what newspapers does alden global capital own
The movement gained traction in some markets, with local politicians and celebrities expressing solidarity. I sort of bully people around to get stuff done, he boasted to The Washington Post in 1985. John Temple: My newspaper died 10 years ago. [21], Under the acquisition plan, MediaNews Group debt fell to $165 million from about $930 million. Alden Global Capital owns 56 dailies under Digital First Media (Alden also owns 32% of Tribune 10 dailies in Column C.) Tribune Media owns 10 dailies. Connecting this to the current state of American newspaper ownership seems rather tenuous.. The 21st century has seen many of these generational owners flee the industry, to devastating effect. Freeman, his 41-year-old protg and the president of the firm, would be unrecognizable in most of the newsrooms he owns. The story of Alden Capital begins on the set of a 1960s TV game show called Dream House. Alden began its acquisition of Tribune Publishing in 2019, when they paid $117.9 million to Michael Ferro for his 25.2-percent stake. Three days later, Bainumstill smarting from his experience with Alden, but worried about the Suns fatesent a pride-swallowing email to Freeman. That's because the fund is stepping in to buy and then gut newsrooms across the country. Caleb will later recall, in an interview with D Magazine, asking his dad why he works so hard. [13], Newspapers in Alden's portfolio include Chicago Tribune, The Denver Post, the St. Paul Pioneer Press, the Boston Herald, The Mercury News, East Bay Times, The Orange County Register, and Orlando Sentinel. The newspaper lost a quarter of its staff to buyouts after it was acquired by Alden Global Capital in May. 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. All good works, and Knight is to be commended for them. In budget meetings, according to the former executive, Freeman hectored local publishers, demanding that they produce detailed numbers off the top of their head and then humiliating them when they couldnt. The show draws from a book written by a Sun reporter, and Simon was quick to point out that the paper still has good journalists covering important stories. After congratulating him on closing the deal, Bainum said he was still interested in buying the Sun if Alden was willing to negotiate. After all, it has a long and venerable history of supporting local news. and our desire to support local newspapers over the long term." Alden said it wants to work Lee's board of . It has not, however, retained the Chicago Tribune. "And what we've seen in a lot of these places where newspapers have been scaled back or even closed is there really is no comparable product in place, whether it's by the government or by another news organization, to do what these local newspapers have done for hundreds of years.". Maybe theyd cancel their subscriptions eventually; maybe the papers would fold altogether. It makes me profoundly sad to think about what the Trib was, what it is, and what its likely to become, says David Axelrod, who was a reporter at the paper before becoming an adviser to Barack Obama. It felt important. With Alden in control, he believes the Sun is now a prisoner that stands little chance of escape. From the March 1914 issue: H. L. Mencken on newspaper morals, A story circulated throughout the companypossibly apocryphal, though no one could say for surethat when Freeman was informed that The Denver Post had won a Pulitzer in 2013, his first response was: Does that come with any money?. But I had underestimated how little Aldens founders care about their standing in the journalism world. 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. Reporters kept reporting, and editors kept editing, and the union kept looking for ways to put pressure on Alden. The term vulture capitalism hasnt been invented yet, but Randy will come to be known as a pioneer in the field. We dont hear from them Theyre, like, nameless, faceless people., In the months that followed, the Sun did not immediately experience the same deep staff cuts that other papers did. Others pointed to Bainums financing partner, who pulled out of the deal at the 11th hour. [27] The Alden lawsuit asserts that the members of the Lee board "have every reason to maintain the status quo and their lucrative corporate positions" and that they are "focused more on [their] own power than what's best for the company. Heath Freeman in an undated photo provided by Goldin Solutions . And that has consequences for democracy, as journalist McKay Coppins writes in The Atlantic. These include the Chicago Tribune, the New York Daily News, and The Baltimore Sun. Since they bought their first newspapers a decade ago, no one has been more mercenary or less interested in pretending to care about their publications long-term health. If you want to know what its like when Alden Capital buys your local newspaper, you could look to Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, where coverage of local elections in more than a dozen communities falls to a single reporter working out of his attic and emailing questionnaires to candidates. A group of 11 community newspapers owned by Red Wing Publishing Co. have been sold to MediaNews Group, owner of the St. Paul Pioneer Press and more than 100 newspapers across the country. It was all about the next quarters profit margins, says Matt DeRienzo, who worked as a publisher for Aldens Connecticut newspapers before finally resigning. In truth, Freeman didnt seem particularly interested in defending Aldens reputation. But in the case of local news, nothing comparable is ready to replace these papers when they die. Bainum envisioned rebuilding the paperwhich, by 2020, was down to a single full-time statehouse reporteras a nonprofit. It was founded in 2007 by Randall D. Smith. Former Knight-Ridder headquarters. [3] [4] With its acquisition of Tribune Publishing in late . The papers printing was moved to a plant more than 100 miles outside town, Glidden told me, which meant that the news arriving on subscribers doorsteps each morning was often more than 24 hours old. With his own money, he helps his brother launch the New York Press, a free alt-weekly in Manhattan. Coordinated by . They could be vain, bumbling, even corrupt. Alden, which took Chicago-based newspaper chain Tribune Publishing private in May, said it made a proposal to buy Lee for $24 a share in cash, a 30% premium to Friday's closing price for . A month after he started, one of his fellow reporters left and Glidden was asked to start covering schools in addition to his other responsibilities. Last week, Alden Global Capital, the hedge fund notorious for slashing costs at its local titles, came down on the No side of the question, with editorial boards at papers that it owns stating that they will no longer endorse candidates for governor, US senator, or president. Theyre being targeted by investors who have figured out how to get rich by strip-mining local-news outfits. Yes, today, it's a newspaper without a newsroom. In the for-profit news arena, Knight is spurring the digital transformation of local newsrooms through the Knight-Lenfest Newsroom Initiative, Sherry said. Alden Global Capital had recently purchased a nearly one-third stake in the Suns parent company, Tribune Publishing, and the firm was signaling that it would soon come for the rest. Some in the industry say they wouldnt be surprised if Smith and Freeman end up becoming the biggest newspaper moguls in U.S. history. Its being snuffed out, quarter after quarter after quarter. We were sitting in a coffee shop in Logan Square, and he was still struggling to make sense of what had happened. , From the February 1905 issue: The confessions of a newspaper woman, The papers union hired a PR firm to launch a public-awareness campaign under the banner Save Our Sun and published a letter calling on the Tribune board to sell the paper to local owners. Reading these stories now has a certain horror-movie quality: You want to somehow warn the unwitting victims of whats about to happen. But outside the industry, few seemed to notice. Feb. 16, 2021 8:04 PM PT. It's a tangled tale but essentially Asylum produced a film for the McDonald's charitable foundation for Leo. In 2011, Paton launched an ambitious initiative he called Project Thunderdome, hiring more than 50 journalists in New York and strategically deploying them to supplement short-staffed local newsrooms. . Chicago-based Tribune Publishing on Tuesday announced a proposed sale to hedge fund Alden Global Capital in a deal valued at $630 million. On the surface, the answer might seem obvious. When it was over, a quarter of the newsroom was gone. Ken Kelleher is an American sculptor. Most of his investments are defined by a cold pragmatism, but he takes a more personal interest in the media sector. 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. I knew they almost never talked to reporters, but Randall Smith and Heath Freeman were now two of the most powerful figures in the news industry, and theyd gotten there by dismantling local journalism. Scott Olson/Getty Images On the appointed afternoon, I dialed the number provided by his spokesperson and found myself talking to the most feared man in American newspapers. Spend some time around the shell-shocked journalists at the Tribune these days, and youll hear the same question over and over: How did it come to this? "[26] Shortly thereafter, Alden Global, through its operating unit Strategic Investment Opportunities, filed a lawsuit in state court in Delaware against Lee Enterprises. As the months passed, things kept getting worse. 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. MediaNews Group came out of bankruptcy in March 2010 under the majority ownership of its lenders. [15][16] In March 2018, Margaret Sullivan, the media columnist for The Washington Post, called Alden "one of the most ruthless of the corporate strip-miners seemingly intent on destroying local journalism. For Baltimore to avoid a similar fate, Simon told me, something new would have to come alonga spiritual heir to the Sun: A newspaper is its contents and the people who make it. This is predatory.. 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 . Alden gradually took control of the papers that would become DFM. 'Sobs, gasps, expletives' over latest Denver Post layoffs", "The Hedge Fund Vampire That Bleeds Newspapers Dry Now Has the Chicago Tribune by the Throat", "How Massive Cuts Have Remade The Denver Post", "Newsonomics: By selling to Americas worst newspaper owners, Michael Ferro ushers the vultures into Tribune", "A Secretive Hedge Fund Is Gutting Newsrooms", "Affiliated Media Files for Bankruptcy to Restructure (Update2)", "The shakeup at MediaNews: Why it could be the leadup to a massive newspaper consolidation", "Alden Global Capital to buy Tribune in deal valued at $630 million", "Lee Enterprises Enacts Poison Pill to Guard Against Alden Takeover", "Lee Enterprises Board Rejects Alden's Acquisition Offer", "Alden Global Capital takes Lee Enterprises to court over failed board nominations", "Alden Global Capital sues Lee Enterprises after rejected takeover bid", "Alden Global Capital loses lawsuit to nominate its slate of candidates for Lee Enterprises' board", "Lee Enterprises shareholders reelect three directors amid hedge fund fight", "Tampa Bay Times sells printing plant to developer for $21 million", "A hedge fund's 'mercenary' strategy: Buy newspapers, slash jobs, sell the buildings", "The hedge fund trying to buy Gannett faces federal probe after investing newspaper workers' pensions in its own funds", https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Alden_Global_Capital&oldid=1130942589, This page was last edited on 1 January 2023, at 19:27. With full control of Tribune Publishing, Alden Global Capital is scrambling to squeeze out a return on its $600 million investment in the struggling Chicago-based newspaper company. The Ubiquity - The student news site of Quartz Hill High School Alden Global Capital, a New York-based hedge fund that this year became the second largest newspaper publisher in the United States, has made an offer to purchase Lee Enterprises, the media company that owns 75 daily newspapers, including the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. Unless the Tribunes trajectory changes, Chicago may soon provide a grim case study. (Freeman denied this characterization through a spokesperson. At the time, even savvy media insiders like Martin Langeveld wistfully predicted Alden would keep newspapers future in mind: Smith knows that the only way to win his big bet on the future of newspapers is to turn them into nimble, modern digital news enterprises.. He writes a weekly column called Mugger that savages the citys journalists by name and frequently runs to 10,000 words. Already the largest shareholder . Joe Pompeo pilloried Alden in Vanity Fair for reducing newsrooms. 'Vulture' Fund Alden Global, Known For Slashing Newsrooms, Buys Tribune Papers, Stop The Presses! The company has been growing its portfolio and as of May 2021, owns over 100 newspapers and 200 assorted other publications. The editor in chief mysteriously resigned, and managers scrambled to deal with the cuts. Senior lenders under the deal were to swap debt for stock. 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. But by 2014, it was becoming clear to Aldens executives that Patons approach would be difficult to monetize in the short term, according to people familiar with the firms thinking. So Freeman pivoted. The newsroom was moved to a single room rented from the local chamber of commerce. Otherwise, youre just peeing in the ocean.. The most promising prospect materialized in Baltimore, where a hotel magnate named Stewart Bainum Jr. expressed interest in the Sun. On Monday, Dail Hes impressed by their journalism, he told me, but his clearest takeaway is that theyre not nearly well funded enough. People who know him described Freemanwith his shellacked curls, perma-stubble, and omnipresent smirkas the archetypal Wall Street frat boy. It was founded in 2007 by Randall D. but sadly on a global scale there is hardly any independent news sources left currently. It financed the deal with the help of Cerberusa private-equity firm that owned, among other businesses, the security company that trained Saudi operatives who participated in the murder of the journalist Jamal Khashoggi. The final product, completed in 1925, was an architectural spectacle unlike anything the city had seen beforeromance in stone and steel, as one writer described it. He can cite decades-old scoops and tell you whom they pissed off. Alden is in the business of making money, not journalism. This investment strategy does not come without social consequences. 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. Traditional newspaper business model says you make 95% of your money off ad sales and the rest off subscriptions. [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. The Banner will launch with about 50 journalistsnot far from the size of the Sunand an ambitious mandate. [2] Its managing director is Heath Freeman. he asks. Maybe this obscure hedge fund had a plan. October 14, 2021. How do you know who wins? the boy asks. Next year, Bainum will launch The Baltimore Banner, an all-digital, nonprofit news outlet. But he has a big idea: He believes theres serious money to be made in buying troubled companies, steering them into bankruptcy, and then selling them off in parts. Im worried the worst is yet to come. [22] The appointees to the MediaNews board were replaced by new directors representing the stockholders group led by Alden Global Capital. 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. He gained 100 pounds and started grinding his teeth at night. Some have even suggested that this represents Americas last chance to save its local-news industry. These papers would have been liquidated if not for us stepping up.. It . It feels like were going up against capitalism now, Lillian Reed, the reporter who helped launch the Save Our Sun campaign, told me. Coppins offers several examples, like the Chicago Tribune and California's Vallejo Times-Herald. Hedge fund Alden Global Capital, one of the country's largest newspaper owners with a reputation for intense cost cuts and layoffs, has offered to buy the local newspaper chain Lee Enterprises for about $141 million. Nov. 22, 2021. . Hedge fund Alden Global Capital, one of the country's largest newspaper owners with a reputation for intense cost cuts and layoffs, has offered to buy the local newspaper chain Lee Enterprises for about $141 million. The Tribune Tower, the iconic former home of the Chicago Tribune, seen in Chicago, Illinois in 2015. At the same time, he increased subscription prices in many markets; it would take awhile for subscribersmany of them older loyalists who didnt carefully track their billsto notice that they were paying more for a worse product. A century later, the Tribune Tower has retained its grandeur. Through it all, the owners maintained their ruthless silencespurning interview requests and declining to articulate their plans for the paper. Some in the city started to wonder if the paper was even worth saving. "60 Minutes" correspondent Jon Wertheim did a strong piece that aired Sunday night about the grim state of local newspapers, in part because of how hedge funds, such as Alden Global Capital . [29] This attempt also failed, as shareholders returned both directors to the Lee board despite Alden's opposition. NPR's A Martnez talks to McKay Coppins of The Atlantic about how a hedge fund, Alden Global Capital, is buying and then gutting newspapers and the implications for democracy. What most concerns him is how his city will manage without a robust paper keeping tabs on the people in charge. Its the meanness and the elegance of the capitalist marketplace brought to newspapers, Doctor told me. 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. City budgets balloon, along with corruption and dysfunction. Today, we know that Knight, CalPERS and others no longer invest with Alden. After a long walk down a windowless hallway lined with cinder-block walls, I got in an elevator, which deposited me near a modest bank of desks near the printing press. It seemed reasonable to ask that they answer a few questions. The question was how. Meanwhile, reporters fanned out across their respective cities in search of benevolent rich people to buy their newspapers. The families that used to own the bulk of Americas local newspapersthe Bonfilses of Denver, the Chandlers of Los Angeleswere never perfect stewards. What exactly went wrong would become a point of bitter debate among the journalists involved in the campaigns. Some people believe that local newspapers will eventually be replaced by new publications, which Coppins describes as "built from the ground-up for the digital era." At one point, he told me, the citys entire civil-service commission was abruptly fired without explanation; his sources told him something fishy was going on, but he knew hed never be able to run down the story. By the 1980s, this strategy has made Randy luxuriously wealthyvacations in the French Riviera, a family compound outside New York Cityand he has begun to school his children on the wonders of capitalism. Coppins notes that there's even some research indicating that city budgets increase as a result, because corruption and dysfunction can take hold without a newspaper to hold powerful people to account. They call Alden a vulture hedge fund, and I think thats honestly a misnomer, Johnson said. 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. Longtime Tribune staffers had seen their share of bad corporate overlords, but this felt more calculated, more sinister. The $633 million sale made Alden the nation's second largest newspaper owner in terms of circulation, with more than 200 newspapers. NPR reached out to Alden for a response. 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. [7][8] Alden's purchase price was $635 million, or $17.25 per share. She was writing about Aldens growing newspaper empire, and wanted to know what it was like to be the last news reporter in town. For two men who employ thousands of journalists, remarkably little is known about them. Of course, its easy to romanticize past eras of journalism. When John Glidden first joined the Vallejo Times-Herald, in 2014, it had a staff of about a dozen reporters, editors, and photographers. In May, The Alden Global Capital a hedge fund, acquired Tribune Publishing TPCO for $633 million. Alden Global Capital already had a 32% stake in Tribune Publishing, which owns famous names like the Tribune, Daily News, the Hartford Courant and others, and on Tuesday announced it would pay . Stewart Bainum, since losing his bid for the Sun, has been quietly working on a new venture. Misinformation proliferates. 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. Earnest and unpolished, with a perpetually mussed mop of hair, Bainum presented himself as a contrast to the cutthroat capitalists at Alden. [4] [5] The company added more newspapers to its portfolio in May 2021 when it purchased Tribune . [6][7][8][9], The company operates its media holdings through Digital First Media (DFM), which it acquired in 2010 after DMG's parent company, MediaNews Group, declared bankruptcy. Year after year, the executives from Alden would order new budget cuts, and Glidden would end up with fewer co-workers and more work. He used his own money to pull court records, and went years without going on a vacation. Some of these papers likely would have been liquidated if the fund had not stepped in to buy them, as Alden's president told Coppins. Smith began investing in newspapers and media around the same time. Hes acutely aware of the risksI may end up with egg on my face, he saidbut he believes its worth trying to develop a successful model that could be replicated in other markets. Even in a declining industry, the newspapers still generated hundreds of millions of dollars in annual revenues; many of them were turning profits. Meanwhile, in Vallejo, John Glidden went from covering crime and community news to holding the title of the only hard news reporter in town, filling a legal pad with tips he knew he'd never have time to pursue. You could look to Oakland, California, where the East Bay Times laid off 20 people one week after the paper won a Pulitzer. 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. Some publications, such as the Minneapolis Star Tribune, have developed successful long-term models that Aldens papers might try to follow. The 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. On March 9, 2020, a small group of Baltimore Sun reporters convened a secret meeting at the downtown Hyatt Regency. Alden Global Capital is a hedge fund based in Manhattan, New York City. When the Smiths win, they pass on the house and take the cash prize insteada $20,000 haul that Randy will eventually use to seed a small trading firm he calls R.D. A Secretive Hedge Fund Is Gutting Newsrooms. They want to know who exactly profits when we learn, as Harvard Nieman Labs Ken Doctor recently reported, that the firm netted $160 million last year from its Digital First Media newspapers. I asked. Other records turned up from public pension funds and filings of publicly traded companies. Lee, which owns the St. Louis Post Dispatch, the Omaha World-Herald and many other daily newspapers throughout the region, is staving off a takeover attempt by Alden Global Capital, a New-York . Frustrated and worn out, Glidden broke down one day last spring when a reporter from The Washington Post called. A reporter at one of his newspapers suggested I try doorstepping Smithshowing up at his home unannounced to ask questions from the porch. Theres little evidence that Alden cares about the sustainability of its newspapers. Aldens website contains no information beyond the firms name, and its list of investors is kept strictly confidential. 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. Media . He teaches his 8-year-old son, Caleb, to make trades on a Quotron computer, and imparts the value of delayed gratification by reportedly postponing his familys Christmas so that he can use all their available cash to buy stocks at lower prices in December. Well, he told me, they have some very good reporters., This article appears in the November 2021 print edition with the headline The Men Who Are Killing Americas Newspapers., A Secretive Hedge Fund Is Gutting Newsrooms, I Dont Know That I Would Even Call It Meth Anymore, W. G. Sebald Ransacked Jewish Lives for His Fictions. One conclusions even these reporters are hesitant to make is that we are all dealing within a capitalist system which has none, or few, principles to guide itself, apart from making a profit, no matter how. It will rely initially on philanthropic donations, but he aims to sell enough subscriptions to make it self-sustaining within five years. Next up: Chicago, Baltimore, and the New York Daily News. Tips that he would never have time to investigate piled up on a legal pad he kept at his desk. When lawmakers pressed for details last year on who funds Alden, the company replied that there may be certain legal entities and organizational structures formed outside of the United States.. This all seemed especially relevant considering many Alden/DFM papers were previously part of the Knight-Ridder chain, the family news empire from which the foundation sprang. The new owners did not fly to Chicago to address the staff, nor did they bother with paeans to the vital civic role of journalism.