Linda Pizzuti Henry on Wednesday became the chief executive officer of Boston Globe Media Partners, the parent company of The Boston Globe, Boston.com and STAT News. Along with her husband, John W. Henry, Ms. Henry is an owner of Boston Globe Media Partners, the Boston Red Sox and the Liverpool Football Club.
“I feel really lucky to be able to work every day at a place that I love, doing work that I know is critically important and impactful to a community I care deeply about,” Ms. Henry, the first woman to lead The Globe in its 148-year history, said in a statement.
Mr. Henry, 71, bought The Boston Globe from The New York Times Company as part of a $70 million deal for New England Media Group in 2013. Since then, Ms. Henry has been managing director of Boston Globe Media Partners.
Ms. Henry, 42, is taking the top job at a time of rising tensions between The Globe’s management team and its union. Her promotion was announced on a day when Globe employees criticized ties between the newspaper and the Jones Day law firm, which has represented President Trump and his campaign and has been representing the Republican Party of Pennsylvania in litigation over mail-in votes.
In an open letter to the Henrys and other executives on Wednesday, Globe union members said the company’s use of the law firm raised ethical issues. The Times reported this month that some Jones Day lawyers said they were concerned that the firm’s recent work was undermining the integrity of the electoral system.
“Given the Globe’s wide-ranging coverage of election-related news, we believe readers have a right to be aware of the relationship between The Globe and Jones Day, just as Globe readers have routinely been informed of the business relationship between Globe ownership and the Boston Red Sox,” the letter said.
It continued: “We believe you should reconsider your relationship with Jones Day, an association that has already damaged our journalists’ trust in your leadership — and which we fear may also damage our readers’ trust in The Globe at a critical moment.”
Matt Rocheleau, a Globe investigative reporter and the union’s recording secretary, said in an interview that the paper’s journalism must be free from any apparent conflicts of interest.
“The Globe has run New York Times wire stories about Jones Day, about election-related lawsuits, and there was no disclosure about the relationship to the company with Jones Day,” he said.
The union has been in negotiations with company managers since its last contract expired at the end of 2018. Mr. Rocheleau said the elevation of Ms. Henry did not offer the staff much hope for a swift conclusion.
“It really depends on if she is going to take a different approach to what has been taken,” he said. “We haven’t seen yet any signal that management is going to change, but we hope it does.”
The Globe has used Jones Day since 2014, a spokeswoman said. In its letter, the union criticized Boston Globe Media Partners for the “significant sums” it had paid Jones Day in what it called an “ongoing quest to strip away basic workplace protections from Globe journalists.”
Ms. Henry spoke to Globe employees during a virtual meeting on Wednesday. “I believe in our purpose, in our mission and in how much the work we do matters,” she said, according to a report in The Globe.
Ms. Henry effectively replaces Vinay Mehra, who left Boston Globe Media Partners in June after three years as its president.
Source: | This article originally belongs to Nytimes.com
