PATHETIC - AT 8:32 A.M. ET:  The very liberal New York Times owns the even more liberal Boston Globe, and is trying to pressure Globe unions to make concessions to save their paper.  But Howard Kurtz, in today's Washington Post, reports that things are looking grim:

The New York Times Co. said last night that it is notifying federal authorities of its plans to shut down the Boston Globe, raising the possibility that New England's most storied newspaper could cease to exist within weeks.

After down-to-the-wire negotiations did not produce millions of dollars in union concessions, the Times Co. said that it will file today a required 60-day notice of the planned shutdown under the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification law.

The move could amount to a negotiating ploy to extract further concessions from the Globe's unions, since the notice does not require the Times Co. to close the paper after 60 days. The deadline, however, would put the unions under fierce pressure to produce additional savings, and the Boston Newspaper Guild promptly called the step a "bullying" tactic by the company.

COMMENT:  So it goes in organizations that weep loudly about the "common man."

We've said before, we'll say again, that many of the newspapers in trouble don't understand the source of their problems.  Yes, the internet is a factor, as is the recession.  But the fundamental flaw is that these newspapers have lost the confidence of many, many readers.  They have veered too far to the left, and have allowed editorial opinions to bleed onto their news pages.  They've hired "journalists" who have little interest in reporting the news, but a profound interest in "making a difference."

If you are a traditional Catholic in Boston, you'll be repelled by the Globe.  If you are an un-trendy working stiff in the outer boroughs of New York, beyond Manhattan, you won't care much for what The New York Times has become.  But these two newspapers, like others that have already closed, refuse to acknowledge the reasons that readers have drifted away.

One of the most important statistics in politics today is that 46 percent of Americans who went to the polls last November voted for John McCain, even in the midst of a major economic collapse that had already begun.  You would never know it reading many of our "leading" newspapers.  You'd think the entire nation was Obamaland.  The narrowness of the liberal elites who run these papers is damaging their product, but they cannot face up to it.

May 4, 2009