Love in practice is a harsh and dreadful thing compared to love in dreams.
508 is a show about Worcester. This week’s guest is Jim Kersten. This week’s show was taped on a raft floating in Worcester’s Indian Lake. We talk about blue-green algae in the lake, the search for a new head librarian, the American Antiquarian Society and Wormtown Brewery winning national awards, and openings on Worcester’s municipal boards and commissions.
Audio: Download the mp3 or see more formats.
Last year, tycoon John Henry bought the Worcester Telegram & Gazette from the New York Times in a package deal. This year, Florida-based Halifax Media bought the T&G from him.
Documents leaked during the first sale showed T&G daily circulation at 57,000 and annual revenue at $49M, down 20% over 5 years. As a business, the T&G was fading fast.
Henry bought $70M of properties from the NYT. The T&G’s value was estimated at $7M. Surprisingly, Halifax possibly paid $19M for it. With Halifax in charge, there was a massive round of layoffs. 29 of 80 newsroom staffers left the paper, mostly layoffs with a few resignations.
It’s hard for an outsider to understand the real effect of these layoffs, and the other newsroom layoffs they’ve had in recent years. So let’s see if there’s been a change in the crudest journalistic metric, the number of Worcester stories printed each day.
Continue reading “How’s the T&G doing?”
508 is a show about Worcester. This week, we walk around downtown Worcester talking about the wayfinding project [pdf], the legal uses of the City Seal, and changes to the Common.
Audio: Download the mp3 or see more formats.
508 is a show about Worcester. This week, we talk about what we need to research before discussing the T&G resale, the push for a strong mayor, state political races, panhandling, local drones, SWIP, marijuana, veg food, and maker spaces. We forgot to talk about West Tatnuck.
Audio: Download the mp3 or see more formats.