How The New York Times Can Save Itself

The New York Times (NYT) is now running on fumes. S&P has downgraded the company's debt to junk, and Moodys is about to do the same. The stock has fallen to $10, and is being propped up primarily by the company's non-news assets. Given the ongoing decline of print advertising, management now has to take emergency steps to avoid defaulting on the company's $1.1 billion of debt.

SAI and 24/7 Wall Street have put together a seven-part rescue plan:

1. Sell the stake in the building. The New York Times recently moved into a spectacular new Times Square headquarters, which it co-owns with developer Forest City Ratner. At the peak, the NYT's stake in the building might have fetched $1 billion, or $750 million after-tax. Now, the company might be able to net $500-$600 million for the stake. The company needs to sell the building immediately. (It can rent it back, so staffers won't have to move. It just needs the capital. Now.)

Read the whole story here.

Comments

[KCFreedom]

If they just would have told us the truth, but instead they gave us government and corporate talking points.

I think newspapers would still be a viable medium if they chose to do actual investigative reporting, and fire those who tell lies.

[pjburns11]

Can we take some of the 700 billion back from Henry Paulson, before he divides it ALL up amongst his friends???

PUT THEM IN JAIL

http://thetruthburns.wordpress.com/2008/10/24/put-these-wall-street-criminals-where-they-belong/

[hiplib]

I used to buy the NYT every day, now I never do. I look at it online most days. I will not forgive it for supporting Bush's lies about Iraq. All US papers have irredeemably destroyed themselves in my eyes for their supine acceptance and enabling of the worst regime in US history. Let them all go to the wall, they deserve to.

[Ramirez]

All print news is having trouble. The internets are the new medium for information. And the NYT has destroyed its brand as the "newspaper of record" by its political bias.

It was once great and it will be missed, though.

[research]

exactly, The NYT helped BushCo wage a war crime against Iraq.

They are toast.

[dougbob]

Let's face the facts: the newspaper era is drawing to a close. Just as newspapers replaced the town crier, so the new media will replace the newspaper. There is a cottage industry of people out there trying to figure out what exactly "new media" means. I don't think there are any easy answers, given the shifts in technology that are taking place. i've blogged about this at http://obrag.org/?p=1748

[JBS]

I think they're getting a good handle on what "new media" means by now.

What they haven't figured out is how to make any money doing it.

One thing they better do if they hope to keep the franchise alive is to rescue their reputation for truthful reporting. If they want to survive, they better find their "Pentagon Papers" soul and loose the "curveball".

Judith Miller almost single-handedly destroyed the N.Y. Times, but it was the N.Y. Times that let her do it.

[walk0nwalls]

Basics of internet publication is that the profit margins are never going to be what they once were in the old days of newspaper publication.

People are just reading less trees.

[Paul]

11. Fire Kristol and Brooks?