The New York Times Co.'s chairman, Arthur O. Sulzberger Jr., and its chief executive, Janet Robinson, spoke with Globe reporter Robert Gavin this week in New York. Edited excerpts follow:
Q: Would you confirm that you're selling the Globe?
Sulzberger: We are exploring that as a possibility. It does not mean that will absolutely be the case. What's important here is that the Globe be maintained as a viable business entity, whether it's sold or we continue to operate it, and make sure that it has the financial stability to ensure its continuity. We're committed to that.
Q. Are you simply going to sell [the Globe] to the highest bidder? Are there other things you are evaluating besides price?
Sulzberger: Price is not the only consideration.
Q. Do we have to worry about a San Diego [Union-Tribune] situation, sold to the highest bidder, a private equity firm, that three days after the sale made big staff cuts?
Sulzberger: What I urge you to look at is our history when we have sold properties in the past. We recognize there's a concern. We love the Globe. We managed this property, this newspaper, for a long time.
Q: Do you guys regret buying the Globe in the first place?
Sulzberger: How far back should we go? Maybe we regret in 1896 that we bought The New York Times.
[The Globe] was a great deal at the time. The Globe had great prospects, the journalism match between the Globe and the Times was superb, and no one could foresee where the place would be at today.
Robinson: One of the things that needs to be reinforced here is The New York Times Co. and everyone in it is very proud to own The Boston Globe. And very proud of the journalism that is created there each and every day. Award-winning journalism. It was the case 15 years ago, and the case today.
The standards have been kept very, very high during very difficult times, and I think everyone needs to know it is part of our portfolio for a reason. It constitutes what we certainly describe as great journalism, and we feel as though it will continue to.
Q. Do you think the Times Co. has been a good steward of the Globe?
Sulzberger: Yes. Under very, very challenging circumstances.
Robinson: I think this company has supported the Globe during a very, very difficult financial period. It has supported its journalism, it has supported its business-side operations.
From a standpoint of the hands we have all been dealt, with the transition taking place in this industry, it's been a very difficult period for every newspaper and every media company. But I do think this company has been a very good steward of The Boston Globe.
Q. With the new union contracts you negotiated, the closing of the Billerica plant, the management compensation cuts, the increasing circulation revenues, where are we now? Are we turned around? Is the Globe profitable?
Robinson: With all the elements of the plan in place, we are making very good progress. We are still evaluating the circulation revenue impact. As you can well imagine, that's a day-to-day situation. And certainly, the advertising projections are ones we have to monitor very closely, because they change on a day-to-day basis as well.
But we can say to you that we are making very, very substantial progress, and that really is heartening to see that the bottom line improvement is definitely there. From a standpoint of the sacrifices that people have had to make, they should be well aware that we are on a good road.
Q. Why did you threaten to shut down the Globe?
Robinson: Because losing $85 million is not sustainable for any corporation, and we needed to make sure that people understood the seriousness of the financial situation and why the desire was there for the restructuring to take place.
No one wanted to close the Globe. No one. From a standpoint of where we are now, I think we've made wonderful progress in putting this in a place where the Globe has a very solid future. When you're losing $85 million, that's just not sustainable.
Q. Was it a bluff? Would you have shut it down?
Robinson: No, it wasn't a bluff.
Sulzberger: But we also believed it would not come to that. We also believed absolutely, that having worked with the other unions, and seen the compromises that were reached with other Globe employees, that we could find a way, and we did, thank goodness, to make this work.
Q. How did [Globe's business] get so bad so fast?
Sulzberger: You may have noticed this Great Recession ...
Robinson: You know that advertising had been weakening for a number of years, but there had been very precipitous decline in the first quarter of this year, much larger than had been originally forecast.
Sulzberger: And the Globe was already in difficult times, because of the loss of classified advertising, which differentiates itself from some other papers in this company. But the result was the drop got to the $85 million, so we had to act remarkably quickly and aggressively.
Q. Do you think the events of the past few months have hurt the paper's brand or its journalism?
Robinson: I don't think so. In fact, I think there has been so much support for The Boston Globe during this period of time by constituencies in Boston that I think it's been a reinforcing message to the Globe and to all the employees of the Globe about how important you are to that community.
Q. How much does the journalism matter? You've maintained comparatively large newsrooms at the Times and the Globe.
Sulzberger: Quality journalism attracts a quality audience that is sold to quality advertisers. We've been doing that very successfully for a long time in print, and we now have to find the tools and the methods to do that just as successfully in the digital world. And that's evolving. And that's the core of the business model.
Q. How long do you think we'll be printing papers?
Robinson: I hope for a long time to come. There is evidence that people like the print reading experience, and they are very loyal to the print reading experience, but I think it is our job to make sure we are offering the journalism created at all our properties both online and in print. We have to be where the consumer wants us to be.
Sulzberger: We cannot define ourselves by how people get our information. If we do that, we're doomed.
