Posted on 10/22/2002 7:45:52 PM PDT by HAL9000
PARIS (AP) -- Hoping to extend its voice abroad, The New York Times is buying out The Washington Post's stake in the International Herald Tribune to take sole control of the Paris-based newspaper.
The Post told its reporters Tuesday that it agreed to the sale only after the Times threatened to drive the Herald Tribune into ruin.
The Times said the sale was by mutual agreement but had no response to the Post's charges, which represented a rare airing of dirty laundry between two newspaper titans. The Times and the Post have equally shared ownership of the Herald Tribune since 1991. No terms of the sale were disclosed.
The 115-year-old English-language paper, with a readership from Spain to Lebanon to Japan, has been hit by a global advertising slump in the past two years.
"This decision was made with great reluctance and sadness and little choice,'' Washington Post chairman Donald E. Graham said in a letter that was also signed by publisher and chief executive Boisfeuillet Jones Jr., and Leonard Downie Jr., executive editor.
The letter to Post editors and correspondents abroad said the Times left the Post little option but to sell. "If the Post did not sell, the Times said it would start its own international edition anyway, intending to sell as many copies as allowed under the IHT partnership agreement.''
The letter said the Times had declared it would block "any cash infusion'' into the Herald Tribune, which is currently operating at a loss. The Post noted that stopping the funds was permitted under a joint operating agreement.
The Post leadership said competition from an international edition of the Times and the cutoff of support made continued operation under joint ownership "untenable.'' The Post said the Times had rejected suggested alternatives to selling its interest in the Herald Tribune, including options to have the Post take over the paper or place the Paris paper under Times business control while continuing joint editorial control.
The Post letter said it had rejected as "unworkable journalistically'' a Times counteroffer for the Post to retain a minority interest for 15 years in an international edition managed and edited by the Times.
"But the Times made clear that staying the course was not an option. So it was not possible to remain in a partnership with an unwilling partner,'' the Post letter stated.
Times spokeswoman Catherine Mathis, however, said the sale had been reached by mutual agreement of the Times and Post.
"The Times has done a number of things over the years to expand its content so certainly this is a way in which we can become a stronger international print voice,'' Mathis said. "We also believe that the IHT will benefit from operating with single parent.''
The transfer of ownership should take place by the end of the year or early next year, the Herald Tribune's executive editor, David Ignatius, said. Details and legal issues are still being worked out.
Mathis said no job cuts or changes in operation or management were expected. The paper prints articles from the Post, the Times and its own correspondents. It has a staff of 250.
The Herald Tribune says it is still waiting for details on exactly what will happen to the paper and its staff. There were questions about whether the headquarters could shift from Paris.
"I hope The New York Times will respect the paper's traditions, its dedicated employees and its many thousands of loyal readers around the world,'' Ignatius said.
"Part of the IHT's strength is that it is an international newspaper based in Paris with its own voice and traditions,'' Ignatius said. "We may speak with an American accent, but we are truly an international paper.''
Founded in Paris in 1887, the newspaper has played an international role in a city considered by many to be the world's cultural capital.
Its predecessor, the New York Herald Tribune, was immortalized in Jean-Luc Godard's 1960 movie "Breathless,'' with Jean Seberg playing a gamine young American hawking the paper on the Champs-Elysees.
In 1987, the paper dedicated a monument in the shape of the Statue of Liberty's torch to Paris as a sign of French-American friendship. The monument, near the tunnel where Princess Diana died, has become her de facto memorial and is covered with cards and flowers.
The Herald Tribune is distributed worldwide. Though it's a mainstay with American business travelers, less than half its readers are American, Ignatius says.
Circulation last year was 264,000. Readership has not been a problem, but advertising revenues worldwide started slumping in April 2001 and got worse after Sept. 11, Ignatius said.
He also pointed out that the Times has been trying to raise its profile abroad.
"We think that rather than owning half of a great global newspaper, (the Times) wants to be a great global newspaper,'' Ignatius said.
In April, for example, the respected French daily Le Monde started publishing a 12-page weekly supplement of Times articles -- in English.
The development was widely commented on, especially in a country known for its impassioned protection of its language. Many at the Paris newspaper complained that the Times had invaded its home turf.
"I fear that we were becoming a nuisance for the Times,'' he said. "We weren't sending them any profits at the end of the year, but we were sort of in their way as they try to experiment with international possibilities.''
Both the Post and the Times have had a stake in the paper since the mid-1960s, when they shared control with Whitney Communications. They bought Whitney out in 1991.
Copyright 2002 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.
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