Murdoch Drops Bid to Buy N.Y. Post as Union Talks Fail

The New York Post, the zesty tabloid that thrived on adversity, faced a bleak future Friday as Rupert Murdoch and the newspaper’s unions failed to come to terms and he dropped his bid to buy it.

When a 4 p.m. deadline passed without agreement on new cost-cutting contracts, negotiators for Murdoch said he canceled his agreement to run the nation’s oldest, continuously published daily.

Murdoch’s move bounces the 192-year-old paper back to a bankruptcy court judge and puts its future in doubt.

“This is truly a sad day,” Patrick Purcell, president of Murdoch’s News America Publishing Corp., said in announcing the withdrawal of the media magnate.

Union negotiators left the Post building quickly.

“They shut the newspaper and told everybody to leave within the hour,” said a machinists’ union negotiator who spoke on condition of anonymity.

Other union leaders and union members said they thought a deal was close and couldn’t understand why talks broke off. Some said they thought Purcell’s announcement was a negotiating ploy.

Jim McCauley, business agent for the drivers’ union, said the union had approved givebacks Murdoch demanded. But Purcell said: “Unfortunately, News Corporation has no choice but to cancel our management agreement.”

While the talks were under way, the newspaper’s 725 employees prepared to put out the Saturday edition, but it was later canceled.

The paper almost closed three times: in 1988, when publisher Peter Kalikow purchased it at the last minute from Murdoch; in 1990, when the unions agreed to a 20% pay cut; and in January as the unions again took wage cuts while Kalikow’s bankers cut off his credit.

The last instance began a period in which it seemed the paper could close at any moment until Murdoch emerged as a potential buyer.

As talks continued at the Post’s offices, Murdoch was in Europe and reportedly not personally involved. The Post was operating under protection of federal bankruptcy law and Murdoch has run the paper since March while trying to purchase it.

Although other potential operators could come forward, the bankruptcy judge might elect to pay the paper’s creditors by liquidating its assets.