To be sure, the Knight Foundation does much to help promote and sustain local news. Freeman was only slightly more accessible. Freemans father, Brian, was a successful investment banker who specialized in making deals on behalf of labor unions. John Temple: My newspaper died 10 years ago. 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. Hedge fund Alden's bid to buy Chicago Tribune, other papers approved by You can bypass most soft paywalls with a little CSS knowledge Newspaper publisher Lee Enterprises is asking its shareholders to help it fight off a hostile takeover . "[25], In early December, the board of Lee unanimously rejected the Alden bid, saying that the Alden proposal "grossly undervalues Lee and fails to recognize the strength of our business today. Aldens website contains no information beyond the firms name, and its list of investors is kept strictly confidential. Of course, its easy to romanticize past eras of 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. 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. 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.). 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. 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 . 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. But even for a group of journalists, it was tough to keep the publics attention. 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. [4], Alden purchased a 5.9-percent stake in Lee Enterprises in January 2020. Hedge Fund Alden in Hunt for Another Big Newspaper Chain 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. People who know him described Freemanwith his shellacked curls, perma-stubble, and omnipresent smirkas the archetypal Wall Street frat boy. '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. Alden Global Capital swallowed all of the Tribune's newspapers, including the New York Daily News, earlier in 2021. 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. 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. How do you know who wins? the boy asks. Some publications, such as the Minneapolis Star Tribune, have developed successful long-term models that Aldens papers might try to follow. Bainum envisioned rebuilding the paperwhich, by 2020, was down to a single full-time statehouse reporteras a nonprofit. Below are highlights from his conversation with Morning Edition's A Martnez. Alden Global Capital aims to buy Lee Enterprises | The Gazette In May 2021, Tribune Publishing finalized its sale to Alden, after having announced in February 2021 that it intended to pursue this path. Alden Global Capital already owns 200 publications and a 6% stake in Lee Enterprises. Tuesday, 23 November 2021 07:46 PM EST. 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? I knew they almost never talked to reporters, but Randall Smith and Heath Freeman were now two of the most powerful figures in the news industry, and theyd gotten there by dismantling local journalism. 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. These include the Chicago Tribune, the New York Daily News, and The Baltimore Sun. [29] This attempt also failed, as shareholders returned both directors to the Lee board despite Alden's opposition. The pitch had a certain romantic appeal to the reporters in the room. The 21st century has seen many of these generational owners flee the industry, to devastating effect. The Ubiquity - The student news site of Quartz Hill High School Bainum told me hed come to appreciate local journalism in the 1970s while serving in the Maryland state legislature. 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. My answer is its hard to know. The audio for this interview was produced by Ryan Benk and edited by Scott Saloway. For Freeman, newspapers are financial assets and nothing morenumbers to be rearranged on spreadsheets until they produce the maximum returns for investors. Frustrated and worn out, Glidden broke down one day last spring when a reporter from The Washington Post called. 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. What most concerns him is how his city will manage without a robust paper keeping tabs on the people in charge. | Michael Gray, WIkimedia Commons. After serving in the Carter administrations Treasury Department, Brian became widely knownand fearedin the 80s for his hard-line negotiating style. Tampa Bay Times sells printing plant to developer for $21 million 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. 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. (Freeman denied this characterization through a spokesperson. In truth, Freeman didnt seem particularly interested in defending Aldens reputation. Lee's board of directors . . 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. [2] Its managing director is Heath Freeman. So what is this Distressed Opportunities fund? Updated May 21, 2021 at 2:13 PM ET. 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. On . Alden Global Capital Is Killing the Newsroom - Common Dreams Otherwise, youre just peeing in the ocean.. For Smith, the Palm Beach conservative and Trump ally, sticking it to the mainstream media might actually be a perk of Aldens strategy. But years later, when Randy relocates to Palm Beach and becomes a major donor to Donald Trumps presidential campaign, it will make a certain amount of sense that his earliest known media investment was conceived as a giant middle finger to the journalistic establishment. 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. 'Vulture' Fund Alden Global, Known For Slashing Newsrooms, Buys Tribune The bid by Alden Global Capital, which already owns about 200 local newspapers, had faced resistance from Tribune staff and last-ditch competition. He had spoken on this issue before, and it was easy to see why. The Tribune Tower rises above the streets of downtown Chicago in a majestic snarl of . Am I going to win against capitalism in America? 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. But for Simon, that paper exists entirely in the past. But whats happening in Chicago is different. 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. By the charitys own accounting, it lost $ 2.3 million in book value on a $17 million investment that year. 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. He writes a weekly column called Mugger that savages the citys journalists by name and frequently runs to 10,000 words. Over the course of seven years, Alden doubled profits in its Bay Area News Group newspapers, another home to cutbacks. There were sober op-eds and lamentations on Twitter and expressions of disappointment by professors of journalism. 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. They had a father-figure relationship, one told me. The shadow of hedge fund and corporate ownership leaves newsrooms in he asks. [4][5] The company added more newspapers to its portfolio in May 2021 when it purchased Tribune Publishing and became the second-largest newspaper publisher in the United States. "[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. Hedge fund Alden Global is buying newspaper chain Tribune Publishing It's traded in a prestigious downtown newsroom for a "Chipotle-sized office" near the printing press. 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. When it was over, a quarter of the newsroom was gone. [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. Instead, they gutted the place. 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. How Alden Global Capital will make money owning Tribune Publishing Im repulsed by the incestuous world of New York journalism, he tells New York magazine. Alden completed its takeover of the Tribune papers in May. 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. [4], In 2019, Alden attempted, but failed at, a hostile takeover of Gannett. Newspapers Affect Us, Often In Ways We Don't Realize, 'Project Mayhem': Reporters Race To Save Tribune Papers From 'Vulture' Fund. Hedge fund Alden's bid for owner of Virginian-Pilot, Daily Press And two, by at least 2013, those of us who worked at Alden-controlled papers (like me) were already experiencing the slashing and burning. and our desire to support local newspapers over the long term." Alden said it wants to work Lee's board of . "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 . After a powerful Illinois state legislator resigned amid bribery allegations, the paper didnt have a reporter in Springfield to follow the resulting scandal. Lee Enterprises rejects Alden Global Capital's unsolicited proposal 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. What's in the fine print in Alden's offer to takeover Tribune? - The . Others pointed to Bainums financing partner, who pulled out of the deal at the 11th hour. 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. The most promising prospect materialized in Baltimore, where a hotel magnate named Stewart Bainum Jr. expressed interest in the Sun. In a press release Monday, Nov. 22, 2021 Alden said it sent Lee's board a letter with the offer. October 14, 2021. It played with my mind a little bit, Glidden told me. With Alden in control, he believes the Sun is now a prisoner that stands little chance of escape. But there are some clues here and there. No response came back. But a sense of fatalism permeated the work. 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. Alden Global Capital makes an offer for Lee Enterprises, a big But I had underestimated how little Aldens founders care about their standing in the journalism world. 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. 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. qhhsubiquity.com Informacin detallada del sitio web y la empresa Knight began selling off its Alden holdings in 2012, and got completely out in 2014. 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. 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.. On the surface, the answer might seem obvious. This is predatory.. At their worst, they used their papers to maintain oppressive social hierarchies. A century later, the Tribune Tower has retained its grandeur. Hes acutely aware of the risksI may end up with egg on my face, he saidbut he believes its worth trying to develop a successful model that could be replicated in other markets. That's because the fund is stepping in to buy and then gut newsrooms across the country. 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. In conversations with former Alden employees, I heard repeatedly that their partnership seemed to transcend business. It felt important. 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. Hedge fund Alden Global Capital is attempting to acquire Davenport-based Lee Enterprises, one of the country's largest newspaper chains, in all the markings of a hostile takeover. Through it all, the owners maintained their ruthless silencespurning interview requests and declining to articulate their plans for the paper. Three days later, Bainumstill smarting from his experience with Alden, but worried about the Suns fatesent a pride-swallowing email to Freeman. But that's not true for all of them. PDF GateHouse Media Alden Global Capital Tribune Media McClatchy Lee Hellman and BNP together own 46.4 per cent of Allfunds' shares. It was like watching a slow-motion disaster, says Gregory Pratt, a reporter at the Chicago Tribune. He told me it will begin with an annual operating budget of $15 million, unprecedented for an outfit of this kind. The company has been growing its portfolio and as of May 2021, owns over 100 newspapers and 200 assorted other publications. Alden Global Capital revealed a proposal Monday to purchase Lee Enterprise Inc. and its newspapers at $24 a share, casting alarm through the many newsrooms owned by Lee. 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. [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. 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?. Ken Kelleher is an American sculptor. So Freeman pivoted. But in the case of local news, nothing comparable is ready to replace these papers when they die. ", "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? He says he visited the Tribune's office and was "really shocked by how grim the scene was." California biotech billionaire and Los Angeles Times owner Patrick Soon-Shiong, who owns 24%, Hedge fund Alden Global Capital will acquire the rest of what it does not already own of Tribune Publishing, owner of the Chicago Tribune, the New York Daily News and other local newspapers, in a . 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. When Alden first got into the news business, Freeman seemed willing to indulge some innovation. Coppins describes Alden as a specific type of firm: a "vulture hedge fund." Its hard to imagine theyd show, anyway. Tribune Sale to Alden Approved by Shareholders - The New York Times Clearly, for Smith and Freeman, chop-shopping their newspapers paid off. A group of 11 community newspapers owned by Red Wing Publishing Co. have been sold to MediaNews Group, owner of the St. Paul Pioneer Press and more than 100 newspapers across the country.

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