It's Good to Live in a Two-Daily Town

As you’d expect, the Boston Herald is on John Henry’s purchase of its crosstown rival like Brown on Williamson. Here’s today’s double-barreled shot at the Globe (don’t ask about the little green numbers – dunno):

To get a sense of the first runner-up in the Boston Globe’s automatic markdown sale, check out the lead story:

San Diego bidder questions Globe buy

A losing Boston Globe contender is claiming his San Diego media company outbid Red Sox owner John Henry — and would have gone even higher — a bombshell allegation that he says could delay the deal and leave the New York Times Co. open to shareholder backlash.
“We bid significantly more than Henry,” said John Lynch, the CEO of U-T San Diego, one of the Globe finalists. “At the end of the day, I’m certain our bid was higher and could have been a lot more higher if they had just asked. I’m just stunned. I thought this was a public company that had a fiduciary duty to get the most by its stockholders. … From the beginning, I don’t think they wanted to sell to us.”

Maybe they had grammatical objections. Or maybe it was U-T San Diego owner Douglas Manchester’s reputation for “aggressively influencing his paper’s editorial content.”

Regardless, Lynch added that “there are going to be ramifications to it because we spent a lot of money that we didn’t need to spend or are interested in spending if there wasn’t going to be a fair auction.”

Speaking of unfair, here’s Howie Carr’s contribution to the rumpus (and by unfair we don’t mean to the Globe, but to Herald readers who pay good money for this recycled slop):

Friendly advice for new media mogul

There’s a sucker born every minute.

That’s the first thought that comes to mind about John Henry’s purchase of The Boston Globe and other assorted media dinosaurs for $70 million in cash. In other words, as someone noted yesterday, John Henry’s 164-foot yacht may well be worth more than his crumbling newspaper empire . . .

We’ll know John Henry’s gone native if he shows up on Morrissey Boulevard tomorrow wearing a bow tie.

Speaking of which, the Globe’s rumpswabs are surely in a dither this morning. So many new rear-ends to kiss, as Alexander Cockburn once said when his newspaper changed hands. Don’t worry though — they don’t call them bow-tied bumkissers for nothing.

What, is there some hackbot that assembles this crap? Get some new material, man.

The Globe, for its part, tries to play it straight with this front-page splash:

And this may be the reason the U-T San Diego more higher bid didn’t cut it with the Times Co.

Adding the Globe to his Boston constellation

Red Sox owner had two advantages in his bid: a local profile and a cash offer

Red Sox principal owner John W. Henry, who early Saturday signed a deal to buy The Boston Globe from the New York Times Co., prevailed over a half-dozen rival bidders for two main reasons: He was rooted in Boston and had plenty of cash.

Henry agreed to pay $70 million for the 141-year-old Globe, its websites, and affiliated properties, the Times Co. said. The deal followed weeks of negotiations that culminated in a marathon session Friday night, with Henry and his lawyers ensconced in his suite at Fenway Park, trading calls and messages with Times Co. officials as the Arizona Diamondbacks edged out the Red Sox.

Regarding the other bidders, the Globe piece says this:

[Henry’s] was not the highest bid for the Globe, according to people involved in the process. But his offer was appealing to the Times Co. because it was cash, unencumbered by financing issues or a bevy of investment partners. One executive working for the Times Co. said the key was who was best able to get the financing together and close the deal relatively quickly.

Not surprisingly, both papers have stories about the potential conflict of interest the sale creates (Globe here, Herald here).

As the Big J journalists say, time will tell.