He can cite decades-old scoops and tell you whom they pissed off. Hedge fund Alden Global Capital in hunt for big newspaper chain Lee The most promising prospect materialized in Baltimore, where a hotel magnate named Stewart Bainum Jr. expressed interest in the 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. These papers would have been liquidated if not for us stepping up.. 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? Its a hedge that went and bought up some titles that it milks for cash.. Tips that he would never have time to investigate piled up on a legal pad he kept at his desk. 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." Alden Global Capital, a hedge fund known for gutting local newsrooms, is seeking to buy Lee Enterprises (LEE), a publicly traded company with a chain of daily newspapers and other publications . He took particular pride in finding novel ways to give away his family fortune, funding child-poverty initiatives in Baltimore and prenatal care for women in Liberia. Bainum told me hed come to appreciate local journalism in the 1970s while serving in the Maryland state legislature. On the surface, the answer might seem obvious. It was all about the next quarters profit margins, says Matt DeRienzo, who worked as a publisher for Aldens Connecticut newspapers before finally resigning. Alden Global Capital already owns 200 publications and a 6% stake in Lee Enterprises. MediaNews Group came out of bankruptcy in March 2010 under the majority ownership of its lenders. It seemed reasonable to ask that they answer a few questions. Read: What we lost when Gannett came to town. [32], The company has been criticized for investing money for pensions of newspaper employees in funds it manages itself. [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. "[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. Like many alumni of the Sun, Simon is steeped in the papers history. Inside Alden Global Capital. We were in collective revolt, Lillian Reed, a Sun reporter who helped organize the campaign, told me. Smith began investing in newspapers and media around the same time. 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. Am I going to win against capitalism in America? [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. Heath Freeman in an undated photo provided by Goldin Solutions . 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. Coppins offers several examples, like the Chicago Tribune and California's Vallejo Times-Herald. Longtime Tribune staffers had seen their share of bad corporate overlords, but this felt more calculated, more sinister. At the Suns peak, it employed more than 400 journalists, with reporters in London and Tokyo and Jerusalem. [8][24] Tribune Publishing publishes nine major metropolitan dailies. My answer is its hard to know. The newspaper lost a quarter of its staff to buyouts after it was acquired by Alden Global Capital in May. [22] The appointees to the MediaNews board were replaced by new directors representing the stockholders group led by Alden Global Capital. With his own money, he helps his brother launch the New York Press, a free alt-weekly in Manhattan. Most of his investments are defined by a cold pragmatism, but he takes a more personal interest in the media sector. In truth, Freeman didnt seem particularly interested in defending Aldens reputation. 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. 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. 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 . After college he worked at Hudson Studio, Art Foundry in Niverville, NY . A look at Alden Global Capital is the cover story of the latest . ", "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? Yes, today, it's a newspaper without a newsroom. Prior to the acquisition of the Tribune Company, we purchased substantially all of our newspapers out of bankruptcy or close to liquidation, he told me. According to its 990s, Knight ended up making $185,000 over five years on its initial $13.4 million investment. Already the largest shareholder . 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. John Temple: My newspaper died 10 years ago. Aldens calculus was simple. Many in the journalism industry, watching lawsuits play out in Australia and Europe, have held out hope in recent years that Google and Facebook will be compelled to share their advertising revenue with the local outlets whose content populates their platforms. The new owners had announced a round of buyouts, some beloved staffers were leaving, and those who remained were worried about the future. 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. It's traded in a prestigious downtown newsroom for a "Chipotle-sized office" near the printing press. But most of them also had a stake in the communities their papers served, which meant that, if nothing else, their egos were wrapped up in putting out a respectable product. What Alden's potential acquisition of Lee Enterprises means for 20-plus Is this company saving newspapers or profiting from their demise? - The Dec 9, 2021. 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. Alden Global Capital is buying and gutting local newspapers : NPR - NPR.org Collectively, they control about one-half of daily newspapers in the U.S. You could look to Oakland, California, where the East Bay Times laid off 20 people one week after the paper won a Pulitzer. The Denver Post has become the face of this struggle, due to an editorial published in its own pages lashing out against owners, New York-based hedge fund Alden Global Capital. But this acquisition was profound, making Alden Global . 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 . City budgets balloon, along with corruption and dysfunction. What's in the fine print in Alden's offer to takeover Tribune? - The Some expressed exasperation with the staff of the Chicago Tribune, who were unable to find a single interested local buyer. 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. 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. [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. 'Vulture' Fund Alden Global, Known For Slashing Newsrooms, Buys - NPR Theyre being targeted by investors who have figured out how to get rich by strip-mining local-news outfits. On the appointed afternoon, I dialed the number provided by his spokesperson and found myself talking to the most feared man in American newspapers. 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. AP. Shortly after the Tribune deal closed earlier this year, I began trying to interview the men behind Alden Capital. Alden Global Capital - Wikipedia That may well be the future of local news, he says. He declined to meet me in person or to appear on Zoom. 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. Tribune shareholders approve takeover by Alden Global Capital 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. A vulture doesnt hold a wounded animals head underwater. Media . The 1% own and operate the . 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. NY Daily News owner Alden sues Lee after publisher rejects takeover bid Glidden had heard rumblings about the papers owners when he first took the job, but he hadnt paid much attention. When the Chicago Tribune held a Save Local News rally, most of the people who showed up were members of the media. 'Vulture' Fund Alden Global, Known For Slashing Newsrooms, Buys Tribune 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.