Why the Boston Globe needs to go bankrupt

At BuzzMachine, Jeff Jarvis says the New York Times should force the Boston Globe into bankruptcy:

[The Globe is] losing $85 million a year. They saved only $20 with recent concessions. It could bring The New York Times down. Time for radical surgery.

Speaking of bankruptcy (and layoffs, and pay cuts and out-of-print): The Wall Street Journal maps the decline of the nation’s top newspapers since 2006.

Creative Loafing's Ben Eason talks to Editor & Publisher

Ben Eason, Creative Loafing’s CEO, gets some prime real estate in Editor & Publisher‘s Special Report on newspaper bankruptcy.

The most interesting part of the article is Eason’s revelation that he expects CL to emerge from bankruptcy over the summer, at which time “everyone will know the company’s real worth”:

“As time goes on, people are more realistic in what the company can produce going forward. We have an opportunity. It’s an opportunity to suggest to the creditors, to the judge, to everybody involved what we believe the company will look like going forward and then we have the opportunity to suggest what the capital structure is going to be. We are forced to value the company, not as we would like it to be, or what it was, but what it is today.”

New Haven Register, bankruptcy and bonuses

The rich keep getting richer. But not if Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal can help it. The New Haven Independent reported yesterday that Blumenthal is attempting to block bonuses to executives at the New Haven Register, which filed for bankruptcy protection on Feb 21:

The filing included a proposal to give 31 “key” executives $1.7 million in bonuses — some termed “shutdown bonuses” — if they meet certain goals. Those goals mainly consist of shutting down newspapers and firing 450 more full-time employees by March 31 (for a total of 590 to date). …