Biz: The Washington Times, the victim of a family disagreement?
- one day, the money stopped flowing. The Washington Times, the once-prominent conservative newspaper funded by the Unification Church, lost a key money flow one week in July 2009, leading to massive layoffs and a precipitous decline of the paper. It turns out that it was caught in the middle of a huge family struggle between its owners, the Moonies. Some numbers:
- $2billion lost by the Moonie-run paper since it was founded
- 87,000 the newspaper’s already-declining circulation two years ago
- 40,000 the newspaper’s circulation now; it’s had major cutbacks of late
- » The family strife: The Washington Times is at the center of a power struggle between the family of Unification Church leader Rev. Sun Myung Moon, who’s 89 years old and isn’t long for this world. Other Moon-run businesses aren’t doing so hot either. Moon’s son, Preston, who isn’t as doggedly conservative as his dad was (he was, for example, against the Iraq War), apparently steered the paper in a direction one of his brothers didn’t like, causing the church’s money to stop flowing to the paper. They couldn’t pay key bills, including those for internet access and staffer health insurance. Now the paper may return to into the senior Moon’s hands in a $1-plus-debt buyback, but the final result isn’t so clear. source