edithhopegardenjournal

Digital tech and platform firms are rapidly losing the Silicon Valley naiveté that has characterized their activities in the past 20 years. Billions of dollars of fines and lawsuit losses for abuse of dominant positions, misuse of personal data, workplace harassment, securities violations and a host of other offenses are shaking their world. Company leaders appear aghast and paralyzed by the developments, often unable to comprehend and effectively adjust to the forces of regulation and litigation that are acting on them globally, but especially in Europe and North America. A good part of their bewilderment is due to blind spots in their perceptions of themselves and the place of digital firms in society.   For two decades their founders, the companies themselves and digital gatherings and conventions have repeated the mantra that they are revolutionary, different, and old rules don’t apply.   They have argued that digital tech frees users and firms from the constraints of nati...

Failure isn’t what it used to be. Bankrupt newspaper companies are following the lead of AIG and Lehman Brothers and rewarding executives with large bonuses. The Tribune Co. is trying to pay out $13 million in bonuses, the Journal Registers Co. is trying to pay $2 million, and Philadelphia Newspapers has already given hundreds of thousands in bonuses to its corporate officers. Company spokesmen say the bonuses make good business sense by rewarding good performance and keeping executives from leaving the companies. Both arguments are hollow. The first rationale rewards performance in running the companies into the ground and the retention rationale assumes other newspaper companies are hiring and would want to hire the tainted executives. The issue of bonuses has emerged because newspapers filing for bankruptcy are not liquidating, but using Chapter 11 to create reorganization plans that will allow them to change the terms of the debt and union contracts. They have to seek approval from...

The bankruptcy filings of the Minneapolis Star-Tribune and Tribune Co. are cast by many as a sign of the continuing decline of the newspaper market. However, it is noteworthy that neither firm is owned by a company with a newspaper heritage, but by firms in the newspaper business primarily for financial gain. The Tribune’s owner is from the real estate business and the Star Trib’s is from private equity. There is no doubt that the newspaper business is facing a difficult time now, but the business origins of the owners are important because their perceptions of bankruptcy, how the community will react, and how the company will be seen afterwards are colored by the norms and mores of those business fields. Newspaper companies have long played special roles in communities, exercising social and political influence, and promoting corporate responsibility, accountability, and community standards. Publishers and editors have typically sat with the other civic leaders on boards and committee...