The battered Boston Globe isn't worth 90% of what the NY Times Co. (NYSE: NYT) paid for it, but it seems to have bounced a bit from the bottom of the barrel. In a meeting with a few hundred of the newspaper's employees, company chairman Arthur Sulzberger Jr. and CEO Janet Robinson revealed that the Globe's finances have improved significantly. Because of this development, they continued, there is a chance the newspaper will not be sold.

This was the first meeting between company executives and the Globe's unions since the latter accepted pay cuts back in July. The newspaper, which has a 137-year history, lost $50 million in 2008 and looked like it was going to drop another $85 million this year. Though this no longer appears likely, the Globe is still in rough shape.

The Bancroft family, who control Dow Jones & Co. (NYSE: DJ), need to get their stories straight.

First, the New York Times reported that the they rejected a plan crafted by their lawyers to protect The Wall Street Journal from meddling by Rupert Murdoch's News Corp (NYSE: NWS), which has made an unsolicited $5 billion offer for the media company. Reuters followed up with a story in which a Bancroft spokesman attacked the Times story as "a gross mischaracterization of the process" whatever that means.

This is more of the same nonsense. As I've argued before, the interest being shown by the Bancrofts in the Journal is really late in coming. Moreover, any committee pushed by the Bancrofts designed to "protect" the editorial integrity of the Journal is doomed to fail.

First of all, this system will create a bureaucracy that will lead to political infighting whose viciousness will be breathtaking to behold. It will be a disaster. Decisions will be made at glacial speed, something which Dow Jones can't afford in today's fast-paced digital age.

Try as I might, I 'm not sad that the Bancrofts may lose control of Dow Jones & Co. (NYSE: DJ) to Rupert Murdoch's News Corp (NYSE: NWS).

Though some journalists are arguing that a Murdoch victory would signal the end of civiilization as we know it, at least he'll take an interest in the Wall Street Journal, which is more than could be said about the Bancrofts. They watched idly as incompetent CEOs ran the publishing company into the ground and shareholders not related to them got the shaft.

Would Murdoch be that much worse? Compared with other publishing families, the Bancrofts have shown a remarkable lack of interest in their family business.

Will the New York Times Co.'s (NYSE:NYT) Sulzbergers follow the lead of the Tribune Co.'s (NYSE:TRB) Chandlers?

That becomes more plausible thanks to the Chandlers $7.6 billion offer for the Chicago-based media company. Members of the Chandler clan unhappy about Tribune's languishing stock pushed for the sale. The Sulzbergers have got to be just as disappointed about the shares of the Times, which has tanked 13% this year, underperforming its peers including Dow Jones & Co. (NYSE:DJ) and Gannett Co. (NYSE:GCI).

Media reports have said that the Sulzbergers have looked into going private. They need to look some more. The Times is a great newspaper but a lousy public company. The Sulzbergers do no one, including themselves, any favors by continually telling people to hang in there until the stock rebounds. Expecting people to continue to lose money on their investments just isn't fair.

Getting back to Tribune, maybe there will be interest in Tribune's broadcast assets, which include 23 television stations in major markets, its stake in the CW network and the Chicago Cubs. Shares of Hearst-Argyle Television Inc. (NYSE:HTV), which owns 26 stations, are up more than 10% over the past year. Gray Television Inc. (NYSE:GTN), which owns 36 stations, is up 14%.

Still, there are plenty of twists and turns to go in the Tribune saga.