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At the Pioneer Press , where its staff is down to 60, the paper produced a . [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. But for all the theatrics, his marching orders were always the same: Cut more. Alden Global Capital swallowed all of the Tribune's newspapers, including the New York Daily News, earlier in 2021. 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. , From the February 1905 issue: The confessions of a newspaper woman, The papers union hired a PR firm to launch a public-awareness campaign under the banner Save Our Sun and published a letter calling on the Tribune board to sell the paper to local owners. 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. MediaNews Group came out of bankruptcy in March 2010 under the majority ownership of its lenders. 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 . I asked. 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.. But he couldnt help feeling that the police scandal would have been exposed much sooner if the Sun were operating at full force. Hedge fund Alden Global is buying newspaper chain Tribune Publishing 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 . With full control of Tribune Publishing, Alden Global Capital is scrambling to squeeze out a return on its $600 million investment in the struggling Chicago-based newspaper company. So what is this Distressed Opportunities fund? Freeman was only slightly more accessible. The Ubiquity - The student news site of Quartz Hill High School 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. Below are highlights from his conversation with Morning Edition's A Martnez. Its being snuffed out, quarter after quarter after quarter. We were sitting in a coffee shop in Logan Square, and he was still struggling to make sense of what had happened. After serving in the Carter administrations Treasury Department, Brian became widely knownand fearedin the 80s for his hard-line negotiating style. It is the nations second-largest newspaper owner by circulation. ", "Hedge Fund Reaches a Deal to Buy Tribune Publishing", "Opinion - Will The Chicago Tribune Be the Next Newspaper Picked to the Bone? [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. Alden Capital's gutting of the Denver Post is the most discussed example of this, but there are many others. Why Chicago Tribune Staffers Are Terrified Of Their Hedge Fund - Forbes [11], In November 2021, Alden Global Capital made an offer to purchase Lee Enterprises for $24 a share in cash, or about $141 million. Daily News spinoff stirs anxiety after Alden takeover - New York Post Lee Enterprises rejects Alden Global Capital's unsolicited proposal He used his own money to pull court records, and went years without going on a vacation. Alden, a New York City-based firm that has become the grim reaper of American newspapers, had recently increased its stake in Tribune Publishing to 32%making it the largest shareholder of the . But even for a group of journalists, it was tough to keep the publics attention. But that's not true for all of them. 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. Alden Global Capital, the New York hedge fund that bought Tribune Publishing this year, said on Monday that it was making an offer for another big American newspaper chain, Lee . On the appointed afternoon, I dialed the number provided by his spokesperson and found myself talking to the most feared man in American newspapers. 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. hide caption. 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. Instead, the money was used to finance the hedge funds other ventures. This story originally appeared on the Morning Edition live blog. He scores big with a bankrupt aerospace manufacturer, and again with a Dallas-based drilling company. he asks. It hurts to see the paper like this, he told her. It seemed reasonable to ask that they answer a few questions. There were sober op-eds and lamentations on Twitter and expressions of disappointment by professors of journalism. Inside Alden Global Capital. If Knights total divestment from Alden in 2014 was because someone made an ethical decision to stop dealing with the vulture fund, good for them. It played with my mind a little bit, Glidden told me. The scene was somehow even grimmer than Id imagined. Other large shareholders include Californian asset manager Capital Group and UK fund manager Jupiter Asset Management. Bainum envisioned rebuilding the paperwhich, by 2020, was down to a single full-time statehouse reporteras a nonprofit. 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. Hedge fund Alden's bid for owner of Virginian-Pilot, Daily Press 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." He said that he still appreciated their journalism, but that he couldnt speak for his corporate bosses. Read: Local news is dying, and Americans have no idea, From 2015 to 2017, he presided over staff reductions of 36 percent across Aldens newspapers, according to an analysis by the NewsGuild (a union that also represents employees of The Atlantic). It was clear that they didnt care about this being a business in the future. 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. I asked if anyone there at the time was aware of Aldens vulture business strategy. 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. And when Chicago suffered a brutal summer crime wave, the paper had no one on the night shift to listen to the police scanner. Joe Pompeo pilloried Alden in Vanity Fair for reducing newsrooms. Lee Enterprises holds off an Alden takeoverfor now [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. Many of the operators were looking at the newspaper business as a local advertising business, he said, and we didnt believe that was the right way to look at it. 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? Alden Global Capital already owns 200 publications and a 6% stake in Lee Enterprises. Newspapers Have Been Struggling And Then Came The Pandemic - Forbes 'Vulture' Fund Alden Global, Known For Slashing Newsrooms, Buys Tribune Alden, which already owned one-third of . [30], Alden Global Capital includes a real estate division called Twenty Lake Holdings, which primarily buys excess real estate from newspapers. It will rely initially on philanthropic donations, but he aims to sell enough subscriptions to make it self-sustaining within five years. 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. Alden, which took Chicago-based newspaper chain Tribune Publishing private in May, said it made a proposal to buy Lee for $24 a share in cash, a 30% premium to Friday's closing price for . Theres no industry that I can think of more integral to a working democracy than the local-news business, he said. 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. (Freeman denied this characterization through a spokesperson. [7][8] Alden's purchase price was $635 million, or $17.25 per share. The newspaper lost a quarter of its staff to buyouts after it was acquired by Alden Global Capital in May. October 14, 2021. The best architects of the era were invited to submit designs; lofty quotes about the Fourth Estate were selected to adorn the lobby. Module 5- Journalism.pdf - Journalism Modules - The 5 Ws 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.). Lee, which owns the St. Louis Post Dispatch, the Omaha World-Herald and many other daily newspapers throughout the region, is staving off a takeover attempt by Alden Global Capital, a New-York . For those who cared about the future of local news, it was hard to imagine a better outcomewhich made it all the more devastating when the bid fell through. "[17] and Vanity Fair dubbed Alden the "grim reaper of American newspapers. At their worst, they used their papers to maintain oppressive social hierarchies. . With his own money, he helps his brother launch the New York Press, a free alt-weekly in Manhattan. How Alden Global Capital will make money owning Tribune Publishing Alden Global to buy Tribune Publishing for $630 million - Los Angeles Times As a reporter whos 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 Americas largest newspaper chains?