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What’s next at the downsized Herald?
BY DAN KENNEDY AND MEGAN E. HARRINGTON
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Now that the ax has fallen at the financially ailing Boston Herald, with 19 positions having been eliminated last Friday, the question on everyone’s mind is: what’s next? It is widely thought both inside and outside the Herald newsroom that publisher Pat Purcell may be readying the city’s number-two daily for sale. But two possible buyers — Purcell’s former employer, Rupert Murdoch, and the Tribune Company — can’t make a move because the Federal Communications Commission’s efforts to loosen the prohibition against cross-ownership have been stymied by Congress. Murdoch owns WFXT-TV (Channel 25), and Tribune owns WLVI-TV (Channel 56). Then, too, there are those longstanding rumors that Murdoch still owns the Herald’s property — located in a potentially valuable spot in the South End, near the Big Dig — despite having sold the paper to Purcell in 1994. This rumor has persisted even though Purcell, in 1999, told the Phoenix he had acquired the six-acre property from Murdoch two years previously (see "Cliffhanger," News and Features, November 12, 1999). Records at the Boston Assessing Department checked this week appear to back up Purcell’s claim: in 1998, the property changed hands, with Boston Herald Realty, LLC, acquiring it from News Boston Realty Corporation. This would suggest that Murdoch has less interest in Boston than some might suppose. Another potential Herald buyer whose name comes up in conversations with anxious Herald staffers is Dean Singleton, whose MediaNews Group owns the Lowell Sun, the Berkshire Eagle, and nine other Massachusetts papers, according to the company’s Web site. By this logic, Singleton — whose flagship, the Denver Post, is edited by former Boston Globe managing editor Greg Moore — would likely be at least as interested in Purcell’s Community Newspaper chain of 100 papers in Greater Boston as he would in the Herald. Singleton himself, though, says there’s nothing to it. "I can’t tell you anything because I don’t know anything," Singleton said this week. "I know Pat very well. He’s an old friend. Pat loves what he’s doing, and he loves the Herald.... I don’t sense that there’s any interest in him selling anything." If Purcell is to be taken at his word, there is not necessarily any need for him to sell. "We are profitable," he said this week. Purcell did not return a call seeking comment specifically on the possibility that he might sell. But on several occasions he and his spokesman, George Regan, have characterized the cuts as no different from those that other newspaper companies have had to implement in the past few years — including the Boston Globe, owned by the New York Times Company, which eliminated some 185 positions through early retirement in the spring of 2001. The Herald cuts will drastically reduce the presence of two of the Herald’s bigger names (see "Media Log," BostonPhoenix.com, November 14). Television columnist Monica Collins and political columnist Wayne Woodlief were told that their contracts will not be renewed. Both, however, will continue to write for the Herald on a freelance basis. Collins will write her Sunday "Downtown Journal" column once a week (it may be moved to the Monday paper), and Woodlief will continue to write weekly as well. Woodlief, at 68, is already past the customary retirement age. Nevertheless, he said he was "surprised" to learn that he would be asked to retire before he was ready. "I’ve gone through the cycles — mad, glad; well, not glad, sad — and in a way I’m looking forward to some liberation, especially since I can continue the column once a week," Woodlief said. "I’ll be around to haunt the politicians and afflict the comfortable and comfort the afflicted for next year for sure, and maybe beyond." Also taking early retirement will be sports-media columnist Jim Baker. This has been a tumultuous year for the Herald. In the spring, beset by declining circulation and advertising revenues, Purcell brought in former Herald editor (and former New York Post) publisher Ken Chandler as a consultant, while leaving editor Andy Costello and managing editor Andrew Gully in charge — a confusing management scheme that has led more than one staffer to wonder who was really running the paper (see "Don’t Quote Me," News and Features, June 20). The Chandler-ized Herald has been a distinctly downscale product, with a heavy emphasis on celebrities, gossip, and scantily clad women. The newsroom has been on tenterhooks since earlier this fall, when management announced it was asking union employees to take voluntary early-retirement packages known as "buyouts" (see "Media," This Just In, September 26 and October 3). The final toll included eight union members who took the buyout; two union members, including a part-timer, who were laid off outright; and two whose positions were eliminated but who have "bumping rights," which means that they could choose to leave or to take other union jobs, a situation that would cause two other employees with less seniority to lose their jobs. The other seven employees — including Collins and Woodlief — are nonunion. In a statement released last Friday, Purcell said, "The Herald worked diligently to minimize the impact on its employees by reducing expenses in other areas throughout the company, and only after exhaustive evaluation of all aspects of our business did this course of action become necessary." Lesley Phillips, president of the Newspaper Guild of Greater Boston and a Herald staff member, expressed "sadness" for those who found themselves unemployed, but also had some praise for Purcell. "In the past 48 hours I’ve been convinced that this company has done what it can to keep the impact low," she said on Friday. "It’s just been stressful. It’s been a stressful number of weeks. We were waiting for this. Now we go forward and go on to fight another day." Said Woodlief: "It’s clearly not a happy day. At the same time, most folks are saying, hell, it’s the Herald, we’ll go on."
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