Jack Welch Knows Best?

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everybody's favorite CEO and bestselling author Jack Welch wants to buy The Boston Globe. betcha he'd install his wife/co-writer as editor and give himself a column. I think he's a patronizing jerk.

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Too much Globe-trotting?: ‘Editor’ Welch calls for more local coverage
By Jesse Noyes
Boston Herald Business Reporter

Saturday, January 20, 2007 - Updated: 12:56 AM EST

Jack Welch gave a glimpse yesterday of what life might be like at The Boston Globe under his ownership.

During a segment titled “Why Jack Wants The Globe” on the CNBC show “Squawk Box,” the former General Electric Co. chairman said local newspapers should get out of Iraq and focus on news closer to home.

“You’ve got to make the newsroom not control the world,” Welch told the cable show’s host Carl Quintanilla and Michael Wolff, a media critic for Vanity Fair magazine.

“I’m not sure local papers need to cover Iraq, need to cover global events,” Welch said. “They can be real local papers. And franchise, purchase from people very willing to sell to you their wire services that will give you coverage.”

Welch’s vision for the editorial focus for local newspapers would be a departure for the Globe, which has staffers reporting from Iraq and Washington, D.C., and dedicates much of its opinions section to national and global issues.

Welch is interested in buying the Boston broadsheet from its corporate parent, The New York Times [NYT] Co. He’s heading up a local bidding group that includes former Hill Holliday Chairman Jack Connors and Boston Culinary Group Chief Joseph O’Donnell.

The Times Co. rejected an offer by the Welch group to enter into exclusive negotiations for the Globe.

In a speech earlier this week, Times Co. Chief Executive Janet Robinson emphasized the company’s commitment to the Globe, but wouldn’t rule out a possible sale.

Yesterday wasn’t the first time Welch took to the airwaves to talk about his interest in buying the newspaper. The former executive confirmed his interest in owning the Globe on the Fox News channel and on NBC’s “Today” show during an interview with Matt Lauer.

discus

― m coleman (lovebug starski), Monday, 22 January 2007 14:36 (nineteen years ago)

attn: Dan Perry and all Boston-area ILX types. do you read the Globe? does this make any difference to you? when I'm visiting my sister in your neck of the woods, it seems like a good paper...

― m coleman (lovebug starski), Monday, 22 January 2007 14:38 (nineteen years ago)

of course this plan isn't new, it's been going on at newspapers all over the US, many have dropped Wash DC bureaus as well as foreign correspondents. tho I'd guess Jack thinks it's his idea.

― m coleman (lovebug starski), Monday, 22 January 2007 14:43 (nineteen years ago)

is this about reducing the power of the evil NYT?

― gabbneb (gabbneb), Monday, 22 January 2007 14:50 (nineteen years ago)

Not cover Iraq at all? Or does he mean just stick to AP articles - which is what most "local papers" already do.

― A-ron Hubbard (Hurting), Monday, 22 January 2007 14:51 (nineteen years ago)

One of the dumbest things about his idea is that cities like Boston are not really "local" cities - you have tons of people working in fields where international news is very much a part of their every day life.

― A-ron Hubbard (Hurting), Monday, 22 January 2007 14:57 (nineteen years ago)

Typically Welch is passing off conventional wisdom as some grand insight on his part.

Interesting that this is going on at the same time David Geffen and Eli Broad are both making noises about buying the LA Times.

― m coleman (lovebug starski), Monday, 22 January 2007 15:03 (nineteen years ago)

Geffen/Broad and Welch are rather different personalities

― gabbneb (gabbneb), Monday, 22 January 2007 15:05 (nineteen years ago)

that's for sure. I don't much about Broad beyond a recent Vanity Fair profile but I can't imagine Geffen would limit the LAT to local coverage.

― m coleman (lovebug starski), Monday, 22 January 2007 15:07 (nineteen years ago)

god i hate this gasbag.

― hstencil (hstencil), Monday, 22 January 2007 16:36 (nineteen years ago)

you have tons of people working in fields where international news is very much a part of their every day life.

yeah and they don't get that from the newspaper anymore if they actually care about it.

Welch wanting to buy a newspaper is hilarious. Watch Citizen Kane a few too many times, Jack? Aren't you like 99 years old by now? You must be, because only a senile idiot would think a fucking print newspaper sounds like a good investment in 2007. Oh, that's right, you're the guy who totally had no idea computers were important in the nineteen goddamn nineties. Stay retired, Neutron.

― TOMBO7 (TOMBOT), Monday, 22 January 2007 16:41 (nineteen years ago)

Timing is convenient too - war is finally near-universally acknowledged to be going badly = Americans don't really need to hear about all that faraway international stuff. Stick to local news like parades and pig-raising contests.

― A-ron Hubbard (Hurting), Monday, 22 January 2007 16:42 (nineteen years ago)

I think the demise of print news is a bit exaggerated, fwiw.

― A-ron Hubbard (Hurting), Monday, 22 January 2007 16:44 (nineteen years ago)

Joe Construction Worker is probably not going to be whipping out his Sony Reader on the bus or in the luncheonette anytime soon.

― A-ron Hubbard (Hurting), Monday, 22 January 2007 16:45 (nineteen years ago)

Haven't Jack Welch's ideas about biz been basically overturned now, at least in many fields?

Eh, this is not the motivation you're looking for. Dude just loves money.

― UART variations (ex machina), Monday, 22 January 2007 16:50 (nineteen years ago)

jack welch never had any ideas, he was about taking other people's ideas and implementing them. ge didn't dream up no six sigma bullshit.

― hstencil (hstencil), Monday, 22 January 2007 16:54 (nineteen years ago)

I love the idea of Joe Construction Worker being the core subscriber base of the Boston Globe

― TOMBO7 (TOMBOT), Monday, 22 January 2007 16:58 (nineteen years ago)

Haha. I was just speaking in general terms, not about the Globe.

― A-ron Hubbard (Hurting), Monday, 22 January 2007 16:59 (nineteen years ago)

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