Posted on 04/27/2006 3:11:06 AM PDT by Liz
Facing shareholder dissent and getting flak for bloated executive pay deals, The New York Times is frantically searching for crisis p.r. experts as the company gears up for a public battle over the future of the newspaper giant.
Chairman Arthur "Pinch" Sulzberger Jr. and other top management have been criticized for putting off the concerns of Morgan Stanley portfolio manager Hassan Elmasry and for a share price that's plummeted 50 percent since 2002.
Soon after Morgan's attack last week on The Times, the publisher's spokeswoman, Catherine Mathis, was phoning Knight Ridder spokesman Polk Laffoon seeking advice, sources familiar with the matter said.
In addition to fallout from the Jayson Blair scandal and Judith Miller's controversial imprisonment, The Times' business has been suffering.
The paper lost nearly 20 percent of its readers in the five boroughs between 2001 and 2004, as it pushed to reinvent itself as a national publication. Its daily circulation in New York City fell to 260,526 copies from 320,682.
Despite the sagging stock performance and job cuts across the company, Sulzberger and CEO Janet Robinson were awarded hefty payouts. Robinson's 2005 restricted stock award jumped nearly fivefold from a year earlier to roughly $2 million. Sulzberger's stock award nearly doubled to $817,500.
Morgan Stanley's investment arm, a longtime shareholder of The Times with a 5 percent stake, blasted management for the executive compensation and for failing to address the company's woeful stock price. It also called for an end to The Times' two-tier stock system, which it said "fosters a lack of accountability."
(Excerpt) Read more at nypost.com ...
I'm a mid-westerhg hick who's become a redneck, and proud of it!
In a lot of ways, they already have.
The New York Times: Think 'Enron' in Print
Hell, if the NYSlimes goes south, NPR and PBS will not have any news to report. Lots of dead air time........kind of like Air Amerika.
They could save some money if they stopped giving money to Clinton-era CIA appointees in return for treasonous 'leaks'.
The NYT doesn't need p. r. experts, they need fair and balanced news. Oh, wait, someone else has thought of that.
Same deal with the long-term prospects of people who bought google stock
And Ford Motor Company, from the late twenties until recently.
Henry and his son Edsel dreamed up this scheme to transfer the majority of existing stock to a foundation (the Ford Foundation, of course); but the catch was exactly as you have described: the majority of stockholders had a diluted vote-per-share so that the small percentage retained by the family represented a controlling interest.
They were said to be the inventors of this arrangement.
In Ford's case, the public couldn't even buy shares until 1956 when the Foundation started selling it off. I think that they eventually sold virtually all of it.
As to who would buy that kind of stock, well lots of people buy stock based on its performance--or even personal whim--without having any thought of trying to control the company through its board of directors. And entrenched management usually has its way with them through proxy power. Of course, it does get interesting when the 'long knives,' i.e., takeover specialists start battling the old guard for control.
>Doesn't quite rise to Dickensian level, though.
Somebody, wish I could recall who, referred to Matt Drudge as having a "Dickensian name."
"The Times, the publisher's spokeswoman, Catherine Mathis, was phoning Knight Ridder spokesman Polk Laffoon seeking advice."
Is this a satire article, "Punch is seeking help from Polk Laffoon."
I need another cup of coffee.
Besides the name, the thought that they need help with PR, even though they are a media company, is pretty funny.
Minorities, women, and children hardest hit.
It's hazardous to make up the news instead of reporting it.
All they need to do is tell the news fairly. They seem incapable of even considering that.
"Heheheh. It does read like an Onion piece, doesn't it?
Besides the name, the thought that they need help with PR, even though they are a media company, is pretty funny."
The whole article reads, sounds like and smells like an Onion piece.
If true the NY Slimes is beyond repair when they have to go to a loser competitor for advise and help re PR.
KRI was forced on the market and was sold because of their miserable failure. I think 12 of the KRI fishwraps will be sold or something by the new owner, another loser, MNI.
This adds another observation of insanity to Einstein's observation/definiion of insanity, "definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result." ~ Albert Einstein
That new observation of insanity is to go to friends or relatives who may be even more insane than you are and ask them for help after they were forced to sell their family business for the same insanity problems you are having.
Regardless, we have to think that this a really good happening for our side.
"Ah, good news with my morning coffee!"
I look forward to Abb's or Liz's good news threads each morning re the implosions of the dinosaur media.
"The NYT doesn't need p. r. experts, they need fair and balanced news..."
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