just so

Culturegrrl gets this exactly right:

It's unthinkable that Boston's premier newspaper could die at the hands of New York's premier paper. Having just heard the NY Times' cultural news editor, Sam Sifton, exult that his paper's financial troubles had not caused any decrease in the space allotted to the arts, and having read Times assistant managing editor Richard Berke's recent boast that the paper possessed sufficient resources to bankroll art critic Michael Kimmelman's farflung peregrinations, I find the Globe's global plight even harder to comprehend.

I'm just trying to get back into this game, and as part of that I've been trying not to dwell on the depressing topics that haven't been helping so much lately.  But perhaps that's wrong, and I should dwell, because to me the thought of Boston without the Globe is like Boston without the Red Line.

Comments

[Franklin]

My guy on the inside isn't so worried about the Globe's future, as it happens. My guess? Management is aiming a beanball at the unions.

[JL]

I am worried about the Globe's future, but I think your guess is right. That's the underlying implication of Lee's remark, as I read it at least: that even as the Globe faces ultimatums from management on cutbacks while the Times has an art critic stationed in Berlin. It certainly could be said that such is the price of the loss of local control, or that the Times company has its own reasons for its business decisions--I'm no expert on the media industry and don't want to pose as one--but still, it rankles. I also can't help but suspect that squeezing the Globe for savings ultimately is a losing battle--that in the end it may hurt more than help. But that's the sort of media industry stuff that, as I said, I'm not really competent to judge and shouldn't get into.

[eva]

Well, what do we think about the writing of the art critic stationed in Berlin, by the way? It seems less and less essential right now anyway. Maybe Venice et all will change that.