Somebody, Anybody Save the Times
So The New York Times Co. doesn’t have any money. This we know to the tune of $46 million in cash versus $1.1 billion in debt.
We also know that it won’t stop publishing in May, no matter how many essays Michael Hirschorn writes.
But what’s to save the Gray Lady. Two things: President-elect Barack Obama and a certain Mexican billionaire.
We explain, in reverse order.
According to The Wall Street Journal, Carlos Slim is in talks to inject “several hundred million dollars” into the Paper of Record in exchange for a significant amount of preferred stock. Slim already owns 6.4 percent of the company’s common stock and could become the single-biggest shareholder. (BusinessWeek‘s Jon Fine points out that Slim is just the latest international mogul to potentially bail out some of the world’s biggest papers.)
In the short term, the NYT and other papers around the country are pulling out all the stops for tomorrow’s Inauguration. The Times will raise its print run by 75 percent on Wednesday and sell papers out of its HQ in Manhattan. The Washington Post will triple its print run and raise the cover price from $.75 to $2 on January 20 and 21. The Wall Street Journal will also print additional papers.
And then, of course, there are those tech geeks.
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