Boston Globe [2]

The latest on the plight of the Boston Globe

James Vaznis on an interesting piece, that Mass. Democrat Senator John F Kerry is to hold hearings on the financial problems facing the newspaper industry in the US, where dwindling advertising revenue forcing the closure of many papers

I hope that these discussions will allow companies to think, and innovate with new business models, as they currently, and clearly DO NOT WORK

Earlier this month, owners of the Boston Globe, the  NYT Co, threatened to shut down the Globe unless unions agreed to $20 million in cost concessions, as the paper is on track to lose $85 million this year

Crikey - this is a lot of money, although bugger all compared to what the financial institutions have cost the tax payer in trillion dollar bail-outs

On this note, with interest Jeff Jarvis has always a good opinionated rant. A great column in today's Guardian Media section, although he can be read on his sight buzzmachine.com

"Newspapers looking for fault in their fall need look no farther than the buttons on their bellies. The Atlantic magazine has just published a survey of a handful of esteemed, mostly print, American journalists and two-thirds of them said the internet is harmful to journalism. Well, the web has been harmful to the maintenance of their comfortable hegemony over news and advertising. But in truth, the internet presents no end of opportunity to them. They didn't grab it. They blew it"

Great stuff. Always hitting the nail on the head. Jarvis signs off with:

When papers die, there will be silence, confusion and chaos and a few bad guys will escape the watchful eye of journalism. The good news is this: into this crying need, this vacuum, entrepreneurs will rush. And finally, journalism will get the reinvention it has been waiting for...

Ahmen!