The New York Times will cut 100 positions in its newsroom by the end of the year, Executive Editor Bill Keller told staff on Monday. This is the second time that the paper has taken this unfortunate step, having cut 100 positions last year (though, as Richard Perez-Pena reported in his story on nytimes.com, other positions were added so it was not a net reduction). Thing is, the TImes already cut pay for journalists and other employees this year in an attempt to forestall cuts. So… it’s not good news, but it is fit to print. Here is Keller’s memo:

Colleagues,

I had planned to invite you to the newsroom and break this news in person today, but I’ve been hit by something that seems to be the flu. Though I strongly believe in delivering bad news in person, I don’t want to add insult to injury by spreading infection.

Let me cut to the chase: We have been told to reduce the newsroom by 100 positions between now and the end of the year.

We hope to accomplish this by offering voluntary buyouts. On Thursday, the Company will be sending buyout offers to everyone in the newsroom. Getting a buyout package does NOT mean we want you to leave. It is simply easier to send the envelopes to everyone. If you think a buyout may be right for you, you have up to 45 days to decide whether you will accept it or not.

As before, if we do not reach 100 positions through buyouts, we will be forced to go to layoffs. I hope that won’t happen, but it might.

Our colleagues in editorial and op-ed, and on the business side, also face another round of budget cuts.

In recent years, we’ve managed to avoid the disabling cutbacks that have hit other newsrooms. The Company has chosen to protect the journalism by cutting production and other business-side costs, and the newsroom itself has managed its resources frugally. These latest cuts will still leave us with the largest, strongest and most ambitious editorial staff of any newsroom in the country, if not the world.

I won’t pretend that these staff cuts will not add to the burdens of journalists whose responsibilities have grown faster than their compensation. But we’ve been looking hard at ways to minimize the impact — in part, by re-engineering some of our copy flow. I won’t promise this will be easy or painless, but I believe we can weather these cuts without seriously compromising our commitment to coverage of the region, the country and the world. We will remain the single best news organization on earth.

I doubt that anyone is shocked by the fact of this, but it is happening sooner than anyone anticipated. When we took our 5 percent pay cuts, it was in the hope that this would fend off the need for more staff cuts this year. But I accept that if it’s going to happen, it should be done quickly. We will get through this and move on.

In my absence, Bill Schmidt and John and Jill have volunteered to take your questions this afternoon. Feel free to bring additional questions to me as soon as I’m back, or check with Bill Schmidt or John or Jill privately, or save them for the next Throw Stuff at Bill session, which is in a couple of weeks.

We often — and rightly — voice our gratitude that we work for a company and a family that prize quality journalism above all. I hope you know that the company and the family, and I, feel an equal debt of gratitude to all of you whose sacrifice and loyalty have kept us strong.

Like you, I yearn for the day when we can do our jobs without looking over our shoulders for economic thunderstorms.

Bill

(Photo: Reuters)

Here are some of the day’s top stories in the media industry:

New York Times Asks Subscribers: Is It Wrong to Charge for Online Content? (Poynter)
Bill Mitchell writes: “The New York Times is testing a price point of $5 a month for access to nytimes.com, with a 50 percent discount for print subscribers. The Times e-mailed a survey to print subscribers Thursday afternoon inviting their reaction to that pricing plan and asking a range of questions about online pricing.”

Murdoch papers paid £1m to gag phone-hacking victims (Guardian)
“The payments secured secrecy over out-of-court settlements in three cases that threatened to expose evidence of Murdoch journalists using private investigators who illegally hacked into the mobile phone messages of numerous public figures to gain unlawful access to confidential personal data, including tax records, social security files, bank statements and itemised phone bills,” writes Nick Davies.
> UK police won’t reopen Murdoch paper phonetap case (Reuters)

A is for abattoir; Z is for ZULU: All in the Handbook of Journalism (Reuters)
Dean Wright writes: “The handbook is the guidance Reuters journalists live by — and we’re proud of it. Until now, it hasn’t been freely available to the public. In the early 1990s, a printed handbook was published and in 2006 the Reuters Foundation published a relatively short PDF online that gave some basic guidance to reporters. But it’s only now that we’re putting the full handbook online.”

As Gannett’s Newspapers Suffer, Digital Side Sees Growth, More Hiring And Acquisitions (paidContent)
“As Gannett continues to be roiled with huge debt problems, an absent CEO, and hundreds more layoffs across its community newspapers, its digital division appears to be a sea of calm. In fact [...] things are going just fine on their respective ends,” writes David Kaplan.

Analyst Admits to Being ‘Dead Wrong’ After Disney’s ‘Up’ Is Big Earner (NYT)
“Dead wrong” is how Richard Greenfield of Pali Research put his related analysis in a research note. “The recent success of Pixar’s ‘Up’ (well ahead of our forecasts) has renewed investor confidence in Disney’s creative capabilities,” he added. “Up” has so far sold $265.9 million in tickets in North America and $35.4 million overseas, where it has only begun to arrive in theaters,” writes Brooks Barnes.

TiVo, Best Buy Form Alliance To Boost DVRs Available In Stores (WSJ)
David B. Wilkerson writes: “Best Buy also will use TiVo’s platform to market directly to consumers, offering tips and other information to help customers get more out of the two-way possibilities TV now offers. The company said it will ’substantially increase the levels of marketing and merchandising of retail TiVo DVR devices, as well as other devices that may feature the TiVo user interface and platform in the future.’”

In other news:

• Murdoch says mood of media execs “very bearish” (Reuters)
• AOL reviewing assets, but will likely keep Bebo (Reuters)
• Ad Spending on Social Networks to Cool (WSJ)
• Bertelsmann forms music duo with KKR (FT)

The Bald Mountain resort in Sun Valley offers moguls for advanced skiers all winter long. Media reporters show up every July for the other kind of mogul, who lands among the picturesque Idaho mountains on a private jet and has a name like “Rupert Murdoch” or “Barry Diller.”

Reporters are supposed to be part of the scenery — not part of the conference itself.* They must stand around and hope that one of the more than 200 invitees decides to speak to them, and hopefully dispense a few nuggets of news. Fortunately, this week’s weather is supposed to be sunny, dry and warm during the day, and comfortably chilly at night.

For a Sun Valley freshman like this Reuters reporter, it sounds scary terrifying, despite the clement weather forecast. I asked New York Times media columnist David Carr, who covered the conference in 2007, for some advice. Here are some excerpts from our phone conversation;

Why did you go to the Sun Valley conference?

I was sent because (NYT deals columnist) Andrew Ross Sorkin was getting married. I was actually on vacation at the time, (but) Andrew is somebody at the paper who, whatever he asks for, we have to do. I was actually happy to step into the breach.

What kind of reporting do you do?

You’re arguing over real table scraps and taking deep meaning from people sitting physically
adjacent to each other by the duck pond, but you can’t hear what they say… I got a big get. I saw Rupert Murdoch in a parking lot walking and talking to somebody. I can’t remember who he was talking to, but that constitutes a huge get in the context of Sun Valley. (Was it CNN’s Anderson Cooper? We don’t know.)

Where does a reporter fit in to the Sun Valley pecking order?

Your status there is non-status. When people say you spend your time jumping out of the bushes, they’re not kidding. … You’re all confronted by the same miserable circumstances. … The Allen people make it clear that no accommodation at all will be made, and that you are not invited. They’re not nasty about it, they’re not pernicious about it, but they’re very clear about it. (Read about Carr’s close-up shot with a burly security guard if you want proof.)

How do you make news there?

At Sun Valley, you’re more or less handed some lint balls, a couple of twigs and some rocks and told to make a narrative out of that. It can get ugly and it can lead to some fatuous journalism. … If you’re willing to leave your dignity at the door, keep your expectations under control and make sure to manage your editor’s expectations, you’re going to get your moguls in frolic. There’s worse things than that.

We’re not above asking for some avuncular, reporterly advice about how to handle Sun Valley. Leave your comments here!

* Some journalists do get invited, and this year’s elite include CNBC anchorwoman Erin Burnett, interviewer of the high-and-mighty Charlie Rose, New Yorker media writer Ken Auletta, longtime NBC news anchorman Tom Brokaw, New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman, Huffington Post Senior Editor Willow Bay and Washington Post columnist David Ignatius.

(Photo: The sign says it all for reporters and photographers covering last year’s Sun Valley media and tech conference. Reuters/Rick Wilking)

Next Monday is the day when members of The Boston Globe’s biggest union will vote on concessions that the paper’s owner, The New York Times Co, says are necessary to keep the paper from closing. The public relations campaign is heating up already.

The Boston Newspaper Guild published a press release on Friday about the testimonials of 4,000 Bostonians who signed an online petition to save the Globe. Their comments are stirring, but nothing talks like money.

Let’s take a look: The New York Times says it needs $20 million in cost cuts from several Globe unions. At that point, the paper will be on track to lose only $65 million this year, not the $85 million currently projected. A smaller loss, the thinking goes, might make the paper more attractive to a buyer once the Times can rustle one up.

The Boston Newspaper Guild is signaling — quite strongly — that it doesn’t like the cost concessions that it tentatively agreed to. Who would, after reading The New Yorker story quoting columnist Thomas Friedman saying that he gets leeway from the NYT to spend as much as he wants to travel wherever he wants to write whatever he wants? (The concessions include 8.3 percent pay cuts, furloughs, more flexibility with layoffs, etc.)

The Times has said that it will slash Globe staffers’ pay by 23 percent if it doesn’t get an agreement from the guild. The union has said, essentially, that the Times wouldn’t dare, and that if it did, it would take the company to court. The Times has said that it is ready to kill the paper if things spin out of control.

Here are two proposals to stop the bickering:

• Ask the 4,000 people who signed the petition to come up with $10 million instead of the guild. Ask them to each pledge $2,500. Better yet, ask them to come up with $20 million to help out all the unions. That’ll cost each petitioner $5,000. Pretty steep, but if you love the paper that much…
• How about you dig a little deeper — deep enough to get the Globe out of the hole this year? That is $85 million. That’s $21,250 each. Steep, yes, but how much do you love your paper?

Neither (admittedly tongue-in-cheek) payment plan would get rid of the cause of those losses, but at least it would give the Times Co a few more months to find someone willing to buy the Globe at a firesale price. If they do it quickly enough, they’ll find a buyer so committed to civic pride that he or she won’t have time to think about how much money it will cost to actually *run* the thing.

(Photo: Reuters)

It’s refreshing to read some reasoned thinking about the future of newspapers that does not come from

• Newspaper executives whose cheerleading about how they will survive — somehow — gets undercut by reporting a 30 percent drop in profits one quarter later, or
• Internet Cassandras who want newspapers to burn and die because they hate editors who get precious about how the calling of journalism trumps the rules of free markets and (more typically) because they hold dear the tradition of thinking that newspapers only print lies.

The Financial Times is the bearer of these encouraging if cautionary words in an editorial that it ran on Tuesday:

There are legitimate concerns about the disappearance of general papers. The best dig up stories and provide coverage of local, national and foreign news that enlightens readers and citizens. It is easy to undervalue such news when it has been plentiful for decades, but society would feel its absence.

Perhaps some of the reporting done up to now by for-profit papers will in future be funded by foundations or trusts. But the industry should not lose faith in the free market. When people really want or need something, they will pay for it, one way or another. If today’s publishers cannot convince their readers to do so, they will be overtaken by others that can.

The FT is not saying that all newspapers have a future; it’s saying that the ones that don’t waste your time will survive because you will pay for them. To be sure, there is news that we want to know and news that we need to know (whether he want to or not). The question is: how many of our papers provide that? We would enjoy getting your response.

Keep an eye on

• Speaking of getting people to pay for news, The Associated Press devotes some space to analyzing that. Is it salvation or suicide? (The Associated Press)

• David Geffen still wants The New York Times, a state of play that continues to fascinate everyone in media. See the references in this massive profile of Carlos Slim, the Mexican billionaire who is helping keep the Times afloat. (The New Yorker)

• Mark Cuban’s lawyers will try to convince a judge to dismiss the Securities and Exchange Commission’s insider trading charges against the Dallas Mavericks owner and noted blogger/tech guy. (The Associated Press)

(Photo: Reuters)

They moved your markets. Now you can move their bank accounts.

The Society of American Business Editors and Writers, or SABEW, is hosting an event next week at Columbia University’s School of Journalism to help business journalists who have lost their jobs or found themselves in other tough straits because of the biggest story on every business reporter’s beat — the financial crisis. Here is the text of the invitation:

Former Wall Street Journal Managing Editor and ProPublica founder Paul Steiger, and New York Times Business Editor Larry Ingrassia invite you to join them at an event to benefit business journalism and the Society of American Business Editors and Writers (SABEW).

SABEW needs your support to help displaced business journalists and train business journalists for the digital age and new media landscape. Among SABEW’s programs are a revamped job listing site, a market for freelancers to find work, a mentor program for displaced journalists, teletraining on multimedia and business journalism topics, scholarships to attend conferences and training, and a revamp of our website to provide more robust services to members.

The event is free but donations to the SABEW Fund for the Future are requested as SABEW must raise $50,000 by August to qualify for a matching amount from four foundations.

Many of the business reporters who have recently lost their jobs worked at newspapers and magazines that have been shedding employees right and left because advertising revenue is plunging. Some of that is because of the recession, but much of it is because advertisers see fewer people reading those publications and are moving their ad dollars elsewhere.

So here is one way that you can help even if you can’t make the reception: Subscribe to your local paper or subscribe to some magazines. It doesn’t come with cocktails and canapes, but it’s pretty effective if enough people do it.

(Photo: Reuters)

The New York Times spits out thousands of words a day through its newspapers. If it would only start coughing a few more up about Hollywood mogul David Geffen, who wants a piece of it, if not more. If the Times doesn’t tell its story soon, everybody else will.

So far it has made no comment. That might not be such a slick move. Speculation over the Times’s future has grown during the past few years as its finances worsen because of advertising revenue declines, more than a billion dollars in debt that it has to pay off and the nearly annnual assaults on the company’s management by shareholders and others who think they know how to do the job better.

The latest news frenzy came when Fortune writer Richard Siklos said that Geffen wanted to buy a nearly 20 percent stake owned by one-time dissident shareholder Harbinger Capital Partners, but was rebuffed. Nearly every news outlet got the story (though most of us paid less attention to a report that a Harbinger-nominated director tried to get Google to buy the Times — and failed), while the Financial Times said that Geffen wants to buy the whole company.

That would be next to impossible, as would any friendly or hostile move at taking control, because the Ochs-Sulzberger family under nearly every circumstance doesn’t have to cave. That hasn’t stopped the frenzy, of course, because the Times’s flagging fortunes have led some to conclude that the Sulzbergers will get sick of seeing themselves growing poor and demand an exit of some kind.

Now, two days after the reports of Geffen’s interest surfaced, the speculation is in full force. Why Geffen? What does he want? What will the Times do?

The Times’s answer? It sent out a press release about a feature on nytimes.com that allows you to see the news appear in chronological order as the Times adds items to its site. Cool? Yes. Is it what everybody wants to hear from the Times right now? No.

People want a public utterance of some kind from Chairman Arthur Sulzberger Jr.

The problem is that the Times does not seem to know how to handle this latest assault on its noble mission to provide the best journalism in the land, even at the expense of shareholder value. The Times has refused to comment through its executives or spokeswoman Catherine Mathis. In this refusal, it has lost control of the message it wants to deliver.

There could be many reasons that the Times doesn’t want to talk about Geffen or what will happen to the company. It could be that it doesn’t want to risk shareholder lawsuits for one reason or another, or that its lawyers say it’s a bad idea, or that it has some other way to save itself from Slim, Geffen and other rich people who say they are friends.

It could be that the Times is paralyzed by shock and fear and has no idea what to do. And that’s not the message that it wants to deliver right now.

The buzz, redolent with schadenfreude and a desire among its competitors and peers to witness a New York Times-sized car crash, is why it might be best to start telling the public what’s going on. It wouldn’t hurt Geffen to talk some more. He has nothing to lose. Increasingly, it doesn’t seem like the Times has anything to lose either.

Keep an eye on:

• In a new web campaign, Microsoft is continuing its attacks on Apple products as overpriced (Adweek)
• Bankrupt Charter Communications is suing DirecTV Group for “false” advertising that it said could give customers the impression Charter is liquidating and that its cable TV services (Reuters)
• Sony Music Entertainment is suing smaller rival EMI Music and one of its executives after he allegedly broke his promise to join Sony on a new $3 million contract (Reuters)

(Photo: Reuters)

When Massachusetts Democratic Senator John Kerry convenes a Senate Commerce Committee hearing on Wednesday to discuss the fate of U.S. newspapers, don’t look for the man who controls the fate of Kerry’s hometown Boston Globe on Capitol Hill.

Arthur Sulzberger Jr, whose New York Times Co is threatening to close the Globe, will be at a press conference in New York City where online bookseller and retailer Amazon.com plans to release a new version of the Kindle electronic book reader. At least, that’s what The Wall Street Journal says. Amazon and the Times declined to talk to us about the Wednesday event or Sulzberger’s planned appearance.

Senator Kerry need not worry that he can’t question Sulzberger in person. As much as Sulzberger probably wants to limit his talking points to the Kindle, we’re in a Globe state of mind. After all, talks resume tonight over $10 million in cost cuts it wants to wrest from the Globe’s biggest union. We would be happy to ask Kerry’s questions on his behalf.

(Photo: Reuters)

When we went to bed late last night, the state of play on The Boston Globe didn’t look so hot. Since then… it’s still not looking so hot.

The short story: Some of the Globe’s union appear to have reached tentative accords with the Globe and its parent company, The New York Times, which has threatened to shut down the money-losing paper if it doesn’t win $20 million in concessions. The Boston Newspaper Guild, which is on the hook for $10 million alone, said it has offered more than it has to, but it appears to not have been enough so far. The Times Co, meanwhile, said it would file a federal government notice that it intends to shut the paper. The big issue? Lifetime job guarantees that the Times wants to eliminate.

Here’s the latest from the sleepless reporters at its smaller competitor, the Boston Herald:

Boston Newspaper Guild president Dan Totten left Sacred Heart School at 6:45 a.m. today - nearly seven hours after the midnight deadline - and said the union was taking a “break” from negotiations. The Times had extended the deadline to come up with concessions from midnight Friday to midnight Sunday. “We continue to negotiate in good faith. Negotiations are ongoing and we’ll reconvene at a later time. We’re just going to take a little break for now and move on from here,” Totten said shortly before 6:45 a.m. today. Totten said it was “unlikely” negotiations would resume today and he would not comment on whether the Times had extended the deadline again.

And here’s the Globe reporting on its website:

Shortly before 4:30 a.m. this morning, the Teamsters Local 1 president Mary White, representing 245 mailers at the Globe, said the union had reached a tentative agreement that included $5 million in concessions and changes in the lifetime job guarantee protecting 145 of its members. … The mailers’ agreement followed another post-deadline deal reached with Teamsters Local 259, representing 210 Boston Globe drivers, according to Ralph Giallanella, the union’s secretary-treasurer. Giallanella would not disclose the details, but said union leaders came to an agreement worth about $2.5 million in concessions. Still, Globe unions, negotiating almost five hours after the deadline passed, have more work to do. The lifetime job guarantees will likely continue to be an issue with the final two unions still seeking an agreement - the pressmen’s union and the Boston Newspaper Guild. And both are now negotiating under growing pressure to meet management’s demands.

Bottom line: Today’s edition of The Boston Globe will not turn into a collector’s item. Nevertheless, the “WARN” notice that the Times says it will file means that, absent any agreement in the coming hours or days, sometime in early July you might want to make sure you grab a copy of that sure-to-be special edition. It may be just in time for Independence Day, which would be an especially bitter pill for the city that helped spark the events that led to the founding of the United States.

Keep an eye on

• Warren Buffett loves his newspapers, reads five a day, can’t do without them, wouldn’t lift a finger to save the ones he already has money in. (Reuters)
• The New York Times could make an incremental $40 million a year if it raises its newsstand price, something that could happen as soon as this week. (Financial Times)
• Discovery Communications’ quartery results emphasize how good it is to be in the cable business during the recession. (Reuters)

(Photo: Reuters)

The New York Times’s hyper-energetic reporter Sewell Chan fielded a question in a mediabistro.com Q&A about what it’s like working with Arthur Gregg Sulzberger on his City Room blog staff at nyt.com. Sulzberger is the son of Times Publisher Arthur Sulzberger Jr. and an heir apparent to the Times company.

Regardless of Sulzberger’s talent at City Room or in his previous reporting gig at The Oregonian, I’m not sure Chan had many options on how to answer the question. Here’s what he said:

Arthur Gregg Sulzberger joined the Times staff as a reporter, and he’s been working continuous news. He’s already been working with metro, and he’ll continue to work with metro. He has been absolutely impressive, gracious, smart as a whip, hardworking, full of energy, full of ideas, and has a great sense of language. His writing sparkles, and he’s a charm and a pleasure to work with.

It’s an especially good answer when Times salaries are about to get cut by 5 percent this year — part of cost-cuts to keep the paper alive — and layoffs are not off the table, at least according to the tentative agreement between the TImes management and union that we reported on Tuesday.