Rumor has it the Modesto Bee may have found a buyer for its downtown building.I've heard from multiple sources in the Modesto community over the past week that the Yosemite Community College District will be purchasing The Modesto Bee building with facilities for Modesto Junior College. They will then reportedly turn around and rent space back to the Bee. So the Bee might be taking a taxpayer bailout...The Modesto Bee is no longer printed in Modesto, and a lot of staff at the Mod Bee have been laid off. Which means there is plenty of unused space. (Photo credit: Adrian Mendoza)
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17 comments:
How's that for a back door taxpayer bail out.
The Fresno Bee is trying to get the AP to rent space from them in their building. Rumor has been for a while that the Delta building was being sold for mixed use commercial. That's kinda like putting a super market next to a grave yard.
Good on them. I think the Modbee and Bellingham Herald should sell their buildings. Newspapers need to rethink their entire business models, and this is one way to do it.
Back in college, I worked for a weekly whose office was in a strip mall, while the paper was printed elsewhere (it's very typical for weeklies to not own their own presses).
I kind of like the idea. It's almost justice for the Guild members that voted away the jobs of their peers to know their replacements are being trained right down the hall. No recruiting other than a memo and it sure beats the hell out of paying for what they currently have.
Why would anyone bother to read any of the print Bees? Total fishwrap waste of trees. One and all! Selected reporting is no reporting. The liars club can go quietly now.
Illustrates that the real estate of Newspapers holds more value that the business of newspapers. In San Diego, the Tribune was sold for the going price of the property.
Alas, for MNI, selling off all the property still would not clear the debt.
They've been asking $7-$8 million for the building, which takes up one-square-block of prime downtown real estate.
The rumor is that administrators from the community college district would move off the Modesto Jr. College campus and into The Bee building. There's plenty of room for them to join what's left of the newspaper's staff. It also would free up a much-needed building on the MJC campus, which then could be used for more classes.
Everyone would win, including taxpayers. If the college built from scratch, it would pay much more for that much space.
There's plenty of room for them to join what's left of the newspaper's staff.
Damn straight. In fact, they could move their newspaper and journalism classes right in and replace what's left of the staff with on the job internships!
9:56
How is the YCCD administration supposed to occupy all the empty warehouse space in the back? Most of the building was reconstructed in the 1980's specifically for printing, inserting, storage and distribution. There are loading docks in the back and virtually no parking. Unless they will also be buying the parking lot on a lot caddy corner to the Bee. Is that included in the $7-8 million price tag or is that separate?
Why occupy a building that - upon purchase - will be unusable in 70% of the building for administrative purposes? How is that REALLY going to save taxpayers money?
And who pays to have the press removed? When it was installed, the walls were constructed around the press, which is still in the building despite not having a press run since last September.
Oh don't worry about that. We'll nitpick it later on. This is a progressive way to save the paper after all.
LEXINGTON ARE U LOOKING ...RENT HALF THE BUILDING AND SELL HALF THE PARKING LOT WITH LESS PEOPLE AND LESS CARS WHY DO WE NEED IT
LEXINGTON ARE U LOOKING ...RENT HALF THE BUILDING AND SELL HALF THE PARKING LOT WITH LESS PEOPLE AND LESS CARS WHY DO WE NEED IT
Anon snip: “…they could move their newspaper and [journalism classes] right in and replace what's left of the staff with on the job internships!”
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Why would anyone be taking journalism classes at this time? I did hear a j-school student say her $34,000 per year tuition was looking like a bad investment in herself, as her student load debt is huge, More interestingly, she said online skills and marketing are being trumpeted as the future for journalists, and she felt they indicated, though did not say in words, their job opportunities lie in replacing out-of-date journos. Ain’t that a kick in the head?
"Ain’t that a kick in the head?"
It sure is. Especially since the current crop being kicked to the curb of the urine soaked streets of Southern San Francisco were the very same folks snickering about how they were the new media. All while happily crossing the picket lines of their brothers.
At this point, the union involvement is useless for saving of the Bee.
This reminds me of the Eastern Airline unions declaring they would rather lose their jobs than bend to big business. So, they lost their jobs because the airline went tits up. Then they pissed and moaned saying the airline wanted unfair concessions, things they had fought hard for and won. The members voted for taking a hard line, believing the union was not blowing smoke up their ass. So, Eastern is gone, the unions won, they did not bend to the evils of big business!
I wonder if they will throw in the press with the deal, then they could teach these young students the high paying secure trade of news paper printing! ...Just saying...
I don't work for a newspaper, nor the industry. But I will help as I think newspapers are important. To survive, a newspaper will have to change their online ads. Since this is how newspapers make most of their money for survival, not from selling in circulation. Thus, McClatchy would have to start a central national website (Like an EBAY or CRIAGSLIST to incoporate all their newspapers ads, and to put more resources into gaining more ads for marketing. Thus, the money generated from online ads(Like EBAY or CRAIGSLIST) would be used in-turn to support the newspapers. Right now the advertising sections of all papers are not profitable enough, nor have enough online influence enough to generate enough revenue to support printed papers right now. THus, they need to have more presence on with online web ads. Almost, like as if, McClatchy developed a separate company to operate on behalf of the print papers.
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