The New York Times Co. is trying to sell its stake in the Boston Red Sox baseball team, seeking to raise cash and shield its newspaper franchise from rapidly falling revenue.

Under pressure from investors to sell noncore assets in recent years, executives of the Times Company have said repeatedly that they were open to selling the stake, but only on the right terms. But recently, they have been actively shopping the company’s stake in New England Sports Ventures, which owns the Red Sox. The Times Company informed its partners in the venture of its plans last month.

The company executives have suggested that the central aim of any sale is to protect the company’s newspapers, particularly the flagship Times. They have also been reluctant to consider the sale of About.com, an Internet site that is profitable and growing…

The Times Company reported on Wednesday that revenue from continuing operations in November was down 13.9 percent compared with the month a year earlier. For the year, it was down 7.6 percent.

Even competitors of the TIMES wouldn’t want to see it disappear. The standards they’ve always represented continue to be diluted and diminished by the “news as entertainment” Philistines.




  1. Special Ed says:

    What’s a newspaper?

  2. Ah_Yea says:

    It’s not the “news as entertainment” that is killing the Times, it’s that for the most part the Times has become a full blown heavily left leaning editorial instead of an impartial news reporting entity.

    In other words, the Times has sold it’s journalistic integrity, with the consequences being those who bought the Times to enjoy true journalism have of necessity gone elsewhere.

  3. hhopper says:

    Newspapers have to go 100% electronic.

  4. Mister Mustard says:

    #2 – Ah_Yea

    >>it’s that for the most part the Times has
    >>become a full blown heavily left leaning
    >>editorial instead of an impartial news
    >>reporting entity.

    Have you ever actually READ the New York Times, or are you just parroting what Anal Cyst Limbaugh and Loofah Pad O’Reilly belch out?

  5. god says:

    #2 – thank you, thank you for illustrating an ignorance of politics that matches your ignorance of journalism.

  6. hhopper says:

    God has spoken. Pay attention you silly hoomans.

  7. Haywood Jablome says:

    Anytime I pick up the newspaper I read the stuff that I saw 2 days before on the web.

  8. The Warden says:

    Let’s hope 2009 is the year that NY Slimes goes belly up and that Rupert Murdoch swoops in to buy it.

  9. #8 – Warden

    >>Let’s hope 2009 is the year that NY
    >>Slimes goes belly up and that Rupert
    >>Murdoch swoops in to buy it.

    Better yet, that the Reverend Sun Myung Moon buy it. We could us another quality publication like the Washington Times!

  10. MikeN says:

    Perhaps if they would stick to basic news standards. They ignored their metro reporting for over a decade. As for journalistic standards, the other day they published a letter from the mayor of Paris which was a hoax. They couldn’t check and see if he really wrote it?

  11. MikeN says:

    Also, the New York Times editorialized in favor of the Red Sox winning the World Series. Is that good journalistic standards?

  12. Angel H. Wong says:

    #12

    No, but being a sports fan sure makes people do shitty decisions.

  13. #11 – Lyin’ Mike

    >>As for journalistic standards, the other day
    >>they published a letter from the mayor of
    >>Paris which was a hoax.

    Wooh! They got snookered by a phony letter to the editor. Could have been much worse, like when they got snookered by Judith Miller into initially supporting the war in Iraq based on bogus “intelligence” she supplied.

    The Times, as always, did the right thing when they discovered the fraud that had been perpetrated on them; they revealed it in public and retracted any falsehoods based on it.

    That’s the risk you run, when you’re the undisputed world leader in journalism; there’s always some crackpot trying to slip one past you.

    And it’s not for nothing that Judith Miller went to work for Faux Spews. Not only don’t they mind her shenannigans there, they require them.

  14. bhelverson says:

    The current predicament of the NYT is the result of genetic failure. The elder Ochs/Sultzbergers may have known how to run a newspaper, but the current generation has made a mess of it. Example: The decision to put NYT columnists behind a pay wall and eliminate their influence on public debate. This decision was reversed, but not before the damage was done.

    And it isn’t just the NYT. The Seattle Times is experiencing the same thing as the current generation of Blethens runs it into the ground. So went the late (and often lamented) Arkansas Gazette under the later generations of Woodruff family. I’m not so familiar with the LA Times, but suspect that it might have had a similar Chandler problem.

    There is a time for Family ownership to let go. This has apparently worked for McClatchy and Hearst.

  15. Ah_Yea says:

    Mustard and god, you have both proven yourselves to be complete and absolute idiots.

    http://tinyurl.com/3832ze

  16. Ah_Yea says:

    Tiny URL created a link to the last page of the editorial, so here is the link to the first page, which is an editorial from the NYT about the NYT dated TODAY!

    The tagline?

    “Is The New York Times a Liberal Newspaper?

    OF course it is.”

  17. #s 16, 17 – Ah_Yea

    It is you who who have shown yourself to be a complete and absolute idiot.

    It is a tribute to the greatness and self-confidence of the NYT that such a viewpoint would even be published, much less the author hired for 5 years as ombudsman.

    Do you imagine you’d ever see such a thing in World Net Daily or Jewish World Review or Faux Spews?? Michelle Malkin, Ann Coulter, Loofah Pad O’Reilly, and George Will rule those roosts. No seditious opinions welcome. It’s their way or the highway.

    New York is an urban, sophisticated city, and its premiere newspaper is targeted to urban, sophisticated readers. Granted, those who fuck pigs and marry their sisters may find it less to their liking than NWR or WND, but it successfully covers both the right, left, and centrist issues like no other newspaper on earth.

  18. deowll says:

    Rule one. Sell what isn’t making money. Keep what is.

    Dude, if you think the Times is centerist you don’t have a clue where the center is.

    That fact that it is nowhere near the center is one thing that is hurting sales.

    The other is that most people under forty don’t read any print media.

    Their target audience is liberals over forty who still read print and there just aren’t enough of those.

  19. #19 – de owl

    >>Dude, if you think the Times is centerist you
    >>don’t have a clue where the center is.

    And where do you imagine the center is? Somewhere between Michelle Malkin and Ann Coulter? Anal Cyst Limbaugh and Loofah Pad O’Reilly? Between Faux Spews and Jewish World Review? Between the Reverend Sun Myung Moon and Ralph Murdoch?

    Your analysis of their demographics is off the wall as well. Neither I nor anyone I know (under OR over 40) reads much hardcopy print media, but we all (including the right-wingers) read the NYT online. Granted, a lot of the pig-fucking sister-spousers don’t read at a level necessary to understand the complexities of grammar, syntax, and vocabulary in the NYT, but it remains the gold standard of excellence worldwide for written journalism.

    If it were a shamelessly slanted op-ed from cover to cover (like Faux Spews, WND and JWR), nobody would read it but retards. Just like Faux Spews, WND, and JWR.

  20. bobbo says:

    “Its Center.”

    Its Right/Left.

    Amusing Rot.

    If you are a right wing nut then “center” is wrong, just not as wrong as Left Leaning.

    If you are a leftie, then “center” is wrong, just not as wrong as RightWingNuts.

    Who amoung us will recognize the wrongness of our own position?????

    Who does THAT?????

    Why suffer the ignorant who disagree with us and are wrong????

    Hence, THE BOMB. Not right, left, or center. Just White Hot.

    The Indian Subcontinent hopefully will not have to learn that war is not about who/what is right/wrong, but rather about “whats left (as in over).”

    Arguing instead of learning. Stupid Hoomans.

  21. #21 – Bobo

    How do you pronounce “stupid hoomans”? Like it’s spelled?

  22. bobbo says:

    #22–Mustard==In my mind I hear “Stupid who-mahns.” I’m sure I heard “who-mahns” on a tv show, probably cartoon. Earlier I said maybe SouthPark but I misspoke as I think it was those gelatinous aliens on Simpsons. Silly/Stupid may be my own addition.

    Respectfully, I submit it should be used not for individual acts of stupidity. We have Darwin Awards for that and individual call-outs. I think the term is appropriate to use when one or more people act against common sense in accordance with some passe/anachronistic social more.

    I thought of this today while watching the 11 episode Brideshead Revisited and how many people made themselves and those around them miserable by ineffectually dealing with Catholic dogma. To deny yourself and others happiness because of church teachings ((don’t be a homo, don’t marry but once)) made the Flyte Family a group of “Stupid Hoomans.” Most “conflict” involves Stupid Hoomans.

    I may be stupid and human but not often am I a Stupid Hooman.

  23. bobbo says:

    AAccck!!!! Its those gelatinous Aliens on Futurama. I think they appear on Simpsons too, but not in the same evil plottings.

  24. Mr. Fusion says:

    bobbo,

    go sleep it off.

  25. John Paradox says:

    # 23 bobbo said
    In my mind I hear “Stupid who-mahns.” I’m sure I heard “who-mahns” on a tv show, probably cartoon.

    I thought it might be from the Ferengi (ST:TNG)

    J/P=?

  26. Ah_Yea says:

    #23 and #27. Both. On Futurama it was the alien King that wanted Fry’s “horn” for a trophy, and it was also Quark from Deep Space Nine.

    Don’t ask me how I know these things…

  27. clio says:

    I’m no economist, but maybe the shareholders would be better off if they sold the non performing “assets” like the newspapers and kept performing assets like the BoSox???

  28. Paddy-O says:

    Like Air America on radio, heavily liberal news papers are going under.

    Who here is surprised?

  29. MikeN says:

    Wow, so they don’t conduct basic fact-checking, and you think it’s good standards because they corrected it later?

    In that case I’ll just start my own paper, run whatever I want, if it sounds good it’s true, then the real news will be in the corrections when my readers point out where I messed up.

  30. #31 – Lyin’ Mike

    >> In that case I’ll just start my own paper, >>run whatever I want, if it sounds good it’s
    >>true, then the real news will be in the
    >>corrections when my readers point out where I
    >>messed up.

    That’s already been done, Lyin’ Mike. Aren’t you aware of Faux Spews, WND, JWR, and AM talk radio?

    The only novel aspect would be announcing when your readers point out the muff-ups. In the current wingnut media, that stuff goes straight into the circular file.


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