(PDF) Extractive Imperialism in the Americas | henry veltmeyer We must finally require the online tech behemoths, such as Google, Apple, and Facebook, to fairly compensate us for our original news content, he told me. Stewart Bainum, since losing his bid for the Sun, has been quietly working on a new venture. Alden-owned newspapers have cut their staff at twice the rate of their competitors, for all of Tribune Publishings newspapers, security company that trained Saudi operatives. Two veteran journalists from the Chicago Tribune published an op-ed on Sunday challenging one of the paper's principal owners, the New York hedge fund Alden Global Capital. 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. Fears for future of American journalism as hedge funds flex power This story originally appeared on the Morning Edition live blog. That might sound like a losing formula, but these papers dont have to become sustainable businesses for Smith and Freeman to make money. Caleb will later recall, in an interview with D Magazine, asking his dad why he works so hard. And two, by at least 2013, those of us who worked at Alden-controlled papers (like me) were already experiencing the slashing and burning. The men who devised this model are Randall Smith and Heath Freeman, the co-founders of Alden Global Capital. Other records turned up from public pension funds and filings of publicly traded companies. In May, The Alden Global Capital a hedge fund, acquired Tribune Publishing TPCO for $633 million. In conversations with former Alden employees, I heard repeatedly that their partnership seemed to transcend business. Hedge fund known for cutting journalism jobs is seeking to buy - CNN Instead, they gutted the place. The scene was somehow even grimmer than Id imagined. These papers would have been liquidated if not for us stepping up.. The newspaper lost a quarter of its staff to buyouts after it was acquired by Alden Global Capital in May. [12] Lee owns daily newspapers in 77 markets in 26 states, and about 350 weekly and specialty publications. But beneath all the recriminations and infighting was a cruel reality: When faced with the likely decimation of the countrys largest local newspapers, most Americans didnt seem to care very much. Already the largest shareholder . Connecting this to the current state of American newspaper ownership seems rather tenuous.. But Glidden felt sure he knew the real reason: Alden wanted him gone. What threatens local newspapers now is not just digital disruption or abstract market forces. One known investor, however, is the Randall and Barbara Smith Foundation, named for Alden founder Smith and his wife. 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. Newspapers Affect Us, Often In Ways We Don't Realize, 'Project Mayhem': Reporters Race To Save Tribune Papers From 'Vulture' Fund. Denver Post reporters vs 'vulture capitalist' hedge fund Alden - CNBC What happens next? Alden Global Capital has currently bid to buy all of Tribune. After serving in the Carter administrations Treasury Department, Brian became widely knownand fearedin the 80s for his hard-line negotiating style. Alden Global Capital seeks to buy Lee Enterprises for $144M Freeman, his 41-year-old protg and the president of the firm, would be unrecognizable in most of the newsrooms he owns. Coppins describes Alden as a specific type of firm: a "vulture hedge fund." Alden Global Capital, the Hedge Fund Killing Newspapers - The Atlantic 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. Eventually he was the only news reporter left on staff, charged with covering the citys police, schools, government, courts, hospitals, and businesses. As a reporter whos covered Alden Global Capital for more than two years, people often ask me who are the investors behind the hedge fund that owns one of Americas largest newspaper chains? The pay was terrible and the work was not glamorous, but Glidden loved his job. Alden Global Capital swallowed all of the Tribune's newspapers, including the New York Daily News, earlier in 2021. Freeman was more animated when he turned to the prospect of extracting money from Big Tech. Coppins offers several examples, like the Chicago Tribune and California's Vallejo Times-Herald. [4], Alden purchased a 5.9-percent stake in Lee Enterprises in January 2020. One early article, in the trade publication Poynter, suggested that Aldens interest in the local-news business could be seen as flattering and quoted the owner of The Denver Post as saying he had enormous respect for the firm. '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. But for all the theatrics, his marching orders were always the same: Cut more. A Secretive Hedge Fund Is Gutting Newsrooms. Dec 9, 2021. Who Profits From Alden Global Capital? Reporters kept reporting, and editors kept editing, and the union kept looking for ways to put pressure on Alden. I would know he didnt mean it, and he would know he didnt mean it, but he would at least go through the motions. The most promising prospect materialized in Baltimore, where a hotel magnate named Stewart Bainum Jr. expressed interest in the Sun. 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 . During its five-year run with Alden, it seems quite unlikely that no one at Knight knew about the hedge funds slash-and-burn strategy for two reasons. After all, it has a long and venerable history of supporting local news. While some finance reporters noted that Smiths newspaper investments were all losing value, none seemed to notice that Smith and Aldens president Heath Freeman would soon start strip mining their news companies real estate and other assets. They were very tight. Freeman has resisted elaborating on his relationship with Smith, saying simply that they were family friends before going into business together. 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. 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. Freeman was only slightly more accessible. But that's not true for all of them. Like many alumni of the Sun, Simon is steeped in the papers history. but sadly on a global scale there is hardly any independent news sources left currently. Coordinated by . When John Glidden first joined the Vallejo Times-Herald, in 2014, it had a staff of about a dozen reporters, editors, and photographers. The families that used to own the bulk of Americas local newspapersthe Bonfilses of Denver, the Chandlers of Los Angeleswere never perfect stewards. People who know him described Freemanwith his shellacked curls, perma-stubble, and omnipresent smirkas the archetypal Wall Street frat boy. After congratulating him on closing the deal, Bainum said he was still interested in buying the Sun if Alden was willing to negotiate. In the ensuing exodus, the paper lost the Metro columnist who had championed the occupants of a troubled public-housing complex, and the editor who maintained a homicide database that the police couldnt manipulate, and the photographer who had produced beautiful portraits of the states undocumented immigrants, and the investigative reporter whod helped expose the governors offshore shell companies. 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. Lee Enterprises owns 77 daily newspapers, including the Buffalo News, Omaha World-Herald and the Tulsa World. Alden, which already owned one-third of . According to its 990s, Knight ended up making $185,000 over five years on its initial $13.4 million investment. 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. A century later, the Tribune Tower has retained its grandeur. and our desire to support local newspapers over the long term." Alden said it wants to work Lee's board of . But as long as Alden had made back its money, the investment would be a success. Baltimore is an underdog town, Liz Bowie, a Sun reporter who was at the meeting, told me. 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. Iowa's Lee Enterprises seeks help to fight Alden's takeover bid The hollowing-out of the Chicago Tribune was noted in the national press, of course. Hedge fund Alden Global Capital, known for making deep newsroom cuts, won approval to acquire Tribune Publishing, which includes the Chicago Tribune, The Baltimore Sun and New York Daily News. . After college he worked at Hudson Studio, Art Foundry in Niverville, NY . But for that to happen, the Big Tech money would need to flow to underfunded newsrooms, not into the pockets of Aldens investors. 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. My answer is its hard to know. I put the question to Freeman, but he declined to answer on the record. Read: Local news is dying, and Americans have no idea, From 2015 to 2017, he presided over staff reductions of 36 percent across Aldens newspapers, according to an analysis by the NewsGuild (a union that also represents employees of The Atlantic). 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. The rationale offered by the board was, Consistent with its fiduciary duties, Lees Board has taken this action to ensure our shareholders receive fair treatment, full transparency and protection in connection with Aldens unsolicited proposal to acquire Lee. And that has consequences for democracy, as journalist McKay Coppins writes in The Atlantic. 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%. In my many conversations with people who have worked with Freeman, not one could recall seeing him read a newspaper. He quotes H. L. Mencken, the papers crusading 20th-century columnist, on the joys of journalism: It is really the life of kings. Lee blocks Alden Global Capital move for more board control - STLPR 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. 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. Several years later, when Heath was still in his mid-20s, Smith co-founded Alden Global Capital with him, and eventually put him in charge of the firm. He gained 100 pounds and started grinding his teeth at night. Freeman would show up at business meetings straight from the gym, clad in athleisure, the executive recalled, and would find excuses to invoke his college-football heroics, saying things like When I played football at Duke, I learned some lessons about leadership. (Freeman was a walk-on placekicker on a team that won no games the year he played.). I asked. Shortly after the Tribune deal closed earlier this year, I began trying to interview the men behind Alden Capital. On the surface, the answer might seem obvious. Tuesday, 23 November 2021 07:46 PM EST. Its not the name or the flag., He may get his wish. ", "The most feared owner in American journalism looks set to take some of its greatest assets", "Minority shareholder sues Denver Post parent and NY hedge fund over 'breaches of fiduciary duty', "What does the Chicago Tribune sale mean for the future of newsrooms? 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. Some expressed exasperation with the staff of the Chicago Tribune, who were unable to find a single interested local buyer. When the city-hall reporter left a few months later, he picked up that beat too.
