So why be surprised that Knight-Ridder or anyone else is investing in destructive but profitable ventures? Lee Enterprises holds off an Alden takeoverfor now It is the nations second-largest newspaper owner by circulation. Live news updates from February 28: Tesla to build Mexico - ft.com The 1% own and operate the . but sadly on a global scale there is hardly any independent news sources left currently. In its bid to acquire Tribune Publishing, the hedge fund Alden Global Capital vowed to provide $375 million in cash to the owner of the Chicago Tribune, the Baltimore Sun and other titles a . Rapid-fire changes underway at newspapers sold to cost-slashing hedge fund Alden Global Capital have led to a profound case of the jitters at newsrooms like the New York Daily News. The scene was somehow even grimmer than Id imagined. Like many alumni of the Sun, Simon is steeped in the papers history. Who Profits From Alden Global Capital? "A lot of cities almost operate with the assumption that there will be at least one local newspaper, in some cases several local newspapers, acting as a check on the authorities," he says. Inside Alden Global Capital. A native of Vallejo, he was proud to work for his hometown paper. (PDF) Extractive Imperialism in the Americas | henry veltmeyer But Glidden felt sure he knew the real reason: Alden wanted him gone. The Tribune had been profitable when Alden took over. In May, the Tribune was acquired by Alden Global Capital, a secretive hedge fund that has quickly, and with remarkable ease, become one of the largest newspaper operators in the country. Some in the city started to wonder if the paper was even worth saving. Bainum envisioned rebuilding the paperwhich, by 2020, was down to a single full-time statehouse reporteras a nonprofit. [31], In 2019, Twenty Lake Holdings reported that it had acquired about 180 properties with 2.3 million square feet of real estate in 29 states. Lee Enterprises owns 77 daily newspapers, including the Buffalo News, Omaha World-Herald and the Tulsa World. How do you know who wins? the boy asks. Its a hedge that went and bought up some titles that it milks for cash.. Alden completed its takeover of the Tribune papers in May. It played with my mind a little bit, Glidden told me. But outside the industry, few seemed to notice. How exactly Randall Smith chose Heath Freeman as his protg is a matter of speculation among those who have worked for the two of them. Today, half of all daily newspapers in the U.S. are controlled by financial firms, according to an analysis by the Financial Times, and the number is almost certain to grow. Otherwise, youre just peeing in the ocean.. Feb 16, 2021 at 8:05 pm. By 2011, when Aldens Distressed Opportunities Fund lost more than 20 percent of its value, Knights holdings in the fund were valued at $10.7 million. Alden Global Capital, a hedge fund known for gutting local newsrooms, is seeking to buy Lee Enterprises (LEE), a publicly traded company with a chain of daily newspapers and other publications . At the Pioneer Press , where its staff is down to 60, the paper produced a . Hedge fund Alden Global Capital is attempting to acquire Davenport-based Lee Enterprises, one of the country's largest newspaper chains, in all the markings of a hostile takeover. Somehow, no one's buying it. * Edited from 'independent . Maybe this obscure hedge fund had a plan. Smith, a reclusive Palm Beach septuagenarian, hasnt granted a press interview since the 1980s. . When the city-hall reporter left a few months later, he picked up that beat too. It was all about the next quarters profit margins, says Matt DeRienzo, who worked as a publisher for Aldens Connecticut newspapers before finally resigning. The vulture is hungry again: Alden Global Capital wants to buy a few [4][13], In November 2021, Alden made an offer to Lee to purchase the company in its entirety for roughly $141 million. Convinced that the Sun wont be able to provide the kind of coverage the city needs, he has set out to build a new publication of record from the ground up. In early 2011, Alden was still considered a non-controlling investor, but by the end of the year, that would change. Tribune Publishing, publisher of the Chicago Tribune and other major newspapers, has agreed to be acquired by Alden Global Capital in a deal valued at $630 million . It feels like were going up against capitalism now, Lillian Reed, the reporter who helped launch the Save Our Sun campaign, told me. Digital First Media - Wikipedia Alden Global Capital makes offer for Lee Enterprises, owner of Winston One tagline he was considering was Marylands Best Newsroom., When I asked, half in jest, if he planned to raid the Sun to staff up, he responded with a muted grin. In recent months, hes been meeting with leaders of local-news start-ups across the countryThe Texas Tribune, the Daily Memphian, The City in New Yorkand collecting best practices. It emphasizes supporting the emergence of new, sustainable models for local news, through both grantmaking and research, Sherry told me, including grant programs for nonprofit news organizations. But this acquisition was profound, making Alden Global . He gained 100 pounds and started grinding his teeth at night. But for Simon, that paper exists entirely in the past. He said that he still appreciated their journalism, but that he couldnt speak for his corporate bosses. Alden Global Capital seeks to buy Lee Enterprises for $144M [10] With its acquisition of Tribune Publishing in late May 2021, Alden is collectively the second-largest owner of newspapers in the United States, as calculated by average daily print circulation, second only to Gannett. It has figured out how to make a profit by driving newspapers into the ground, he says, since Alden's aim is not to make them into long-term sustainable businesses but rather maximize profits quickly to show it has made a winning investment. Researchers at the University of North Carolina found that Alden-owned newspapers have cut their staff at twice the rate of their competitors; not coincidentally, circulation has fallen faster too, according to Ken Doctor, a news-industry analyst who reviewed data from some of the papers. Alden Global Capital - Wikipedia And two, by at least 2013, those of us who worked at Alden-controlled papers (like me) were already experiencing the slashing and burning. Much of the Knight family's once-grand newspaper empire was ultimately acquired by Alden Global Capital, while the family foundation invested in Alden funds. This was the core of Freemans argument. We were like, Theyre not going to take our newspaper from us! It felt important. Smith. One known investor, however, is the Randall and Barbara Smith Foundation, named for Alden founder Smith and his wife. about two hundred American newspapers. The men killing Americas newspapers, how Slack upended the workplace, and the new meth. A former Sun reporter whose work on the police beat famously led to his creation of The Wire on HBO, Simon told me the paper had suffered for years under a series of blundering corporate ownersand it was only a matter of time before an enterprise as cold-blooded as Alden finally put it out of its misery. In February 2021, he announced a handshake deal to buy the Sun from Alden for $65 million once it acquired Tribune Publishing. But within weeks, Bainum said, Alden tried to tack on a five-year licensing deal that would have cost him tens of millions more. Hedge fund Alden Global Capital will acquire the rest of what it does not already own of Tribune Publishing, owner of the Chicago Tribune, the New York Daily News and other local newspapers . Morale tanked; reporters burned out. Traditional newspaper business model says you make 95% of your money off ad sales and the rest off subscriptions. On the surface, the answer might seem obvious. It was like watching a slow-motion disaster, says Gregory Pratt, a reporter at the Chicago Tribune. To replace a paper like the Sun would require a large, talented staff that covers not just government, but sports and schools and restaurants and art. For Freeman, newspapers are financial assets and nothing morenumbers to be rearranged on spreadsheets until they produce the maximum returns for investors. Some have even suggested that this represents Americas last chance to save its local-news industry. When the journalists created a Slack channel to coordinate their efforts across multiple newspapers, they dubbed it Project Mayhem.. But he says the worst culprit is the hedge fund Alden Global Capital, which bought the Mercury in 2011 and has since sold the paper's building and slashed newsroom staff by about 70%. It . [13], In response, the board of Lee Enterprises enacted a shareholder rights plan, colloquially known as a "poison pill", in order to ward off the purchase attempt. Research shows that when local newspapers disappear or are dramatically gutted, communities tend to see lower voter turnout, increased polarization, a general erosion of civic engagement and an environment in which misinformation and conspiracy theories can spread more easily. His editor cited a supposed journalistic infraction (Glidden had reported the resignation of a school superintendent before an agreed-upon embargo). Aldens Distressed Opportunities Fund was launched in 2008 and saw astounding success in its first few months, showing returns of more than 30 percent a big rescue for Alden, whose investments in Russia the year before had lost more than 61 percent of their value. These papers would have been liquidated if not for us stepping up.. NPR reached out to Alden for a response. Freeman was more animated when he turned to the prospect of extracting money from Big Tech. At one point, I tracked down the photographer whod taken the only existing picture of Smith on the internet. In a news release Monday, Alden said it sent Lee's board a letter with the offer. 'Vulture' Fund Alden Global, Known For Slashing Newsrooms, Buys Tribune Papers, Stop The Presses! The one central theme, the Times reports, seems to be that Smith and its web of affiliates are out, first and foremost, for themselves. If this reputation bothers Randy and his colleagues, they dont let on: For a while, according to The Village Voice, his firm proudly hangs a painting of a vulture in its lobby. If you went into a lab to create the perfect bro, Heath would be that creation, says one former executive at an Alden-owned company, who, like others in this story, requested anonymity to speak candidly. But while its true that Alden entered the industry by purchasing floundering newspapers, not all of them were necessarily doomed to liquidation. When Alden first started buying newspapers, at the tail end of the Great Recession, the industry responded with cautious optimism. The model is simple: Gut the staff, sell the real estate, jack up subscription prices, and wring as much cash as possible out of the enterprise until eventually enough readers cancel their subscriptions that the paper folds, or is reduced to a desiccated husk of its former self. Feeling burned by the hedge fund, Bainum decided to make a last-minute bid for all of Tribune Publishings newspapers, pledging to line up responsible buyers in each market. Bainum told me hed come to appreciate local journalism in the 1970s while serving in the Maryland state legislature. After college he worked at Hudson Studio, Art Foundry in Niverville, NY . Alden, which has built a reputation as one of the newspaper industry's most aggressive cost-cutters, became Tribune Publishing's largest shareholder in November 2019 and owns a 31.3% stake. With his own money, he helps his brother launch the New York Press, a free alt-weekly in Manhattan. But years later, when Randy relocates to Palm Beach and becomes a major donor to Donald Trumps presidential campaign, it will make a certain amount of sense that his earliest known media investment was conceived as a giant middle finger to the journalistic establishment. But by 2013, despite deep losses to Alden funds overall values in the previous two years, Smith was able to begin buying his now infamous swath of South Florida mansions for $58 million and Freeman was acquiring multi-million-dollar New York condos. Freeman was clearly aware of his reputation for ruthlessness, but he seemed to regard Aldens commitment to cost-cutting as a badge of honorthe thing that distinguished him from the saps and cowards who made up Americas previous generation of newspaper owners. Alden Global Capital makes an offer for Lee Enterprises, a big Here was one of Americas most storied newspapersa publication that had endorsed Abraham Lincoln and scooped the Treaty of Versailles, that had toppled political bosses and tangled with crooked mayors and collected dozens of Pulitzer Prizesreduced to a newsroom the size of a Chipotle. The endorsement debate swings around again - Columbia Journalism Review (Freeman denied this through a spokesperson.) "The question is, will local communities decide that this is an important issue, that it's worth saving these newspapers, protecting them from firms like Alden, or will they decide that they don't really care?" It has not, however, retained the Chicago Tribune. One researcher tells me that if that money were invested in the S&P 500 Index Fund, it would have earned roughly $11 million over the same period. Most responded with variations on the same question: Which recent stories from your newspapers have you especially appreciated? Over the course of seven years, Alden doubled profits in its Bay Area News Group newspapers, another home to cutbacks. When John Glidden first joined the Vallejo Times-Herald, in 2014, it had a staff of about a dozen reporters, editors, and photographers. You can bypass most soft paywalls with a little CSS knowledge In legal filings, Alden has acknowledged diverting hundreds of millions of dollars from its newspapers into risky bets on commercial real estate, a bankrupt pharmacy chain, and Greek debt bonds. But there was still a sliver of hope: Tribune and Alden agreed that the hedge fund would not increase its stake in the company for at least seven months. What happens next? What most concerns him is how his city will manage without a robust paper keeping tabs on the people in charge. Controversial hedge fund Alden Global wins bidding for Chicago Tribune But for that to happen, the Big Tech money would need to flow to underfunded newsrooms, not into the pockets of Aldens investors. Layout design was outsourced to freelancers in the Philippines. Alden Global Capital is a hedge fund based in Manhattan, New York City. [22] The appointees to the MediaNews board were replaced by new directors representing the stockholders group led by Alden Global Capital. The Tribune Tower rises above the streets of downtown Chicago in a majestic snarl of Gothic spires and flying buttresses that were designed to exude power and prestige. It was clear that they didnt care about this being a business in the future. The newspaper lost a quarter of its staff to buyouts after it was acquired by Alden Global Capital in May. Those that have survived are smaller, weaker, and more vulnerable to acquisition. Im repulsed by the incestuous world of New York journalism, he tells New York magazine. You have no way of knowing that if you dont have some nosy son of a bitch asking a lot of questions down there, he told me. The largest share of the blame was assigned to the Tribune board for allowing the sale to Alden to go through. MNG Enterprises, Inc., doing business as Digital First Media and MediaNews Group, is a Denver, Colorado -based newspaper publisher owned by Alden Global Capital. A look at Alden Global Capital is the cover story of the latest . Even in a declining industry, the newspapers still generated hundreds of millions of dollars in annual revenues; many of them were turning profits. Dec 9, 2021. He declined to meet me in person or to appear on Zoom. For Smith, the Palm Beach conservative and Trump ally, sticking it to the mainstream media might actually be a perk of Aldens strategy. Shares of Lee Enterprises Inc. rose sharply Monday after hedge fund Alden Global Capital LLC offered to buy the newspaper publisher for about $141 million. For Freeman and his investors to come out ahead, they didnt need to worry about the long-term health of the assetsthey just needed to maximize profits as quickly as possible. That may well be the future of local news, he says. Alden is known for . Alden Global Capital revealed a proposal Monday to purchase Lee Enterprise Inc. and its newspapers at $24 a share, casting alarm through the many newsrooms owned by Lee. For two men who employ thousands of journalists, remarkably little is known about them. This company that owns us now seems to still be prettyI dont even know how to put it, the editor said, according to a recording of the meeting obtained by The Atlantic. By the time the FBI caught them, in 2017, the conspiracy had resulted in one dead civilian and a rash of wrongful arrests and convictions. Craigslist killed the Classified section, Google and Facebook swallowed up the ad market, and a procession of hapless newspaper owners failed to adapt to the digital-media age, making obsolescence inevitable. What exactly went wrong would become a point of bitter debate among the journalists involved in the campaigns. Others pointed to Bainums financing partner, who pulled out of the deal at the 11th hour. Three days later, Bainumstill smarting from his experience with Alden, but worried about the Suns fatesent a pride-swallowing email to Freeman. When Simon called me, he was on the set of his new miniseries, We Own This City, which tells the true story of Baltimore cops who spent years running their own drug ring from inside the police department. Glidden, then a mild-mannered 30-year-old, had come to journalism later in life than most and was eager to prove himself. So who is investing with them? At the time, the Sun had a bustling bureau in Annapolis, and he marveled at the reporters ability to sort the honest politicians from the political whores by exposing abuses of power. Iowa-based Lee Enterprises asks investors to help fight off hedge fund Alden Global Capital. Scott Olson/Getty Images To industry observers, Aldens brazen model set it apart even from chains like Gannett, known for its aggressive cost-cutting. A vulture doesnt hold a wounded animals head underwater. Tuesday, 23 November 2021 07:46 PM EST. We were in collective revolt, Lillian Reed, a Sun reporter who helped organize the campaign, told me. Pioneer Press owner buys 11 more Minnesota papers - Star Tribune
Grace Webb Parents,
Katu Staff Changes,
Bexar County Candidates 2022,
The Silk Factory Language Paper 1,
Articles W