Saviors of the Times
How's this for poetic justice? In the face of pressure from hedge fund shareholders who think the New York Times Company is underperforming, the management of the Times is turning to two directors it thinks will help turn things around. "We are delighted that these two exceptional individuals have agreed to be nominees for election by our shareholders," the company's chairman, Arthur Sulzberger Jr., said in a release on Tuesday announcing the news. "The skills, expertise and leadership qualities of these two nominees will greatly benefit our Company during this time of tremendous change in the media world."
So just who are these "exceptional individuals"? One, Dawn Lepore, served as a director of Wal-Mart from 2001 to 2004. While Ms. Lepore was serving as a Wal-Mart director, the Times was denouncing Wal-Mart for a series of supposed sins. A November 15, 2003, editorial thundered, "This Wal-Martization of the work force, to which other low-cost, low-pay stores also contribute, threatens to push many Americans into poverty. The first step in countering it is to enforce the law. The government must act more vigorously, and more quickly, when Wal-Mart uses illegal tactics to block union organizing. And Wal-Mart must be made to pay if it exploits undocumented workers." It went on, "Wal-Mart likes to wrap itself in American values. It should be reminded that one of those is paying workers enough to give their families a decent life."
An April 11, 2004, editorial, also written while Ms. Lepore was serving on the Wal-Mart board, warned, "the entry of such an especially tight-fisted employer in a community compels competitors to whittle at their own labor costs. That translates into lost jobs and smaller paychecks for everyone." A June 25, 2004, editorial, also written while Ms. Lepore was on the Wal-Mart board, criticized the company's treatment of women employees, writing that plaintiffs in a lawsuit against the company had "put together a statistical case that raises serious questions about Wal-Mart's commitment to equal treatment."
The second new Times director proposed by management is Robert Denham. Leave aside that the Council of Institutional Investors recommends that directors with full time jobs should serve on only two other boards and that if Mr. Denham wins a seat on the Times board, it will be his fifth board membership in addition to his job as a law firm partner at Munger, Tolles & Olson. One of those other board memberships is — wait for it — Chevron, where Mr. Denham has been on the board since 2004. And if you think the Times editorial writers have been tough on Wal-Mart, those editorials look like valentines compared to the ones about the oil companies. The Times in a 2006 editorial faulted Chevron for its role in "the Greenpoint oil spill, an underground spill covering 55 acres with an estimated 17 million to 30 million gallons of oil. The oil gathers in unseen subsurface reservoirs. It mixes with ground water. It seeps constantly into Newtown Creek, coating the waterway with rainbow sheens. It creates toxic vapors that could someday threaten 300 homes and small businesses." Another editorial that year asserted, "An oil industry already rolling in record profits does not need more tax breaks" and complained of "industry greed."
That pretty much sums it up. When a director of an oil company tries to make profits for his shareholders, he is accused of "greed." When a Wal-Mart director tries to make profits for her shareholders, she is lectured about being "tight-fisted." But when The New York Times Company's shareholders start getting restless for profits, where does Arthur Sulzberger Jr. turn to for "exceptional individuals"? Why, to veterans of the boards of Wal-Mart and Chevron. When it is the Times that is hoping to make the profits, somehow it isn't "greed" but, as Mr. Sulzberger put it, "skills, expertise and leadership qualities." We couldn't have put it better ourselves.
