“We understand that they’re losing money,” he said. “We were trying to be good Samaritans, and we got stabbed in the back.”
The paper is in a strong position to seek union concessions because it opened its financial records to a union auditor, who confirmed that the Chronicle lost more than $62 million last year. Ms. Hoyt said that in the last two months the paper has been losing money at a faster rate — about two million dollars a week* — though the loss was less earlier this year.
Because Hearst is a privately held company, it is under no obligation to explain its finances to the public. While the union has confirmed the multimillion-dollar losses, it doesn’t know all the details, such as the salary and benefits of the publisher. The union said the paper is being mismanaged and has too many managers per employee.
Via Dan Gillmor (I agree that it’s hard to believe the Chronicle is losing $1m per week).