by Stop Mike Lupica on March 24 at 10:41AM
Interesting story from The Times last Friday that didn't get much reporting: one of the local New York City newspapers - Newsday (a former NYC daily, now limited to Long Island), is up for sale. It's current owners, The Tribune Company, have reported put it up for sale, perhaps because their attempts to sell another asset, the Chicago Cubs, have gone nowhere. The possible purchase of Newsday has reported received interest from three notable bidders - the owner of the The New York Post (and Wall Street Journal, Fox, and many other conservative media outlets) Rupert Murdoch; the owner of the Daily News Mortimer Zuckerman; and the owner of Cablevision and your NY Knicks, James L Dolan.
A lot of interesting possibilities there. First off, if the Post (or the News) brought Newsday, it would probably be with the intent to merge the two, and hopefully take the NYC crown from the other rival - the Post has been averaging slightly more weekday circulation lately than the Daily News (I think it's like 665,000 to 650,000 a day), but the Daily News still has a commanding lead on Sunday circulation (something like 750,000 to nothing). In the numbers according to this Times article, weekday circulation is 681,000 for the Daily News, and 667,000 for the Post; and Sunday circulation is 726,000 to 405,000 in favor of the Daily News. The cost to buy Newsday is estimated to be about $350 to $400 million! The Tribune must really need some big dough, huh? First the Cubs, now this.
But what about Mr. Dolan? Getting into the newspaper business would be a nice compliment to his cable empire, but what everyone reading this probably wants to know is "How would this effect the Knicks"?
James Dolan's hands on approach to the local sports media, and his problems in getting along with them, have been well documented. I have to imagine that he would love to have some real control of how his team is presented in the local media, so... no, I don't think if he wins control of the newspaper that he will be "hands-off" on this aspect. Definitely not.
That's also even worse news for the rest of the local beat writers - the guys at the Daily News (Frank Isola, for instance) and the Post (Marc Berman) have already been pretty much limited, if not banned, in their access to Knick news and players via Dolan. One exception being that Berman has a close relationship with renegade Stephen Marbury. If Dolan got control of Newsday, you have to imagine he would siphon all Knicks news and info through Newsday, giving the Daily News and the Post even less access.
Dolan probably also likes the Newsdays basketball writers - Alan Hahn is the beat writer, and Ken Berger is the NBA Insider - more than any other local newspaper anyway. Whereas the Daily News has constantly bashed Dolan and Isiah Thomas on a daily basis (and sometimes with such gusto one wonders how personal the beef is), and the Post constantly presents Marbury's side of the story at the expense of Dolan's media policy, Newsday's writers have mainly avoided bashing the Knicks too much, focusing instead on, oddly enough, actual reporting and game analysis.
It would be quite interesting to see how the coverage of the Knicks locally, and the dynamics of the beat writers, might change if James Dolan did get control of Newsday.
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Just a general housekeeping note: Going forth the schedule for posts will be on at around 8:00 AM, one around lunchtime (between 11:30 and 2:00), and one at the end of the day (say, 3:30-5:45). We are trying to get into a routine here, and you will find out why in a few weeks hopefully....
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A lot of interesting possibilities there. First off, if the Post (or the News) brought Newsday, it would probably be with the intent to merge the two, and hopefully take the NYC crown from the other rival - the Post has been averaging slightly more weekday circulation lately than the Daily News (I think it's like 665,000 to 650,000 a day), but the Daily News still has a commanding lead on Sunday circulation (something like 750,000 to nothing). In the numbers according to this Times article, weekday circulation is 681,000 for the Daily News, and 667,000 for the Post; and Sunday circulation is 726,000 to 405,000 in favor of the Daily News. The cost to buy Newsday is estimated to be about $350 to $400 million! The Tribune must really need some big dough, huh? First the Cubs, now this.
But what about Mr. Dolan? Getting into the newspaper business would be a nice compliment to his cable empire, but what everyone reading this probably wants to know is "How would this effect the Knicks"?
James Dolan's hands on approach to the local sports media, and his problems in getting along with them, have been well documented. I have to imagine that he would love to have some real control of how his team is presented in the local media, so... no, I don't think if he wins control of the newspaper that he will be "hands-off" on this aspect. Definitely not.
That's also even worse news for the rest of the local beat writers - the guys at the Daily News (Frank Isola, for instance) and the Post (Marc Berman) have already been pretty much limited, if not banned, in their access to Knick news and players via Dolan. One exception being that Berman has a close relationship with renegade Stephen Marbury. If Dolan got control of Newsday, you have to imagine he would siphon all Knicks news and info through Newsday, giving the Daily News and the Post even less access.
Dolan probably also likes the Newsdays basketball writers - Alan Hahn is the beat writer, and Ken Berger is the NBA Insider - more than any other local newspaper anyway. Whereas the Daily News has constantly bashed Dolan and Isiah Thomas on a daily basis (and sometimes with such gusto one wonders how personal the beef is), and the Post constantly presents Marbury's side of the story at the expense of Dolan's media policy, Newsday's writers have mainly avoided bashing the Knicks too much, focusing instead on, oddly enough, actual reporting and game analysis.
It would be quite interesting to see how the coverage of the Knicks locally, and the dynamics of the beat writers, might change if James Dolan did get control of Newsday.
**********
Just a general housekeeping note: Going forth the schedule for posts will be on at around 8:00 AM, one around lunchtime (between 11:30 and 2:00), and one at the end of the day (say, 3:30-5:45). We are trying to get into a routine here, and you will find out why in a few weeks hopefully....
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2 Comments
Comments
SML, thanks for this. I missed that article. Under normal circumstances I would say that the conflict of interest would make it bad for Dolan to buy Newsday. However, geiven the alternatives, it is the lesser of three evils. At least it would offset the straight up hate coming from the Post & DN and the reader could find the truth somewhere in between.
What concerns me far more is the regular news aspect. Rupert Murdoch keeps on adding to his mind-control monopoly and it is a very scary proposition for him to take another paper. As it stands he is probably the most powerful person in the world.
I didn't do it. I swear anyway the knicks suck fire james dolan. And Isaia who is guilty of rape in the first degree