The negotiations between The Boston Globe and its union will continue. The negotiations have taken a lot of twists and turns in recent weeks but now the two sides are going to meet back at the table on Monday. Earlier in the month of June, the union narrowly defeated a contract that would have ended the negotiations.
The basis of these talks is the newspaper wanting to cut $10 million from the salaries and benefits it is paying out to union workers. With the newspaper industry in turmoil, The Boston Globe says that they need these concessions to stay afloat and …read more

Faced with a choice between a potential shutdown of the delivery wing of the Boston Globe and $2.5 million in wage and benefit cuts, the drivers’ union has chosen the latter. According to the Boston Globe’s owner, the New York Times Co., the wage and benefit cuts are necessary for the continued operation of the paper.
The vote to ratify the new concessions was close: 89 voted in favor while 69 voted against it. This development is especially painful for the union, considering that just six months ago it accepted another $2.5 million worth of wage and benefit cuts. According to …read more

Google CEO Eric Schmidt may not seem like the most likely candidate to speak at a newspaper convention, but sources announced that he’ll be giving the keynote address at the Newspaper Association of America’s annual convention. Right now, most print news publishers are seeing a dramatic loss of sales, and many blame online news aggregation services like Google.
Analysts estimate that Google is responsible for 20% to 30% of all traffic sent to newspaper websites. In the past, Schmidt has urged newspapers to jump on board with better technology, allowing them to increase their revenue from online readership. Many, however, question …read more

A group of journalists at the bankrupt Star Tribune is trying to save the Minnesota paper by launching a campaign aimed to build public support and funding.
Over the past several months, the newspaper has undergone hundreds of layoffs and it declared bankruptcy in January.
The “Save the Strib” campaign will hit the internet on Monday with the website SaveTheStrib.com encouraging local business owners and individuals to invest in the paper to keep it afloat. Supporters also will be passing out petitions, t-shirts, caps and scorecards before the Minnesota Twins’ opening game to stir up interest in the struggling paper.
Daily circulation for …read more

To stay afloat, the San Francisco Chronicle has had to quickly find ways to save money. As part of that endeavor, the newspaper came to a new agreement with their largest labor union. Without the agreement, the San Francisco Chronicle was expected to lose more than $50 million in 2009.
Under the new agreement, the union is preparing for 150 of their 500 jobs to be lost. Additionally, vacations will be limited, the workers will be asked to be on the job for longer hours and the newspaper will be able to pick and choose who will be let go. In …read more

McClatchy Co. (the publisher of 30 daily newspapers) will cut 1,600 jobs or about 15 percent of its workforce. As newspapers are trying to stay in business with plummeting advertising sales, the job cuts weren’t that unexpected but they were drastic.
The company publishes a variety of papers around the country including The Miami Herald and Sacramento Bee.
“The effects of the current national economic downturn make it essential that we move even faster to realign our workforce and make our operations more efficient,” Chairman and Chief Executive Gary Pruitt said in a statement.
McClatchy will incur approximately $30 million in severance costs, …read more

StumbleUpon.com is both a tremendous time sink and an interesting resource. I’m cooking up some bacon for both breakfast and a spinach salad and between flipping rashers, I clicked my StumbleUpon toolbar thingie a few times… and got this:
Newseum.org which has at least the front page from over 500 newspapers in 54 countries! You can sort by country or by region. You get the front page and, if available, a link to the paper’s website. There’s also an analysis section that can be interesting.
Turns out this will turn into a physical museum in Washington DC sometime this year, which would …read more