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Friday, April 03, 2009

The Armpit of Pitt

Shank again mailed it in with this one on March 29, essentially providing readers with a game account in place of a column.

His inconsistency continues to boggle the mind. Aside from a couple of asides, Dan pens a column that recounts how Pitt lost in the final minute of its Elite Eight contest against Villanova. He regales us with memories of Danny Ainge against Notre Dame and Christian Laettner's efforts versus Kentucky.

He also laments Pitt's lack of getting the ball to DeJuan Blair, the guy with "the enormous derriere." There it is again ...

It all makes one wonder why the Globe editors let him get away with half-assing his way through life...

21 comments:

Chris said...

We don't see much 'defending The Boston Globe' from OB any more. Huh. All his bluster about the Globe 'being just fine' seems to ring quite hollow now that the NYT has basically told the union hacks to bleed themselves to death. I'm all for the expiration of The Globe...and soon. Maybe Jack Welch will ride in on a white horse or something. Oh, wait...he did that already, a few years ago. What did he get for his overture from the NYT? A haughty, Obama-like upturned nose. I love it.

Jerry Gutlon said...

I really don't want tosee the Globe go down the tubes, especially because the Herald has been on life support since way back when...

A one-newspaper town is a dangerous place. I've been there and done that.

That said, the Globe needs to even out its coverage and shuck all the hacks it has kept employed lo, all these many years...

Anonymous said...

wow...the Globe is going down and taking Shank with it....put Objectivebruce on suicide watch

Roger Bournival said...

I think the Boston Globe is going somewhere! I think it's going south:

Times co. threatens to shut down Globe

By Robert Gavin and Robert Weisman, Globe Staff

The New York Times Co. has threatened to shut the Boston Globe unless the newspaper's unions swiftly agree to $20 million in concessions, union leaders said.

Executives from the Times Co. and Globe made the demands Thursday morning in an approximately 90- minute meeting with leaders of the newspaper's 13 unions, union officials said. The possible concessions include pay cuts, the end of pension contributions by the company and the elimination of lifetime job guarantees now enjoyed by some veteran employees, said Daniel Totten, president of the Boston Newspaper Guild, the Globe's biggest union, which represents more than 700 editorial, advertising and business office employees.

The concessions will be negotiated individually with each of the unions, said Totten and Ralph Giallanella, secretary-treasurer of the Teamsters Local 259, which represents about 200 drivers who deliver the newspaper.

"We all know the newspaper industry is going through great transition and loss," said Giallanella. "The ad revenues have fallen off the cliff. Just based on everything that's going on around the country, they're serious."

Catherine Mathis, a Times Co. spokeswoman, declined to comment. Globe publisher P. Steven Ainsley also declined to comment.

The newspaper industry, which had already been struggling as readers and advertisers moved to the Internet, has been hard hit by the recession, and the Globe is no exception. The newspaper's advertising revenues have declined sharply in recent years; once robustly profitable, it is now losing money.

Several major newspaper companies have filed for bankruptcy in recent months, and several have threatened to shut down operations unless they got major concessions from workers. Hearst Corp. of New York in February threatened to shut or sell the San Francisco Chronicle if it could not cut costs. Hearst recently shut down the Seattle Post-Intelligencer after it failed to find a buyer, and Scripps Co. shuttered the Rocky Mountain News in Denver.

Earlier this week, the Globe newsroom completed cutting the equivalent of 50 full-time jobs. But the deteoriating economy has made the paper's financial outlook much worse. Management told union leaders Thursday that the Globe will lose $85 million in 2009, unless serious cutbacks are made, according to a Globe employee briefed on the discussions. Last year the paper lost an estimated $50 million, the employee said.

The Times Co. is seeking concessions from the union because the New York company, which is also suffering from the recession, can no longer subsidize the Globe's losses, said the Globe employee who requested anonymity because the person is not authorized to speak publicly. The Times Co. posted a net loss of $57.8 million in 2008.


OB - Thanks in advance for your blithe assertion to the contrary...

ObjectiveBruce said...

The Boston Globe ain't going anywhere.

Anonymous said...

OB is right. The "Globe ain't going anywhere" but it will be "digitally" transformed.

Ahhhh, accountability now that's priceless.

Guess the "basement dwelling" typists will now rule.

Since now shanksters like CHB lose their importance (re - the "gray" market overtaken by the "freedom fighting" youths).

Geez, we might even have a medium that is for the people and by the people instead of "The World According to Shank".

g

Chris said...

I don't mind if The Globe goes all digital. Then someone can tell Joe Biden 'what the web site number is.' The permeation of their biased, Liberal thought will reach fewer people and that's all for the good. The money coming in from a web-only operation isn't good either, and I'm careful not to click any ads I see on the Globe web site. Best of all: People at The Globe are all miserable, coming so soon after their Dear Leader took office. Imagine the internal angst at realizing YOUR Dear Leader is suffocating capitalism...and that your very existence depends on this NOT happening. Oh, the bow ties must be more limp than normal over there on Bowtie Boulevard.

Roger Bournival said...

If saving the New York Times is like saving Darfur, does that make saving the Boston Globe like saving the whales or something?

Roger Bournival said...

Just a wee bit of flaming hypocrisy going on here?

The argument against unions — that they unduly burden employers with unreasonable demands — is one that corporate America makes in good times and bad, so the recession by itself is not an excuse to avoid pushing the [card-check] bill next year. The real issue is whether enhanced unionizing would worsen the recession, and there is no evidence that it would.

There is a strong argument that the slack labor market of a recession actually makes unions all the more important. Without a united front, workers will have even less bargaining power in the recession than they had during the growth years of this decade, when they largely failed to get raises even as productivity and profits soared. If pay continues to lag, it will only prolong the downturn by inhibiting spending.


So, during a recession, unions are important for preserving bargaining power, unless that union is connected to a business entity owned by the New York Times.

Got it...

Roger Bournival said...

OK, I'm just piling on now:

I respect people who avoid the spotlight, and a reluctance to be publicly vivisected is a sure sign of intelligence. But ducking interviews is an awkward policy for the leader of the world’s most celebrated newspaper, one that sends a small army of reporters—approximately 400 of them—into the field every day asking questions. Still, I could understand Arthur’s decision. After presiding or helping to preside over a decade of unprecedented prosperity, the publisher and chairman of the Times had recently begun to appear overmatched. Two of his star staffers were discovered to have violated basic rules of reporting practice; he had been bullied by the newsroom into firing his handpicked executive editor, Howell Raines; and he had spent much of the previous year in a confusing knot of difficulty surrounding one of his reporters and longtime friends, Judith Miller. For an earnest and well-meaning man, the hereditary publisher had begun to look dismayingly small.

He has been shrinking ever since. In 2001, The New York Times celebrated its 150th anniversary. In the years that have followed, Arthur Sulzberger has steered his inheritance into a ditch. As of this writing, Times Company stock is officially classified as junk.


But don't worry - the Globe ain't going anywhere.

Good job, Pinchy!

JERRY G said...

I think this Globe reader put it very succinctly on the Boston.com website...

No offense to many of the hard working staff members who work in the printing and delivery side, but the left leaning editorial and news room staff continue to drive away readers. The majority of people do not want to see left-wing or right wing bias - we want the news without an editorial slant or having the reporter becoming part of the story. Add in the electronic choices allowing readers to find news without bias (yes, some reporters actually report the news without making it up) and the Globe is going to under without an attitude adjustment.

What a concept!!!

Anonymous said...

Jerry,

Your 10:40 AM post highlighted ....

"we want the news without an editorial slant or having the reporter becoming part of the story"

Now that's priceless. Not left or right.

The Globe and other media now must deal with us people making choices.

Which means that "$$$" kitty dwindles for the media whores and the Shank will have to move one.

Amen.

g

ObjectiveBruce said...

I always find it incredibly funny when the right wing nutbags start complaining about the Globe's "Liberal Bias."

Right wing kooks love to slay the messenger. If the news contradicts their absurd view of the world, then "the media" is to blame

Anonymous said...

yeah, that's nice OB but get back on point....your beloved Globe and your beloved Shank are going down the tubes....for details read the Boston Globe (while you can)

Chris said...

OB: While you're finding that incredibly funny, we're finding it incredibly funny that the Globe whines about advertising falling off a cliff while cheerleading for a president who wants to evaporate capitalism. Enjoy laughing; I sure am.

JERRY G said...

OB ... your logic stinks! AS a long-time (25-year) member of the media I have no doubt that the media is dominated by left wing activists. Just look at the cheerleading the media did last year during the presidential campaign.

The fact of the matter is, those of us who choose to differ with the left-leaning media dominated bleeding hears aren't "right wing nutbags," simply level-headed people praying for an evenhanded media.

Chris said...

Predictably, The Boston Globe took a 'we're-too-big-to-fail' stance today by trotting out all sorts of good socialist/Liberal soldiers to prop up the thesis. Happily, an on-line-only Boston Globe reaches fewer eyeballs and collapses into the stew of all the other (more widely-read) on-line offerings. We await this outcome eagerly.

Roger Bournival said...

I always find it incredibly funny when the right wing nutbags start complaining about the Globe's "Liberal Bias."

I can't comment right now. Someone just mentioned Obama, and now I have this thrill running up my leg...

Dubegedi said...

CHB is awful.

But if you guys really think the BOSTON GLOBE going under is a good thing, you're head is firmly up your ass.

Why don't we just have a bunch of blogs be the new boston news? That'd be just great.

Chris said...

If the die hadn't already been cast with the Seattle P-I, then I might agree with the selective wisdom that the Globe 'isn't going anywhere.' But newspapers ARE being shuttered...sometimes altogether and sometimes with an on-line remnant. Either way, any sort of suggestion that The Globe is 'too big to fail' is completely laughable. Look at the major institutions and corporations that are no longer around and then try and convince us that, somehow, The Globe should be immune to that sort of fate.

Monkeesfan said...

BTW Bruce, there has never been a "contradiction of their absurd view of the world" that was correct.