Ainsley out as Boston Globe publisher, retires at 57

The New York Times has announced that Publisher Steve Ainsley - on whose watch the Boston Globe slipped from being the region's premier news organization to a struggling, demoralized unit that at one point faced the possibility of extinction - will retire at the end of the year and be replaced by Chris Mayer, the current Senior V.P. for circulation and operations.

In an announcement released through Business Wire, Times Company CEO Janet Robinson chose to accentuate the positive about the 57-year-old Ainsley's tenure. She credited him in particular with pulling the paper through tough negotiations with employee unions - negotiations that included a threat that the paper could be shut down - that netted the Times $20 million in concessions.

"Over the past year Steve has shepherded a comprehensive financial strategy that has significantly strengthened the Globe and Boston.com and enhanced its ability to provide the New England community with high-quality news and information," Robinson said.

The Globe's Beth Healy reports that Mayer's job has been to oversee circulation, information technology, production, and distribution. He was also the "architect" of the recent circulation price increase that has helped the paper shore up its shaky finances, Healy writes.

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On a personal note, I was working for the Globe in 2006 when Ainsley took over for then-publisher Richard Gilman, who also retired as the Globe's fortunes were clearly sliding.

By then, it was clear to almost everyone on Morrissey Boulevard that the Globe was facing monumental problems with the decline of advertising revenue and the migration of readers to the web. No one knew much about Ainsley, so of course there was a heightened sense of anticipation as we crowded into an auditorium to meet what we hoped was a dynamic, forward-thinking leader who could bend the Globe's arc in a positive direction once again.

What we got was a seeming nice guy who spouted some management-seminar boilerplate about "reinventing" the newspaper and "listening" to employee suggestions. As I walked out, I felt as deflated as a week-old birthday balloon. I remember turning to a friend and saying: "We are so screwed."

Could someone other than Ainsley have done a better job, given the powerful economic forces working against newspapers like the Globe? Maybe not. Would that someone just have been following and implementing orders from the New York Times? Maybe so. But the kicker to the Steve Ainsley story is: We'll never know.