News
Hour.
Isn't it interesting?
This is just a, uh, another milestone for women on television and journalism, um, seven
years after Katie Couric became the first, uh, female solo anchor.
And we, we remember all those years ago when Barbara Walters was rather apparently paired
with the Harry Reesner who bullied her out.
Amazing.
Hard to believe.
Yeah.
Hard to believe that that nice Harry Reesner bullied anybody like Barbara Walters.
Well, she's had many more last laughs.
I'm afraid so.
No, it's just interesting to note that there was a time, you know, we're old enough to
remember when, uh, in radio and television, women, it sounded odd to have women's voices
on the air.
Sure.
And now, of course, they are, uh, moving into, uh, moving into leadership positions.
And finally here today, uh, the Republican National Committee has threatened to pull NBC
and CNN out of access to the 2016 Republican primary debates because, uh, they have
film projects related to Hillary Clinton in the works.
Yeah.
God help anybody who wants to do what they look and say, who's the most interesting people
in the country?
And somebody says, uh, Hillary Clinton's a good will do a feature on her.
Oh, well, that's not right.
You can't do one about Hillary Clinton.
We're going to kick you right out of this or that.
I mean, it's for good.
Well, CNN is doing a documentary as one would think a news network would do and presumably
will do with the Republicans as, as somebody steps forward.
NBC, it's their entertainment division is doing a mini series and, and the Republicans
are trying to, uh, link this, uh, supposed bias from the news side, MSNBC in particular.
I, what I thought was particularly interesting is that this is a publicly stated threat to
these guys.
These are the kinds of threats that the three of us get all the time.
You do that.
We're going to pull our advertiser.
Right.
And these, they have no shame.
Oh, yeah, you can do this.
We're going to pull the, uh, coverage of the debates from your network to which I say
going, bully is a bully is a bully is a bully.
And with that, the program separates itself from your, your, your waves.
Yes.
Through the air waves from your earbuds, whatever.
Not a moment too soon.
Thanks for joining us on the media.
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