The news of a possible purchase is particularly bad for the Midwest region, Kiely said, where Lee Enterprises owns 24 papers in Iowa, Missouri and Nebraska. However, Kiely said the motive behind hedge funds like Alden’s attraction to local newspapers has become less and less clear as those assets have disappeared or been sold off. She said the practice of hedge funds buying newspapers started more than a decade ago when newspapers had many assets like buildings, vehicles for deliveries and more. A recent Poynter article estimated more than 10% of the paper’s staff was cut within six weeks of Alden’s purchase of the paper. Kiely called Alden a “vulture fund” and said the hedge fund cuts its newspapers “to the bone.” She used the Chicago Tribune as an example of the damage she said Alden can do to a paper. “It’s a dagger to the heart of democracy.” “This sort of hedge fund behavior is really putting greed and self-dealing above democracy,” Kiely said of Alden’s proposal. Kathy Kiely, the Lee Hills Chair of free-press studies at the University of Missouri School of Journalism, called Alden’s proposed purchase of Lee a “disaster for democracy.” “I mean, there are always some assets yet to be drained out of any particular news operation until the lights go off,” he said.
Lee has already cut down on the number of reporters at its papers, Munson said, and he worries the trend would continue or worsen under Alden. IPR The Sioux City Journal is one of ten newspapers in Iowa owned by Lee Enterprises “I just think we have yet to see where scale, for these local communities, really makes up the difference unless you change the economic foundations of the news operation,” Munson said. Munson is a former columnist with the Des Moines Register and the current board president of the Western Iowa Journalism Foundation, a nonprofit that supports community newspapers. Kyle Munson questions whether more consolidation provides an answer to that problem. They just want to get some money out of it and move on.” “Alden does not look at these properties in any sort of overly long-term view. “Lee has run its properties pretty tightly to say the least, but Alden will take it to the next level,” he said.
Gordon, a sports columnist at the Post-Dispatch, said the union is working to convince Lee to not sell to Alden. Louis Post-Dispatch, echoed Cooper’s sentiments. Jeff Gordon, president of the union that represents staffers at the St. “Trust in government erodes as our watchdog function gets stripped down.”
POST DISPATCH TV
“It is not hyperbole to say that parts of democracy die when a hedge fund is allowed to run local news into the ground, whether it be a newspaper or a TV station,” he said. Lee Enterprises bought the Herald in 2020 from Berkshire Hathaway, a conglomerate once run by Warren Buffett, and has been managed by Lee for about 18 months prior to the sale.Ĭooper said Alden would control the majority of newspapers in Nebraska if it buys Lee. “It becomes this cycle and they lead newspapers to circle the drain until you’re only covering the bare minimum.”
“The fewer reporters you have, the fewer reporters you have to watch out for government waste and wrongdoing,” Cooper said. “They care about nothing but the bottom line and pounce on this notion that newspapers are dead or a dead medium - and that's just not true.”Ĭooper, who has worked as a courts reporter at the Omaha World-Herald for more than 24 years, said the paper’s union fears that if Alden buys Lee, the Herald and many of Nebraska’s other newspapers will be “stripped down” by staff cuts. “They (Alden) hide in the shadows but they’re the worst of newspaper owners,” he said.
In earlier published accounts of Alden’s business, managing director Heath Freeman has said his hedge fund is among the very few outfits still willing to buy newspapers when others would have left them for dead.īut Alden’s reputation in the newspaper industry, which has broadly faced headwinds in the last 20 years, is less glowing.įor Omaha World-Herald News Guild President Todd Cooper, the news of Alden’s offer was devastating. In a letter to Lee’s board of directors, Alden said it was interested in Lee as part of its commitment to the news industry in the long term.Īn Alden spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment. Alden has developed a reputation for cost-cutting and downsizing the staff of newspapers it owns.Īlden earlier this year bought Tribune Publishing, whose flagship newspapers include the Chicago Tribune and Baltimore Sun. Alden is a hedge fund that has become one of the largest owners of newspapers across the United States, including the Denver Post and The Mercury News in San Jose, California.
0 kommentar(er)
