Hedge Fund signs deal to buy Tribune Publishing

The newspaper industry has struggled for much of the 21st century, as the rise of digital media has profoundly reduced the revenues once generated from print advertising and newsstand sales. At the same time, Facebook and Google have grabbed a huge chunk of digital ad revenue, blocking the industry from one of its traditional sources of cash.

About a quarter of newspapers in the United States, most weeklies, were closed between 2004 and 2019, while about 50% of newspaper jobs were cut. Hedge funds, however, see newspapers as a good deal. With a strict management style that often means job cuts and reduced local news coverage, they have been able to squeeze them for profit.

In the process, they often angered their employees. Journalists from the Denver Post, a daily controlled by an Alden media company, mutinied in 2018 by publishing a special section of opinion pieces that criticized the hedge fund, likening its executives to “vulture capitalists.” Previously, Alden had ordered The Post to cut 30 jobs in a newsroom that now had just 100 editorial staff, having already lost a significant number of reporters to layoffs and takeovers since the company took over. control in 2010.

Penny Abernathy, a former New York Times and Wall Street Journal executive who studies local media economics at the University of North Carolina School of Journalism, said Alden’s background was not bodes well for Tribune Publishing newspapers which may fall under his control.

“Based on the model Alden has used so far, this is a contraction of the industry without significant investment in the future of newspapers,” she said. “One of the problems with these large chains is that they are journalistically and economically disconnected from the communities served by these newspapers.

Some reporters who work for Tribune Publishing newspapers – which also include The Orlando Sentinel and The Hartford Courant – tried to persuade wealthy benefactors to step in before the hedge fund could gain more stock. Last year, two Chicago Tribune reporters sent letters to Chicago luminaries urging them to buy the paper.

In an interview Tuesday, Gregory Pratt, president of the Chicago Tribune union and town hall reporter, did not appear optimistic about the deal. “It’s very bad,” he says. “No good news. Alden is the worst in the news business, and that’s saying something, given the variety of bad actors.