Newsweek, Sold in 2010, Is Changing Hands Again

Newsweek, the once venerable 80-year-old weekly magazine that suffered a precipitous decline in recent years, has been bought by the digital news company International Business Times for an undisclosed amount.

The announcement, which was first reported by The Hollywood Reporter, was made on Saturday evening. Etienne Uzac, co-founder and chief executive officer of IBT Media, said in a statement: “We are thrilled to welcome this iconic brand and global news property into our portfolio. We believe in the Newsweek brand and look forward to growing it, fully transformed to the digital age.”

Justine Sacco, a spokeswoman for IAC/InterActiveCorp, which currently owns Newsweek, confirmed the sale, but declined to comment further.

At Newsweek’s peak in 1991, when The Washington Post Company owned it, its circulation was 3.3 million, according to the Alliance for Audited Media. But the magazine suffered many of the troubles facing the print media industry as more readers migrated to the Web for news.

Sidney Harman, a billionaire investor, bought Newsweek from The Washington Post in 2010 for $1 and assumed $40 million in liabilities. He then merged it with The Daily Beast, the Web site owned by IAC/InterActiveCorp. Both entities were run by Tina Brown.

But in 2011, Mr. Harman died, leaving IAC and Ms. Brown to handle the burden of keeping the magazine afloat. Last fall, Newsweek announced that it would stop publishing a print edition at the end of the year. In May, Ms. Brown told her staff that the company planned to sell now to concentrate on building up The Daily Beast.

A statement released by IBT stressed that the sale did not involve the purchase of The Daily Beast. It also noted that the company planned to return Newsweek to its original Web site, www.newsweek.com, in the coming weeks and build Newsweek’s global online franchise.

“We are 100 percent digital with a track record of successfully growing online media properties,” said Johnathan Davis, co-founder and chief content officer of IBT Media, in a statement. “The Newsweek brand is strong around the world, and we believe there is significant potential to leverage that.”

A version of this article appeared in print on August 4, 2013, on page A19 of the New York edition with the headline: Newsweek, Sold in 2010, Is Changing Hands Again .

Red Sox Owner’s Purchase of Boston Globe Worries Journalists

Charles Krupa/Associated Press

John Henry, right, who is the principal owner of Fenway Park and the Red Sox, bought The Globe in a $70 million deal.

BOSTON â€" As the list of potential purchasers of The Boston Globe leaked out, the newspaper’s longtime sportswriter and columnist Bob Ryan said his only thought was: please, let it be anyone but John Henry.

The Red Sox have received mostly positive coverage in The Globe since Henry’s group bought the team, although much of that is because of the team’s success.

“This was the last circumstance anyone would want,” Ryan said Saturday of Henry’s purchase of The Globe and other media properties from The New York Times Company for $70 million. “It’s nothing anyone would wish. It’s scary, to say the least, for all involved.”

The news that Henry, the principal owner of the Boston Red Sox, was acquiring The Globe, New England’s largest newspaper, resonated most profoundly in its sports department, where this reporter worked for many years.

“We don’t know what the new situation is going to be in terms of hierarchy, but I would hope to be able to continue to cover the Red Sox the way we always have, “ the sports editor, Joe Sullivan, said.

Acknowledging the potential conflict of interest, Sullivan said, “It will be there, hanging in the air.” He said the newspaper might need to include disclaimers when writing about Henry, as it did when The Times had an ownership stake in the team for 10 years. The Times sold its final stake in the group in 2012.

Dan Shaughnessy, The Globe’s lead sports columnist, has written critically about Henry since he became the principal owner of the Red Sox in 2002.

“There’s an inherent conflict of interest which no one can do anything about,” Shaughnessy said. “All we can hope for is that everyone is allowed to do his job professionally and that we are able to keep our independence.”

Shaughnessy and the former Red Sox manager Terry Francona wrote a book, “Francona: The Red Sox Years,” which detailed Francona’s ugly exit from the team after its collapse in September 2011. The book was highly critical of the Red Sox ownership group, and Shaughnessy said it was “not exactly a party-starter” for Henry.

In his Globe column on Saturday, Shaughnessy, tongue-in-cheek, told his readers that “John Henry’s greatness has been vastly underappreciated.”

Henry is the principal owner of the Red Sox and Fenway Park, and his Fenway Sports Group owns 80 percent of the New England Sports Network as well as the English soccer club Liverpool and a Nascar Sprint Cup team. The Miami Heat’s LeBron James is a minority stakeholder in the sports group.

The Red Sox have received mostly positive coverage in The Globe since Henry’s group bought the team. Much of that is because of the team’s success; the Red Sox won the World Series in 2004 (ending an 86-year drought) and again in 2007. But there were occasions when Globe coverage appeared to be a bit over the top, as in July 2007 when the acquisition of Kevin Garnett by the Boston Celtics was paired equally on the front of the Globe sports section with the Red Sox’ acquisition of the over-the-hill reliever Eric Gagne.

The team’s stunning collapse in September 2011 was followed by a Globe investigative piece by Bob Hohler, revealing that pitchers John Lackey, Josh Beckett and Jon Lester had been eating fried chicken and drinking beer in the clubhouse during games. Hohler also wrote that management had concerns that Francona’s deteriorating marriage and his use of painkillers may have affected his performance.

In a radio interview at the time, Henry said of the article, “It’s reprehensible that it was written about in the first place.”

Henry would now be in a position to kill such an article, which concerns Ryan, who retired from The Globe in 2012 but who has a verbal agreement to write up to 40 columns in 2013.

“Anyone in this situation has to look at it with a great deal of trepidation,” Ryan said. “It’s uncomfortable and it puts the Globe sports department, especially the Red Sox writers, in a potentially uncompromising position.”

Gordon Edes covered the Red Sox and baseball for The Globe from 1997 to 2008. He recalled the abuse that Chicago Tribune writers took when their newspaper owned the Chicago Cubs, adding: “But I think this is different. This isn’t the newspaper owning the team. This is the team owning the newspaper.”

Edes, who now covers the Red Sox for ESPNBoston.com, added, “As someone who competes against The Globe, it is going to be very interesting to see how this all plays out. “

Edes said he did not receive preferential treatment from the Red Sox when he was at The Globe and The Times had an ownership stake in the team.

“I wish I did,” he said. “But this is different. If I’m him, I’m going to make sure my newspaper gets the story.”

Among those weighing in on the conflict of interest issue was Dan Kennedy, a journalism professor at Northeastern University. In a blog item that ran on The Huffington Post, Kennedy wrote, “The real issue is not how The Globe covers the Red Sox as a baseball team but rather how it manages the tricky task of reporting on a major business and civic organization that’s run by the paper’s new owner.”

Under Henry’s stewardship, the Red Sox cut a favorable licensing deal with the City of Boston to use the streets surrounding Fenway Park on game days, making “tens of millions of dollars.” The Globe reported on this sweetheart deal earlier this year. Would Henry allow such a piece to run as the newspaper’s owner?

Kevin Paul Dupont, The Globe’s Hall of Fame hockey writer, said he was “among those who want the business to be saved and resurrected, and I hope he’s the guy.”

“We’ve all been looking for someone who has the plan,” he said of Henry. “I hope it’s him.”

A version of this article appeared in print on August 4, 2013, on page SP4 of the New York edition with the headline: Red Sox Owner’s Purchase of Boston Globe Worries Journalists.

New York Times Company Sells Boston Globe

The New York Times Company said on Saturday that it had agreed to sell The Boston Globe and its other New England media properties to John W. Henry, principal owner of the Boston Red Sox, returning the paper to local ownership after two decades in which it struggled to stem the decline in circulation and revenue.

Eileen Murphy, a Times spokeswoman, confirmed that Mr. Henry would pay $70 million for the paper. That would represent a staggering drop in value for the Globe, which The Times bought in 1993 for $1.1 billion, the highest price paid for an American newspaper. At the time, The Globe was one of the nation’s most prestigious papers in a far more robust newspaper environment. But like other newspapers, it began to lose readers and advertisers to the Internet, and revenue plummeted. The Times Company has taken several write-downs related to the New England Media Group, and in February it said it was putting The Globe and other assets in the group up for sale.

For The Globe, the planned sale restores a Boston connection that prevailed for 120 years under the Taylor family, which owned the paper from 1873 until its sale 20 years ago. While not from Boston, Mr. Henry has for the last decade been active in local sports, and his Fenway Sports Group owns the Red Sox, Fenway Park and 80 percent of the New England Sports Network. It also owns the soccer club Liverpool F.C. in the English Premier League.

“This is a thriving, dynamic region that needs a strong, sustainable Boston Globe playing an integral role in the community’s long-term future,” Mr. Henry said in a statement about the sale. “In coming days there will be announcements concerning those joining me in this community commitment and effort.”

In addition to The Globe, the sale includes BostonGlobe.com; Boston.com; The Worcester Telegram & Gazette; Telegram.com; the direct mail marketing company Globe Direct; and the company’s 49 percent interest in Metro Boston, a free daily paper. Mr. Henry is buying the media group without partners through his acquisition company; under terms of the sale, he does not have to assume the Globe’s pension liabilities.

The all-cash sale is expected to close in 30-60 days.

The Globe is not the only paper to sell for a heavily discounted price. In April 2012, Philadelphia’s newspapers sold for $55 million after selling for $515 million in 2006. In October, The Tampa Tribune sold for $9.5 million. During recent talks about the sale of the Tribune Company’s portfolio of newspapers, analysts estimated that the entire newspaper company, including The Los Angeles Times and The Chicago Tribune, was worth only $623 million.

For the Times Company, the New England Media Group was the last big asset in a portfolio it had been downsizing for several years. The acquisition of The Globe in 1993 was part of the company’s strategy to solidify its grip on the eastern corridor advertising sector and to have a presence that stretched from Maine to the District of Columbia. At the time, in addition to its flagship New York newspaper, the Times Company owned 31 regional newspapers, 20 magazines, 5 television stations, 2 radio stations and other businesses. It also had a half-interest, with the Washington Post Company, in The International Herald Tribune.

But in recent years, the Times Company has been divesting itself of its noncore assets to focus on developing its primary brand, The New York Times. In 2012, the company sold its 16 regional newspapers. Last year, it sold the About Group to IAC/InterActiveCorp for $300 million. This year, The Times announced plans to expand its global presence by changing the name of The International Herald Tribune to The International New York Times and attracting a new global audience of readers to become subscribers.

The Globe attracted a range of prospective buyers. Among those who expressed interest were Douglas F. Manchester, owner of the U-T San Diego; and a group led by Jack Griffin, the former chief executive of Time Inc., that included Ben and Steve Taylor, whose family sold The Globe to the Times Company.

Eric Bishop contributed reporting from New York and Gerry Mullany contributed from Hong Kong.