what newspapers does alden global capital own what newspapers does alden global capital own

Heath hopes the well never runs dry, but hes going to keep pumping until it does. 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. 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. Lee Enterprises owns 77 daily newspapers, including the Buffalo News, Omaha World-Herald and the Tulsa World. For two men who employ thousands of journalists, remarkably little is known about them. 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. So I was more than a little shocked to learn that, according to its tax filings, Knight had invested $13 million with Aldens Distressed Opportunities Fund by 2010 and kept investing through 2014. 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. 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. 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. It's traded in a prestigious downtown newsroom for a "Chipotle-sized office" near the printing press. It wasn't the first newspaper acquisition for this hedge fund firm, nor is it the only firm of its kind eyeing the nation's newspapers. . 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. The firm has a history of purchasing newspapers to cut costs wherever . When the journalists created a Slack channel to coordinate their efforts across multiple newspapers, they dubbed it Project Mayhem.. My answer is its hard to know. Prior to the buildings completion, McCormick directed his foreign correspondents to collect fragments of various historical sitesa brick from the Great Wall of China, an emblem from St. Peters Basilicaand send them back to be embedded in the towers facade. A search through nonprofit groups publicly available financial reports, commonly known as Form 990s, reveals that all kinds of organizations some surprising have invested their monies with Alden over the years. [4] [5] The company added more newspapers to its portfolio in May 2021 when it purchased Tribune . 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. By Julie Reynolds. The details of how Smith got to know him are opaque, but the resulting loyalty was evident. Scott Olson/Getty Images Heath Freeman, president of Alden Global Capital, is known for pushing big cost reductions, which he says help to save newspapers. ), Crucially, the profits generated by Aldens newspapers did not go toward rebuilding newsrooms. He quotes H. L. Mencken, the papers crusading 20th-century columnist, on the joys of journalism: It is really the life of kings. 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. When the sale failed to attract a sufficiently high offer, Freeman turned his attention to squeezing as much cash out of the newspapers as possible. The consequences can influence national politics as well; an analysis by Politico found that Donald Trump performed best during the 2016 election in places with limited access to local news. But even for a group of journalists, it was tough to keep the publics attention. Its hard to imagine theyd show, anyway. Shortly after the Tribune deal closed earlier this year, I began trying to interview the men behind Alden Capital. he asks. Or to Denver, where the Posts staff was cut by two-thirds, evicted from its newsroom, and relocated to a plant in an area with poor air quality, where some employees developed breathing problems. In truth, Freeman didnt seem particularly interested in defending Aldens reputation. Probably not.. Tribune Publishing last month approved a $630m takeover deal with Alden Global Capital. Alden is in the business of making money, not journalism. Layout design was outsourced to freelancers in the Philippines. To David Simon, the whimpering end of The Baltimore Sun feels both inevitable and infuriating. Alden Capital's gutting of the Denver Post is the most discussed example of this, but there are many others. By the charitys own accounting, it lost $ 2.3 million in book value on a $17 million investment that year. A recent Financial Times analysis found that half of all daily newspapers in the U.S. are controlled by financial firms, and Coppins says that number is all but certain to keep growing. It's newspaper-endorsement season again, and that means it's Should newspapers do endorsements?season again. Alden currently owns 32%. At one point, I tracked down the photographer whod taken the only existing picture of Smith on the internet. It felt important. Year after year, the executives from Alden would order new budget cuts, and Glidden would end up with fewer co-workers and more work. 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. 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. The hollowing-out of the Chicago Tribune was noted in the national press, of course. Gerry Smith. What most concerns him is how his city will manage without a robust paper keeping tabs on the people in charge. "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.". Instead, the money was used to finance the hedge funds other ventures. Knight began selling off its Alden holdings in 2012, and got completely out in 2014. In the for-profit news arena, Knight is spurring the digital transformation of local newsrooms through the Knight-Lenfest Newsroom Initiative, Sherry said. . This once-proud publication is now owned and run by Alden Global Capital, a multibillion-dollar hedge fund with a long record of buying papers on the cheap, selling off their assets and slashing pay and jobs. Feb 16, 2021 at 8:05 pm. [4], In 2019, Alden attempted, but failed at, a hostile takeover of Gannett. Located in the same Manhattan office building as Alden, it funds stem-cell research, health-related charities, arts and culture and Duke University, alma mater of Smiths protg Heath Freeman. Shareholders of Tribune Publishing, one of the country's largest newspaper chains, on Friday approved a takeover by hedge fund Alden Global Capital. As a reporter who's 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 America's largest newspaper chains?. Glidden, then a mild-mannered 30-year-old, had come to journalism later in life than most and was eager to prove himself. At the end of last month, Alden Global Capital, a notorious newspaper-owning hedge fund, sought to stake its claim on one of the last newspaper chains it hasn't yet touched: Lee Enterprises, which owns 90 publications across the country.Alden, which currently owns six percent of Lee's stock, sent an unsolicited offer to purchase the newspaper chain for $24 per share. [10][19][20], The company has its origins in R.D. Read: What we lost when Gannett came to town. "[17] and Vanity Fair dubbed Alden the "grim reaper of American newspapers. G ARY MARX and David Jackson, two veteran investigative reporters at the Chicago Tribune, spent most of last year seeking potential buyers who might save their newspaper from Alden Global Capital . In May, The Alden Global Capital a hedge fund, acquired Tribune Publishing TPCO for $633 million. 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.. Alden Global Capital already owns 200 publications and a 6% stake in Lee Enterprises. 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. It turned out that those ownersNew York hedge funders whom Glidden took to calling the lizard peoplewere laser-focused on increasing the papers profit margins. The newsroom was moved to a single room rented from the local chamber of commerce. The 1% own and operate the . 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 . Russ Smith is a puckish libertarian whose self-described contempt for the journalistic class animates the pages of the publication. When he did, he exhibited a casual contempt for the journalists who worked there. They could be vain, bumbling, even corrupt. Some have even suggested that this represents Americas last chance to save its local-news industry. 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. California biotech billionaire and Los Angeles Times owner Patrick Soon-Shiong, who owns 24%, What exactly went wrong would become a point of bitter debate among the journalists involved in the campaigns. 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. [4][13], In November 2021, Alden made an offer to Lee to purchase the company in its entirety for roughly $141 million. Or to nearby Monterey, where the former Herald reporter Julie Reynolds says staffers were pushed to stop writing investigative features so they could produce multiple stories a day. 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. But that would require slow, painstaking workand there are easier ways to make money. 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. To industry observers, Aldens brazen model set it apart even from chains like Gannett, known for its aggressive cost-cutting. But for Simon, that paper exists entirely in the past. 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. The story of Alden Capital begins on the set of a 1960s TV game show called Dream House. 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. He wrote, "Alden Global Capital has eliminated the jobs of scores of reporters and editors, and decimated journalism in cities all over the country: Denver, Boston, San Jose, Trenton, etc. Orders for non-defence capital goods excluding aircraft a closely watched proxy for business investment, rose 0.8 per cent in January from a month earlier, comfortably above economists . But in the case of local news, nothing comparable is ready to replace these papers when they die. But if you really started fucking up in grandiose and belligerent ways, if you started stealing and grifting and lying, eventually somebody would come up behind you and say, Youre grifting and youre lying and theyd put it in the paper., The bad stuff runs for so long now, he went on, that by the time you get to it, institutions are irreparable, or damn near close., Take away the newsroom packed with meddling reporters, and a city loses a crucial layer of accountability. 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. This story originally appeared on the Morning Edition live blog. Alden gradually took control of the papers that would become DFM. 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. [12] Lee owns daily newspapers in 77 markets in 26 states, and about 350 weekly and specialty publications. This summer, Alden Global Capital acquired Tribune Publishing and its titles, from small community newspapers to major metro titles like its flagship, The Chicago Tribune, and The Baltimore Sun. The largest share of the blame was assigned to the Tribune board for allowing the sale to Alden to go through. He stops talking to the press, refuses to be photographed, and rarely appears in public. But while its true that Alden entered the industry by purchasing floundering newspapers, not all of them were necessarily doomed to liquidation. Longtime Tribune staffers had seen their share of bad corporate overlords, but this felt more calculated, more sinister. 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. These papers were in many cases left for dead by local families not willing to make the tough but appropriate decisions to get these news organizations to sustainability. 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 when I emailed his studio looking for information, I was informed curtly that the photo was no longer available. Had Smith bought the rights himself? 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. You need real capital to move the needle, he told me. Some expressed exasperation with the staff of the Chicago Tribune, who were unable to find a single interested local buyer. 'Vulture' Fund Alden Global, Known For Slashing Newsrooms, Buys Tribune Papers, Stop The Presses! Randy claims no editorial role in the Press, and his investment in the projectwhich has little chance of producing the kind of return hes accustomed tocould be chalked up to brotherly loyalty. Its the meanness and the elegance of the capitalist marketplace brought to newspapers, Doctor told me. [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. After serving in the Carter administrations Treasury Department, Brian became widely knownand fearedin the 80s for his hard-line negotiating style. But maybe the clearest illustration is in Vallejo, California, a city of about 120,000 people 30 miles north of San Francisco. Two days after the deal was finalized, Alden announced an aggressive round of buyouts. A reporter at one of his newspapers suggested I try doorstepping Smithshowing up at his home unannounced to ask questions from the porch. Several interim executive positions were also filled by people related to Alden or its parent, Smith Management LLC.[23]. 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. 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. 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. . There were sober op-eds and lamentations on Twitter and expressions of disappointment by professors of journalism. When it was over, a quarter of the newsroom was gone. But I had underestimated how little Aldens founders care about their standing in the journalism world. To be sure, the Knight Foundation does much to help promote and sustain local news. 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. Alden Global Capital, the hedge fund that owns The Virginian-Pilot and Daily Press in Virginia, has proposed purchasing Lee Enterprises, the Iowa-based owner of the Richmond Times-Dispatch and most other major Virginia newspapers, for approximately $144 million, Alden announced Monday. "[34], In October 2021, The Atlantic examined the impact of Alden's acquisition of the Chicago Tribune, noting that, "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. The movement gained traction in some markets, with local politicians and celebrities expressing solidarity. We were like, Theyre not going to take our newspaper from us! Coppins describes Alden as a specific type of firm: a "vulture hedge fund." (Freeman denied this characterization through a spokesperson. The Tribune Tower rises above the streets of downtown Chicago in a majestic snarl of . Alden began its acquisition of Tribune Publishing in 2019, when they paid $117.9 million to Michael Ferro for his 25.2-percent stake. 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. Im repulsed by the incestuous world of New York journalism, he tells New York magazine. Alden Global Capital has currently bid to buy all of Tribune. A vulture doesnt hold a wounded animals head underwater. They had a father-figure relationship, one told me. Who is investor Randall Smith and why is he buying up newspaper companies, deep losses to Alden funds overall values, Denver Post newsroom workers invoke Thirst Amendment to raise awareness about conditions under Alden, Pittsburgh newspaper workers are making history, The NewsGuild urges public pension funds to divest from Cerberus, NewsGuild to Lee Shareholders: Reject Aldens Vote No Campaign. Freeman never responded. Interestingly, Smiths foundation didnt do well with its Alden investments in 2016. Financially, it was a raw deal. [22] The appointees to the MediaNews board were replaced by new directors representing the stockholders group led by Alden Global Capital. Updated May 21, 2021 at 2:13 PM ET. That's because the fund is stepping in to buy and then gut newsrooms across the country. I asked. Coordinated by . [21], Under the acquisition plan, MediaNews Group debt fell to $165 million from about $930 million. Knight spokesman Andrew Sherry declined to answer any of those questions, saying instead, Our endowment investments support our grantmaking., We invested approximately one half of one percent of our endowment in an Alden fund between late 2009 and early 2014, he said via email. When the Chicago Tribune held a Save Local News rally, most of the people who showed up were members of the media. "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. He studied art at Alfred University under sculptors Glenn Zweygardt and William Parry. The 21st century has seen many of these generational owners flee the industry, to devastating effect. But for all the theatrics, his marching orders were always the same: Cut more. Since Alden's . Morale tanked; reporters burned out. 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. [33], Alden Global Capital's management of American newspapers has been criticized. Three days later, Bainumstill smarting from his experience with Alden, but worried about the Suns fatesent a pride-swallowing email to Freeman. In Orlando, the Sentinel ran an editorial pleading with the community to deliver us from Alden and comparing the hedge fund to a biblical plague of locusts. In Allentown, Pennsylvania, reporters held reader forums where they tried to instill a sense of urgency about the threat Alden posed to The Morning Call. Other records turned up from public pension funds and filings of publicly traded companies. Now it might be facing extinction. To find the papers current headquarters one afternoon in late June, I took a cab across town to an industrial block west of the river. When plans for the building were announced in 1922, Colonel Robert R. McCormick, the longtime owner of the Chicago Tribune, said he wanted to erect the worlds most beautiful office building for his beloved newspaper. On Monday, Dail After weeks of back-and-forth, he agreed to a phone call, but only if parts of the conversation could be on background (which is to say, I could use the information generally but not attribute it to him). Through it all, the owners maintained their ruthless silencespurning interview requests and declining to articulate their plans for the paper. The audio for this interview was produced by Ryan Benk and edited by Scott Saloway. * Edited from 'independent . Vallejo deserves better. A few weeks after the story came out, he was fired. After all, it has a long and venerable history of supporting local news. To many, it just didnt seem possible that Alden would instead choose to destroy newspapers by laying off the workforce en masse and stripping papers of all their assets. 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. Reporters kept reporting, and editors kept editing, and the union kept looking for ways to put pressure on Alden. All good works, and Knight is to be commended for them. Tips that he would never have time to investigate piled up on a legal pad he kept at his desk. Yes, today, it's a newspaper without a newsroom. One acquaintance tells The Village Voice that hes the kind of guy who divests himself every couple of years to avoid ending up on lists of the worlds richest people. Freeman, his 41-year-old protg and the president of the firm, would be unrecognizable in most of the newsrooms he owns. Others pointed to Bainums financing partner, who pulled out of the deal at the 11th hour. The men who devised this model are Randall Smith and Heath Freeman, the co-founders of Alden Global Capital. It was like watching a slow-motion disaster, says Gregory Pratt, a reporter at the Chicago Tribune. I asked Knight about those investments and whether the Foundations officers had any regrets, knowing what we now do about Aldens devastating effect on its own newspapers. These papers would have been liquidated if not for us stepping up.. MediaNews Group came out of bankruptcy in March 2010 under the majority ownership of its lenders. 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. 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. Around this time, Randy becomes preoccupied with privacy. We were in collective revolt, Lillian Reed, a Sun reporter who helped organize the campaign, told me. 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? The Tribune Tower, the iconic former home of the Chicago Tribune, seen in Chicago, Illinois in 2015. 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. Media . Tuesday, 23 November 2021 07:46 PM EST. And two, by at least 2013, those of us who worked at Alden-controlled papers (like me) were already experiencing the slashing and burning. Former Knight-Ridder headquarters. 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.