Oct 17 2007
Shareholders Flee Ethically Bankrupt NY Times
The news media’s most valued asset, as a business, is its credibility to provide news (not propaganda). Here is what I wrote back in June 2005 when the NY Times started its propaganda putsche:
If you have money invested in stock of the NYTimes – sell it now. The only value a news organization has is its reputation for delivering the news honestly and without bias. Without that reputation it is a worthless rag.
I have come back to this and time again as the NY Times sold its soul (and ignored its fiduciary responsibilty to shareholders) by being so biased and so wrong on so many matters of import to this nation. And now the results of their declining journalistic standards are starting to become impossible to ignore:
Morgan Stanley, the second-biggest shareholder in New York Times Co., sold its entire 7.3 percent stake today, according to a person briefed on the transaction, sending the stock to its lowest in more than 10 years.
…
New York Times shares slid 43 cents, or 2.3 percent, to $18.48 at 4:04 p.m. in New York Stock Exchange composite trading, the lowest since January 1997. The stock has declined 24 percent this year.
Other newspaper stocks, including Gannett Co., owner of USA Today, and McClatchy Co., publisher of the Miami Herald, are also trading at 10-year lows because of the loss of advertising to new media such as the Internet and the decline in classified ads linked to tumbling housing sales.
Sell a bad product and people will take their business elsewhere. The final straw may have been the NY Times apparently deliberate decision to ignore reporting on a local hero who died in Iraq and received one of this nation’s top commendations – posthumously of course. Here is what I wrote:
The man died in the service of his country, receives one of its top commendations and the NY Times impugns him by turning their back on his life story. Well, that will create a backlash as most Americans will now be returning the favor to the NY Times and turn their backs on it. I would bet this just may be the moment the NY Times went out of business. Optimistic? Harsh? I’m not so sure. How else do you honor the man and all those who died or were injured fighting for us? Even if you don’t agree with the war or how we got in it, most people would find this an even worse infraction in simple human decency. You honor them by making clear the contempt and disgust we hold for such a petty act.
Seems the NY Times actions over the many years are finally catching up with them.
‘Bout time. Will the others learn?
Remember that book about the media bias? Most of them considered themselves conservative when they are really extreme liberal.
Overall, I agree with you – but I think journalistic and editorial decisions have only a tangential relationship to this move, insofar as they are the product of the same inept management. Pinch has made a series of disastrous financial moves and shown no business acumen whatsoever. The latest two were the desperate sale of all of their broadcast interests (several tv stations) in May which were profitable and had a good future – sold because Pinch needed the money to fund day to day operations. This meant that only the print assets and some real estate remain – and all print assets are declining due to the internet. Pinch supposedly had a “plan” to move profitably into the internet age – but this plan collapsed completely with the collapse of the much-ridiculed “Times Select” service. Now there is no plan in place except permanent decline, and no way to change management because of the corrupt corporate culture the Sulzbergers have set up.
What’s most significant is that this is a very loud signal to every other institutional investor to dump stock as well, especially T. Rowe Price with (iirc) about 14%. This could push the stock down to about the $10 range, at which point the Sulzbergers will probably arrange to take the company private and be done with all of this pesky public ownership that they don’t care for anyway. They probably have the money to do it, with the only consolation for their critics being that after 30 years or so there will be nothing left but a decent collection of real estate parcels for the grandkids trust accounts.
And so dies another once great American institution.
I want to add one point about taking a company private – if a group has decided to do so, and is in operational control of the company, then it is strongly to their financial advantage to ruin the stock’s value as much as possible before the acquisition begins – why pay $20 a share to buy it all when you can pay $10, or even $2? If you do a “good” enough job of ruining the stock a family could end up taking complete ownership of all of the assets for next to nothing. The people who would be ripped off would be all the suckers dumb enough to have bought at market price and held in the belief that the business would be ethically and honestly managed.
Pinch probably isn’t bright enough to figure this out, but be assured that every lawyer on retainer from the Sulzberger family already has. Morgan Stanley has simply seen the writing on the wall.
How to tell that this is in fact the plan: watch for those in control of the Times to do absolutely nothing to change their mode of operation and in fact continue to make more and more ridiculous decisions until taking the company private is the only option left and the Sulzberger family is the only buyer left. Actually pretty easy to ruin a stock once someone figures out how rich they can get by doing it. A lot of good real estate still in the portfolio – pretty sweet deal if the family can in effect steal more than a billion dollars worth of property from the current shareholders. Looks to me like it will be fairly easy to do.
This is just a slightly modified version of what men like Ivan Boesky and other buyout artists did for a living in the 80’s; worked then, it will work now. The ethics of stealing this much from people who trusted them – well come on, every good liberal knows that all ethics are situational. Those investors just wanted a profit, so it’s fine for anyone to take their money – government, the Sulzbergers, doesn’t matter.
Morgan Stanley Sells Entire New York Times Stake…
I wonder why?!!?
Morgan Stanley, the second-biggest shareholder in New York Times Co., sold its entire stake today, according to a person briefed on the transaction, sending the stock to its lowest in more than 10 years.
Riehl World View:
Keep in mind …
I would be very interested to see who bought that block that Morgan Stanley sold.
The NYT will not die because they have a viable business strategy. They are niche marketing, and their chosen niche is liberal consumers of news who crave what the Times has to sell. The powers that be at the Times seem to care not a whit about insulting half the country, because they don’t.
Liberal tenets are underpinned by obvious lies, and thus the day’s events require constant manipulation in order to help maintain the liberal narrative. The NYT provides this to the leftist cabal, in spades. They will succeed in shedding an awful lot of readers, but as long as half this country is capable of voting for the likes of Hillary, Kerry, or Gore, I would say the NYT has a sizable niche to market their wares to.
No one ever lost money by underestimating the intelligence of the American public. Pinch will get rich catering to the ignorant and stupid (like Soothie). It worked for PT Barnum for quite some time.
For years I had teachers who made it mandatory to read the NY Times everyday. (never understood why it couldn’t just be any national newspaper) Since NY Times is having trouble with its reporting standards I wonder what my teachers are doing now. Still backing the paper? Probably, but then again thats what you get with liberal professors.
Geee, this couldn’t have anything to do with the fact that ALL paper based media are in trouble, could it??? Nahhhhhhhhh . . . it’s just the Times. Yeah, right.