The new owners had announced a round of buyouts, some beloved staffers were leaving, and those who remained were worried about the future. Some expressed exasperation with the staff of the Chicago Tribune, who were unable to find a single interested local buyer. Newspapers Affect Us, Often In Ways We Don't Realize, 'Project Mayhem': Reporters Race To Save Tribune Papers From 'Vulture' Fund. 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. 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 . As a young man, hed studied at divinity school before taking over his fathers company, and decades later he still carried a healthy sense of noblesse oblige. Alden currently owns 32%. MediaNews Group came out of bankruptcy in March 2010 under the majority ownership of its lenders. From the March 1914 issue: H. L. Mencken on newspaper morals, A story circulated throughout the companypossibly apocryphal, though no one could say for surethat when Freeman was informed that The Denver Post had won a Pulitzer in 2013, his first response was: Does that come with any money?. Have you heard of the hedge fund Alden Global Capital? 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. In 2016 (year of the most recent 990 available), the foundation invested $17 million in Alden funds. He teaches his 8-year-old son, Caleb, to make trades on a Quotron computer, and imparts the value of delayed gratification by reportedly postponing his familys Christmas so that he can use all their available cash to buy stocks at lower prices in December. It was founded in 2007 by Randall D. Today, we know that Knight, CalPERS and others no longer invest with Alden. Alden is known for . But in the case of local news, nothing comparable is ready to replace these papers when they die. But as an organization that believes that quality information is essential for individuals and communities to make their own bestchoices, it was disappointing that the foundation couldnt simply own up to its error in judgment when it came to Alden. Alden's holdings already spanned the country, including the . Maybe this obscure hedge fund had a plan. "[17] and Vanity Fair dubbed Alden the "grim reaper of American newspapers. Alden began its acquisition of Tribune Publishing in 2019, when they paid $117.9 million to Michael Ferro for his 25.2-percent stake. Most of his investments are defined by a cold pragmatism, but he takes a more personal interest in the media sector. Plus how Facebook is a hostile foreign power, the engineers daughter, the collapse of music genres, Dostoyevsky, W. G. Sebald, nasty return logistics, and more. The hollowing-out of the Chicago Tribune was noted in the national press, of course. Now he was feeling the effects of their management. When the journalists created a Slack channel to coordinate their efforts across multiple newspapers, they dubbed it Project Mayhem.. [4][13], In November 2021, Alden made an offer to Lee to purchase the company in its entirety for roughly $141 million. [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. After a contentious presidential race and amid a still-raging pandemic, there was a limited supply of outrage and sympathy to spare for local reporters. 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. Alden Global Capital is a hedge fund based in Manhattan, New York City. Alden Global Capital already owns 200 publications and a 6% stake in Lee Enterprises. This once-proud publication is now owned and run by Alden Global Capital, a multibillion-dollar hedge fund with a long record of buying papers on the cheap, selling off their assets and slashing pay and jobs. Year after year, the executives from Alden would order new budget cuts, and Glidden would end up with fewer co-workers and more work. 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 native of Vallejo, he was proud to work for his hometown paper. 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. 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. If they did it right, Venetoulis said, they just might be able to line up a local, civic-minded owner for the paper. [2] Its managing director is Heath Freeman. Traditional newspaper business model says you make 95% of your money off ad sales and the rest off subscriptions. 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? They could be vain, bumbling, even corrupt. Bainum envisioned rebuilding the paperwhich, by 2020, was down to a single full-time statehouse reporteras a nonprofit. Freeman, his 41-year-old protg and the president of the firm, would be unrecognizable in most of the newsrooms he owns. [4], In 2019, Alden attempted, but failed at, a hostile takeover of Gannett. Feb. 16, 2021 8:04 PM PT. On Monday, Dail I sort of bully people around to get stuff done, he boasted to The Washington Post in 1985. After a powerful Illinois state legislator resigned amid bribery allegations, the paper didnt have a reporter in Springfield to follow the resulting scandal. 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. The $633 million sale made Alden the nation's second largest newspaper owner in terms of circulation, with more than 200 newspapers. The Tribune Tower rises above the streets of downtown Chicago in a majestic snarl of Gothic spires and flying buttresses that were designed to exude power and prestige. For Smith, the Palm Beach conservative and Trump ally, sticking it to the mainstream media might actually be a perk of Aldens strategy. To industry observers, Aldens brazen model set it apart even from chains like Gannett, known for its aggressive cost-cutting. On the appointed afternoon, I dialed the number provided by his spokesperson and found myself talking to the most feared man in American newspapers. But it turned out that Smith had so many doorsteps16 mansions in Palm Beach alone, as of a few years ago, some of them behind gatesthat the plan proved impractical. 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 . Two veteran journalists from the Chicago Tribune published an op-ed on Sunday challenging one of the paper's principal owners, the New York hedge fund Alden Global Capital. Before our interview, Id contacted a number of Aldens reporters to find out what they would ask their boss if they ever had the chance. 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. According to its 990s, Knight ended up making $185,000 over five years on its initial $13.4 million investment. Some in the city started to wonder if the paper was even worth saving. Layout design was outsourced to freelancers in the Philippines. Hedge fund Alden Global Capital, one of the country's largest newspaper owners with a reputation for intense cost cuts and layoffs, has offered to buy the local newspaper chain Lee Enterprises . When a reporter asked if their work was still valued, the editor sounded deflated. When it was over, a quarter of the newsroom was gone. The Alden Global Capital . It was clear that they didnt care about this being a business in the future. Dec 9, 2021. [10] With its acquisition of Tribune Publishing in late May 2021, Alden is collectively the second-largest owner of newspapers in the United States, as calculated by average daily print circulation, second only to Gannett. Alden Global Capital has currently bid to buy all of Tribune. I would know he didnt mean it, and he would know he didnt mean it, but he would at least go through the motions. Collectively, they control about one-half of daily newspapers in the U.S. In a news release Monday, Alden said it sent Lee's board a letter with the offer. 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 . Alden Global Capital, a New York-based hedge fund that this year became the second largest newspaper publisher in the United States, has made an offer to purchase Lee Enterprises, the media company that owns 75 daily newspapers, including the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. The consequences can influence national politics as well; an analysis by Politico found that Donald Trump performed best during the 2016 election in places with limited access to local news. 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? It is the nations second-largest newspaper owner by circulation. . How do you know who wins? the boy asks. . (Freeman denied this characterization through a spokesperson. For Freeman, newspapers are financial assets and nothing morenumbers to be rearranged on spreadsheets until they produce the maximum returns for investors. He studied art at Alfred University under sculptors Glenn Zweygardt and William Parry. He can cite decades-old scoops and tell you whom they pissed off. Aldens Distressed Opportunities Fund was launched in 2008 and saw astounding success in its first few months, showing returns of more than 30 percent a big rescue for Alden, whose investments in Russia the year before had lost more than 61 percent of their value. 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?. The newspaper lost a quarter of its staff to buyouts after it was acquired by Alden Global Capital in May. 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? Its the meanness and the elegance of the capitalist marketplace brought to newspapers, Doctor told me. Alden completed its takeover of the Tribune papers in May. In my many conversations with people who have worked with Freeman, not one could recall seeing him read a newspaper. Lee Enterprises, the owner of daily newspapers in Winston-Salem and Greensboro, this morning rejected a hedge fund's proposal to take over the company. Glidden had heard rumblings about the papers owners when he first took the job, but he hadnt paid much attention. He started as a general-assignment reporter, covering local crime and community events. Instead, they gutted the place.