NY Daily News owner Alden sues Lee after publisher rejects takeover bid Its a game, Randy explains to his son. Through it all, the owners maintained their ruthless silencespurning interview requests and declining to articulate their plans for the paper. Denver Post reporters vs 'vulture capitalist' hedge fund Alden - CNBC You could look to Oakland, California, where the East Bay Times laid off 20 people one week after the paper won a Pulitzer. Theres little evidence that Alden cares about the sustainability of its newspapers. Digital First Media - Wikipedia Alden's holdings already spanned the country, including the . "[17] and Vanity Fair dubbed Alden the "grim reaper of American newspapers. Morale tanked; reporters burned out. They had a father-figure relationship, one told me. . Im repulsed by the incestuous world of New York journalism, he tells New York magazine. 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. It played with my mind a little bit, Glidden told me. Freemans father, Brian, was a successful investment banker who specialized in making deals on behalf of labor unions. . They could be vain, bumbling, even corrupt. By the charitys own accounting, it lost $ 2.3 million in book value on a $17 million investment that year. Layout design was outsourced to freelancers in the Philippines. But we dont know, because they arent saying. Local newsrooms strained by budget-slashing financial firms If accepted, the $24 per share purchase price would . (PDF) Extractive Imperialism in the Americas | henry veltmeyer 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. After Brian took his own life, in 2001, Smith became a mentor and confidant to Heath, who was in college at the time of his fathers death. My answer is its hard to know. Most of his investments are defined by a cold pragmatism, but he takes a more personal interest in the media sector. The pay was terrible and the work was not glamorous, but Glidden loved his job. 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. This investment strategy does not come without social consequences. The term vulture capitalism hasnt been invented yet, but Randy will come to be known as a pioneer in the field. 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. In February 2021, he announced a handshake deal to buy the Sun from Alden for $65 million once it acquired Tribune Publishing. The vulture is hungry again: Alden Global Capital wants to buy a few It was all about the next quarters profit margins, says Matt DeRienzo, who worked as a publisher for Aldens Connecticut newspapers before finally resigning. 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. 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. A Cornell grad with an M.B.A., Randy is on a partner track at Bear Stearns, where hes poised to make a comfortable fortune simply by climbing the ladder. 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. 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. The men killing Americas newspapers, how Slack upended the workplace, and the new meth. He told me it will begin with an annual operating budget of $15 million, unprecedented for an outfit of this kind. 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. And when Chicago suffered a brutal summer crime wave, the paper had no one on the night shift to listen to the police scanner. 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." Three days later, Bainumstill smarting from his experience with Alden, but worried about the Suns fatesent a pride-swallowing email to Freeman. But as an organization that believes that quality information is essential for individuals and communities to make their own bestchoices, it was disappointing that the foundation couldnt simply own up to its error in judgment when it came to Alden. But even for a group of journalists, it was tough to keep the publics attention. The Alden Global Capital . Those that have survived are smaller, weaker, and more vulnerable to acquisition. 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. The movement gained traction in some markets, with local politicians and celebrities expressing solidarity. [4], Alden purchased a 5.9-percent stake in Lee Enterprises in January 2020. The 21st century has seen many of these generational owners flee the industry, to devastating effect. When it was over, a quarter of the newsroom was gone. The company has been growing its portfolio and as of May 2021, owns over 100 newspapers and 200 assorted other publications. [2][3] By mid-2020, Alden had stakes in roughly two hundred American newspapers. That might sound like a losing formula, but these papers dont have to become sustainable businesses for Smith and Freeman to make money. What's in the fine print in Alden's offer to takeover Tribune? - The The best architects of the era were invited to submit designs; lofty quotes about the Fourth Estate were selected to adorn the lobby. My question was did Knight know what Alden was doing to newspapers when it invested with the hedge fund, and does it regret that investment now? The specific shareholder rights plan adopted by the Lee board forbids Alden from purchasing more than 10% of the company, and will be in force for one year. Hedge fund Alden Global is buying newspaper chain Tribune Publishing - CNN You can bypass most soft paywalls with a little CSS knowledge 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. They want to know who exactly profits when we learn, as Harvard Nieman Lab's Ken Doctor recently reported, that the firm netted $160 million last year from its Digital First Media . [12] Lee owns daily newspapers in 77 markets in 26 states, and about 350 weekly and specialty publications. 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 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. The practical effect of the death of local journalism is that you get what weve had, he told me, which is a halcyon time for corruption and mismanagement and basically misrule.. Hedge fund Alden in hunt for another big newspaper chain 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. 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 . Shareholders of Tribune Publishing, one of the country's largest newspaper chains, on Friday approved a takeover by hedge fund Alden Global Capital. 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. Reinventing their papers could require years of false starts and fine-tuningand, most important, a delayed payday for Aldens investors. But that's not true for all of them. Alden is not a newspaper company, says Ann Marie Lipinski, a former editor in chief of the Chicago Tribune. Freeman never responded. 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. Controversial hedge fund Alden Global wins bidding for Chicago Tribune (Freeman denied this characterization through a spokesperson. Plus how Facebook is a hostile foreign power, the engineers daughter, the collapse of music genres, Dostoyevsky, W. G. Sebald, nasty return logistics, and more. 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. 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. This is the story weve been telling for decades about the dying local-news industry, and its not without truth. Around this time, Randy becomes preoccupied with privacy. Frustrated and worn out, Glidden broke down one day last spring when a reporter from The Washington Post called. Well, that wasnt the point. [21], Under the acquisition plan, MediaNews Group debt fell to $165 million from about $930 million. Have you heard of the hedge fund Alden Global Capital? by Magnus Shaw..An enormous advertising company (Leo Burnett) and a small creative film company (Asylum) have had a difficult couple of weeks. Instead, they gutted the place. In early 2011, Alden was still considered a non-controlling investor, but by the end of the year, that would change. 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. In May, The Alden Global Capital a hedge fund, acquired Tribune Publishing TPCO for $633 million. City budgets balloon, along with corruption and dysfunction. Baltimore has always had its problems, he told me. Earnest and unpolished, with a perpetually mussed mop of hair, Bainum presented himself as a contrast to the cutthroat capitalists at Alden. 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. A Secretive Hedge Fund Is Gutting Newsrooms. [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 California Public Employees Retirement System, a few European banks, and Citigroup and Coca Cola Companys pension funds have all invested in Alden, along with charities such as the Circle of Service Foundation and the Alfred University Endowment. 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. 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. The firm oversaw the promotion of John Paton, a charismatic digital-media evangelist, who improved the papers web and mobile offerings and increased online ad revenue. Yes, today, it's a newspaper without a newsroom. The Banner will launch with about 50 journalistsnot far from the size of the Sunand an ambitious mandate. In the past 15 years, more than a quarter of American newspapers have gone out of business. AP. To be sure, the Knight Foundation does much to help promote and sustain local news. When John Glidden first joined the Vallejo Times-Herald, in 2014, it had a staff of about a dozen reporters, editors, and photographers. 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. Heath Freeman in an undated photo provided by Goldin Solutions . That may well be the future of local news, he says. 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. [33], Alden Global Capital's management of American newspapers has been criticized. 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. Aldens calculus was simple. He had spoken on this issue before, and it was easy to see why. It will rely initially on philanthropic donations, but he aims to sell enough subscriptions to make it self-sustaining within five years. 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. 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. Coppins describes Alden as a specific type of firm: a "vulture hedge fund." Heath hopes the well never runs dry, but hes going to keep pumping until it does. In the face of that setback, Alden said it would turn to the tactic of filing a proxy statement asking the company's shareholders to vote no on board members Mary Junck and Herbert Moloney during the March 2022 board elections. 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. [3] [4] With its acquisition of Tribune Publishing in late . . Knight began selling off its Alden holdings in 2012, and got completely out in 2014. The largest share of the blame was assigned to the Tribune board for allowing the sale to Alden to go through. After congratulating him on closing the deal, Bainum said he was still interested in buying the Sun if Alden was willing to negotiate. It was founded in 2007 by Randall D. Smith. [22] The appointees to the MediaNews board were replaced by new directors representing the stockholders group led by Alden Global Capital. 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. Its a hedge that went and bought up some titles that it milks for cash.. 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. [4] [5] The company added more newspapers to its portfolio in May 2021 when it purchased Tribune . 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.. Today, we know that Knight, CalPERS and others no longer invest with Alden. But it turned out that Smith had so many doorsteps16 mansions in Palm Beach alone, as of a few years ago, some of them behind gatesthat the plan proved impractical. Alden Global Capital Is Killing the Newsroom - Common Dreams I put the question to Freeman, but he declined to answer on the record. 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. Freeman was only slightly more accessible. A vulture doesnt hold a wounded animals head underwater. Its hard to imagine theyd show, anyway. Im worried the worst is yet to come. 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. Former Knight-Ridder headquarters. In addition to the constant layoffs, our buildings were being sold, basic office supplies became scarce and the hot water stopped working. 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. 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. 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. With aggressive cost-cutting, Alden can operate its newspapers at a profit for years while turning out a steadily worse product, indifferent to the subscribers its alienating. The shows premise pits two couples against each other for the chance to win a home. Alden is known for . "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?" [30], Alden Global Capital includes a real estate division called Twenty Lake Holdings, which primarily buys excess real estate from newspapers. Alden Global Capital seeks to buy Lee Enterprises for $144M Youd be surprised. Ken Kelleher is an American sculptor. His editor cited a supposed journalistic infraction (Glidden had reported the resignation of a school superintendent before an agreed-upon embargo). 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. 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. "Local newspaper brands and operations are the engines that power trusted local news in communities across the United States," Heath Freeman, president of Alden Global Capital, said in a . How do you know who wins? the boy asks. Hedge fund Alden in hunt for another big newspaper chain - WKMG Hellman and BNP together own 46.4 per cent of Allfunds' shares. It's traded in a prestigious downtown newsroom for a "Chipotle-sized office" near the printing press. NPR reached out to Alden for a response. If you're a reader of local newspapers particularly the Chicago Tribune, The Baltimore Sun or New York Daily News you're going to want to make sure the answer is yes.
Kimberly Thompson Obituary,
Aaron Pico Salary,
Who Is The Actress In The Apoquel Talking Dog Commercial,
City Of Williamsburg Property Information,
Articles W