"Your Town" sections on boston.com

[masswich.livejournal.com]

With the demise of the City weekly, Somerville's news coverage is at risk of being greatly diminished, particularly on the regional level. There are sections on boston.com for various cities, though right now they are mostly Metrowest ones. Apparently you can request they create a "Your Town" page for any city, and if they get enough requests they might do it. Much of the coverage on those pages is just culled from the existing paper, but it does appear that having a "Your Town" page does increase the number of local stories that boston.com does.

You can request a "Your Town" Somerville page by emailing them at yourtown@boston.com. A sample Your Town page is at:

http://www.boston.com/yourtown/newton/

Comments

[thetathx1138.livejournal.com]

Eh, come May it's probably a moot point.

[ron_newman]

what happens in May?

[thetathx1138.livejournal.com]

The New York Times Co. has its annual meeting.

The NYT is pretty close to dead itself. Advertising is dropping like a rock, they're a billion dollars in debt, their cash reserves are $46 million as of October, and their options are looking increasingly desperate (there's a good article on it here: http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200901/new-york-times).

So, the Globe, which is losing a million dollars a week? They want it off the books in case they have to sell themselves.

[masswich.livejournal.com]

The paper edition may very well go away in the next year or two. My personal opinion is that there will continue to be a weekly print edition on Sundays but either nothing on weekdays or a very short "Metro" style edition. But I think boston.com will last, and they may even end up charging for a "premium" version of it.

[thetathx1138.livejournal.com]

Boston.com will still be around, but I'm not sure the Times leadership can face up to the idea that the physical paper is dying out.

[ron_newman]

Doesn't the Sulzberger family still own a large majority interest in the NYTco? No minority stockholder is going to force them to do something at the meeting that they don't want to do.

[thetathx1138.livejournal.com]

You forget, the Sulzbergers live off their Times dividend. I agree that they have a hard time making difficult choices, but there's nothing like a threat to the pocketbook to focus the mind.