They call Alden a vulture hedge fund, and I think thats honestly a misnomer, Johnson said. The pay was terrible and the work was not glamorous, but Glidden loved his job. As a young man, hed studied at divinity school before taking over his fathers company, and decades later he still carried a healthy sense of noblesse oblige. At the Pioneer Press , where its staff is down to 60, the paper produced a . By Julie Reynolds. Collectively, they control about one-half of daily newspapers in the U.S. Alden, which already owned one-third of . The endorsement debate swings around again - Columbia Journalism Review AP. Smith & Company, a firm founded by Randall Duncan Smith, initially using the $20,000 cash prize he and his wife won on the 1968-1970 gameshow Dream House. He studied art at Alfred University under sculptors Glenn Zweygardt and William Parry. That may well be the future of local news, he says. My answer is its hard to know. 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. In my many conversations with people who have worked with Freeman, not one could recall seeing him read a newspaper. Several interim executive positions were also filled by people related to Alden or its parent, Smith Management LLC.[23]. [2][3] By mid-2020, Alden had stakes in roughly two hundred American newspapers. To be sure, the Knight Foundation does much to help promote and sustain local news. Im repulsed by the incestuous world of New York journalism, he tells New York magazine. . Nov. 22, 2021. Heath hopes the well never runs dry, but hes going to keep pumping until it does. Hedge fund Alden's bid to buy Chicago Tribune, other papers approved by 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. 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?. The Tribune Tower, the iconic former home of the Chicago Tribune, seen in Chicago, Illinois in 2015. Feb 16, 2021 at 8:05 pm. Traditional newspaper business model says you make 95% of your money off ad sales and the rest off subscriptions. Alden Global Capital, the hedge fund that owns the Chicago Tribune and New York Daily News, offered to buy Lee Enterprises Inc. for about $142 million, seeking a larger share of the . When John Glidden first joined the Vallejo Times-Herald, in 2014, it had a staff of about a dozen reporters, editors, and photographers. 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. My request for an interview with Smith was dismissed by his spokesperson before I finished asking. 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?. Joe Pompeo pilloried Alden in Vanity Fair for reducing newsrooms. Caleb will later recall, in an interview with D Magazine, asking his dad why he works so hard. "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 will rely initially on philanthropic donations, but he aims to sell enough subscriptions to make it self-sustaining within five years. ", "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 Tribune had been profitable when Alden took over. In a press release Monday, Nov. 22, 2021 Alden said it sent Lee's board a letter with the offer. Longtime Tribune staffers had seen their share of bad corporate overlords, but this felt more calculated, more sinister. . [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. About a month after The Baltimore Sun was acquired by Alden, a senior editor at the paper took questions from anxious reporters on Zoom. Meet the Hedge Fund Boss Who Just Bought Tribune's Newspapers California biotech billionaire and Los Angeles Times owner Patrick Soon-Shiong, who owns 24%, 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. 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. 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. Tampa Bay Times sells printing plant to developer for $21 million With Alden in control, he believes the Sun is now a prisoner that stands little chance of escape. Unless the Tribunes trajectory changes, Chicago may soon provide a grim case study. Opinions - Help yourself. Is it ever okay to nick an idea? The men killing Americas newspapers, how Slack upended the workplace, and the new meth. By McKay Coppins. In the past 15 years, more than a quarter of American newspapers have gone out of business. The largest share of the blame was assigned to the Tribune board for allowing the sale to Alden to go through. The paper had weathered a decade and a half of mismanagement and declining revenues and layoffs, and had finally achieved a kind of stability. 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. The Tampa Bay Times has sold its printing plant at 1301 34th St. N to a real estate arm of Alden Global Capital, a New York hedge fund that is the second-largest newspaper owner in the country. 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. Alden is not a newspaper company, says Ann Marie Lipinski, a former editor in chief of the Chicago Tribune. For a fleeting moment, Aldens newspapers became unexpected darlings of the journalism industrywritten about by Poynter and Nieman Lab, endorsed by academics like Jay Rosen and Jeff Jarvis. When Alden first got into the news business, Freeman seemed willing to indulge some innovation. He said that he still appreciated their journalism, but that he couldnt speak for his corporate bosses. He can cite decades-old scoops and tell you whom they pissed off. When a reporter asked if their work was still valued, the editor sounded deflated. This is predatory.. 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 look at Alden Global Capital is the cover story of the latest . PDF GateHouse Media Alden Global Capital Tribune Media McClatchy Lee On the surface, the answer might seem obvious. A Secretive Hedge Fund Is Gutting Newsrooms. At the time, finalternatives.com reported that the Global Distress Opportunities fund would focus on financial firms as well as homebuilding, gaming and auto-related names.. Some in the city started to wonder if the paper was even worth saving. 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. How this 'vulture' hedge fund's gutting of local newsrooms could hurt A young man named Randall Duncan SmithRandy for shortstands next to his wife, Kathryn, answering quick-fire trivia questions in front of a live studio audience. 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. MediaNews Group came out of bankruptcy in March 2010 under the majority ownership of its lenders. After a powerful Illinois state legislator resigned amid bribery allegations, the paper didnt have a reporter in Springfield to follow the resulting scandal. Three days later, Bainumstill smarting from his experience with Alden, but worried about the Suns fatesent a pride-swallowing email to Freeman. Even as Aldens portfolio grew, Freeman rarely visited his newspapers. One known investor, however, is the Randall and Barbara Smith Foundation, named for Alden founder Smith and his wife. For Freeman, newspapers are financial assets and nothing morenumbers to be rearranged on spreadsheets until they produce the maximum returns for investors. 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 . 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. 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. The Alden Global Capital . 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. Other large shareholders include Californian asset manager Capital Group and UK fund manager Jupiter Asset Management. All good works, and Knight is to be commended for them. MNG Enterprises, Inc., doing business as Digital First Media and MediaNews Group, is a Denver, Colorado -based newspaper publisher owned by Alden Global Capital. 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. John Temple: My newspaper died 10 years ago. But for Simon, that paper exists entirely in the past. 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. For Smith, the Palm Beach conservative and Trump ally, sticking it to the mainstream media might actually be a perk of Aldens strategy. 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. After serving in the Carter administrations Treasury Department, Brian became widely knownand fearedin the 80s for his hard-line negotiating style. ", "Denver Post Rebels Against Its Hedge-Fund Ownership", "Tribune Says Sale to Alden Wins Approval Amid Confusion Over Key Shareholder's Vote", "Lee Enterprises Shares Jump on Takeover Offer From Alden", "The vulture is hungry again: Alden Global Capital wants to buy a few hundred more newspapers", "Colorado Group Pushes to Buy Embattled Denver Post From New York Hedge Fund", "The battle for Tribune: Inside the campaign to find new owners for a legendary group of newspapers", "Is this strip-mining or journalism? With its acquisition of Tribune Publishing earlier this year, Alden now controls more than 200 newspapers, including some of the countrys most famous and influential: the Chicago Tribune, The Baltimore Sun, the New York Daily News. 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. 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. After all, it has a long and venerable history of supporting local news. 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.. 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? Alden Global Capital seeks to buy Lee Enterprises for $144M When the city-hall reporter left a few months later, he picked up that beat too. In the Hyatt meeting, Ted Venetoulis, a former Baltimore politician, advised the reporters to pick a noisy public fight: Set up a war room, circulate petitions, hold events to rally the city against Alden. Module 5- Journalism.pdf - Journalism Modules - The 5 Ws In a news release Monday, Alden said it sent Lee's board a letter with the offer. Who Profits From Alden Global Capital? You'd be surprised. Alden's holdings already spanned the country, including the . The best architects of the era were invited to submit designs; lofty quotes about the Fourth Estate were selected to adorn the lobby. Alden Global Capital, the Hedge Fund Killing Newspapers - The Atlantic The Tribune Company (which owns the newspapers mentioned above) was still turning a profit when Alden bought it, but the hedge fund immediately offered aggressive rounds of buyouts and shrunk its newsrooms in the name of increasing profit margins. [29] This attempt also failed, as shareholders returned both directors to the Lee board despite Alden's opposition. [2] [3] By mid-2020, Alden had stakes in roughly two hundred 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 . Maybe theyd cancel their subscriptions eventually; maybe the papers would fold altogether. ), Crucially, the profits generated by Aldens newspapers did not go toward rebuilding newsrooms. When The New York Times profiles him in 1991, it notes that he excels at profiting from other peoples misery and quotes a parade of disgruntled clients and partners. "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 . but sadly on a global scale there is hardly any independent news sources left currently. But in the case of local news, nothing comparable is ready to replace these papers when they die. New York hedge fund and U.S. newspaper consolidator Alden Global Capital LLC has made a proposal to take Lee Enterprises Inc. private in a deal that values the company at around $141 million. 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. [33], Alden Global Capital's management of American newspapers has been criticized.