Local black leaders urge revamp of Metro culture

Reacting to reports that executives with the Metro newspaper company had made racially crude remarks, several prominent local African-Americans said yesterday The New York Times Co. must change the culture of the company it plans on partnering with.

Times Co. said last week it is buying a 49 percent stake in the free daily tabloid Metro Boston. On Monday, mediachannel.org reported that Metro officials had twice made racially offensive remarks at company events overseas and there were allegations that the company fostered a culture of discrimination. Yesterday the Boston Herald -- whose publisher Patrick J. Purcell has stated his intention to block the Times Co. deal with Metro on anticompetitive grounds -- splashed the story on its front page.

Contacted by The Boston Globe yesterday, Leonard Alkins, president of the Boston branch of the NAACP, said the reports are ''very troublesome, and clearly" Times Co. ''is buying into a newspaper whose management seems to have some questionable character problems." Times Co., he said, ''needs to deal with the culture of the Metro first and then sit down with the community."

State Representative Byron Rushing, a Boston Democrat, said Times Co. must have the ''ability to work on changing the culture of the company. It has to be part of the deal." Otherwise, he added, ''you're only profiting from a culture that allows this kind of thing to happen."

Callie Crossley, a cultural commentator and program manager at Harvard's Nieman Foundation, added: ''It is incumbent" on Times Co. ''not just to say something but to do something. . . . They need to take this very seriously. This is a publication aimed at young people. What's the message here?"

The Boston Association of Black Journalists, headed by Herald columnist Howard Manly, issued a statement yesterday saying the publicized comments by Metro executives ''should give the New York Times [Co.] a huge red flag about the insensitive culture within its new business partner." The association recommended a boycott of the Metro. Manly said the statement was written as a collaborative effort by members of the association, whose membership he estimated at 100. (Another local officer of the association, who was surprised by the statement, said the active membership is considerably smaller.)

As the controversy intensified yesterday, Globe publisher Richard Gilman released a statement saying: ''Of course, the incidents that have been reported are reprehensible, and as we said yesterday, the Times Co. is discussing the allegations with Metro USA's management. We are committed to fair treatment of all employees based on respect, accountability, and standards of excellence."

The Metro had nothing publicly to add to its statement Monday apologizing for the racial remarks and saying they did not represent the personal views of the Metro officials or the company's sentiments. That statement also denied ''recently published allegations that a culture of racism and sexism exists at Metro." It added: ''The company has a commitment to hiring and promoting without regard to race, religion, sex, or creed." Metro USA is a division of Metro International, which is based in London.

A spokeswoman for Times Co. yesterday declined to comment on whether the organization was reconsidering its transaction with Metro Boston. And with neither the Metro or Times Co. talking about the specific plans for handling the issue, several analysts reflected on the potential of the negative headlines to stall or even kill the partnership.

''It's very embarrassing, particularly for a company like" Times Co., said Rem Rieder, editor of the American Journalism Review. ''It's hard to imagine worse publicity. . . . I think I'd be thinking seriously about walking away."

George Ticknor, a partner at Palmer & Dodge who heads up the firm's media and communications finance group, said bad publicity may not kill the deal, but it could give Times Co. executives pause.

''Newspaper operators like the Times [Co.] have to have their ear to the ground," he said. ''The impact of negative publicity on newspapers is very significant. . . . Credibility with the readership and newspaper public is important."

Ticknor added that when unpleasant surprises crop up before the closing of a deal, one party may begin to have doubts about the other. ''That really throws into question a lot of representations the executives are making about their business." he said. ''There's an ongoing due diligence process."