3 Bidders for the Globe: Who Are They?

Steve Taylor, scion of the family that once ruled the Globe and sold it to the Times in 1993 for a then-whopping $1.1 billion (at the time, the biggest newspaper deal ever done). Actually, a cousin in that family. Taylor himself worked at the Globe for more than 20 years, from intern to president of the paper's electronic publishing business, which would have been a very nascent business circa 1993. (He left the Globe after the Times took over.) Now ensconced in the Ivory Tower, he's a lecturer in media at the Yale School of Management. Teaches a course entitled "Media Economics & Financing Journalism." Will need to summon all of that knowledge in order to buy the Globe. More than Connors and Pagliuca, two whales, Taylor would need the help of investors and outside sources of funding.

The Globe has experienced a dramatic week. On Monday, the newspapers' biggest union, the Boston Newspaper Guild, largely made up of editorial staff, voted by a slim margin to reject a contract that would have cut pay by 10% along with other concessions. Now, the Times has followed through on its threat to cut pay by 23% in order to obtain the $20 million in savings it says it needs to keep the Globe in business.

Then, on Wednesday night, it emerged that the Times -- at least according to the Globe's reporting -- had hired Goldman Sachs to shop the Boston daily to potential buyers.

Media-industry pundits have been divided on the idea of a Globe sale. Some say the Times has intended to cut it loose all along, slashing costs and taking care of the "union problem" being two of its priorities as it moves toward a sale.

Others, however, raise the question of whether the Times could ever find a serious buyer for the Globe, given its financial state and the perceived obsolescence of print media. Better and ultimately more profitable, these people say, to hold onto the Globe and its still-powerful brand name and attempt to make a go of it.