Proposed bill would examine Hartford Courant ownership

Two months after The Hartford Courant closed its newsroom in the capital city, a legislative committee brought forward a bill Tuesday that would examine the newspaper’s ownership — with the possibility of barring a hedge fund from acquiring the Courant’s corporate parent.

It is, to say the least, a highly unusual legal tack. Unlike the overwhelming majority of companies in Connecticut, The Hartford Courant Co. operates under a special act of the legislature, dating at least to 1887, and has been amended at least seven times.

That fact, insists Sen. Matthew Lesser, D-Middletown, gives the General Assembly authority to apply sharp scrutiny to the ownership of the Courant, which is the oldest continuously published newspaper in the nation, dating to 1764.

Lesser is co-chairman of the legislature’s insurance and real estate committee, which raised the bill. The measure is so far just a concept and doesn’t have specific language. Its goal is to blunt the effects of newsroom cutbacks by the Courant’s parent company, Chicago-based Tribune Publishing Co.

Tribune’s largest shareholder is a New York hedge fund, Alden Capital, which controls more than 50 U.S. newspapers through its ownership interest in Digital First Media, and has slashed spending dramatically, paring jobs by 90 percent in some places. Alden is now trying to acquire all of Tribune.

“We should step in before Alden, which has a really bad track record of operating newspapers, drives them out of business,” Lesser said. “What I want whoever owns the Courant to do is to care about The Hartford Courant … They were chartered by the legislature for a purpose.”

Amid steady cutbacks in staffing, civic and political leaders in central Connecticut, starting with Hartford

Mayor Luke Bronin, have wondered aloud what, if anything, they can do to help the Courant. The closing of the newsroom at 285 Broad St., home of the Courant since it was converted from an auto sales location in the ’40s, was not directly related to staff cuts but was viewed by many reporters at the Courant as part of the same trend.

Members of the committee wondered about the measure as Lesser and co-chair Kerry Wood, D-Rocky Hill, brought it out. But none opposed it as they voted to advance it to a likely public hearing.

“Can we influence the closing of that press office?” asked Rep. Tammy Nuccio, R-Tolland.

“That’s what the bill is meant to explore. I think we have a lot to learn,” Wood replied.

“I absolutely love history, so I definitely am in favor” of considering a bill, Nuccio said.

It’s far from clear how the bill might work. Opponents could say it represents improper and perhaps unlawful meddling, but Lesser said he’s researched the laws around state-chartered companies and he believes the state has room to maneuver. The 1887 legislation establishes the capital stock ownership and the makeup of the board of directors.

Lesser doesn’t believe the state can order the Courant to reopen a newsroom. But he said that issue stands as a symbol, a gesture Tribune could make to show its commitment. It’s complicated by the fact that most news outlets, including Hearst Connecticut Media newspapers — not to mention offices in countless industries — have worked remotely since last March due to the pandemic.

“This is a decision about real estate needs amid a difficult and challenging time on both the public health and economic fronts,” Andrew Julien, the Courant’s publisher and editor-in-chief, wrote to staffers in an email on Dec. 4, announcing the closing.

Just the raising of the bill represents an extraordinary, but not unprecedented, attempt by lawmakers to hold sway over ownership of corporations whose operations are not regulated by the state.

In 1998, Branford-based Echlin Corp., a maker of brakes and other vehicle parts with 900 local employees, sought help from the General Assembly to ward off a hostile takeover bid by a smaller rival, SPX Corp.

The legislature’s judiciary committee advanced a bill that would bar the unwelcome takeover of any business incorporated in Connecticut — sending shock waves through Wall Street that a state would even consider such a move.

The bill failed on the House floor after SPX cut a deal with the United Auto Workers union. Echlin then sold itself to a friendly “white knight” company to avoid a takeover by SPX but within five years the jobs were gone from Connecticut anyway.

I covered the Echlin drama for the Courant exactly halfway through a 36-year stint there as a reporter, photographer, business editor and columnist. I have about 10 books worth of stories from that newsroom, none of which I’ll tell here except to say that if you were there on Sept. 11, 2001, or Dec. 14, 2012, your view of journalists might change for the better.

So I’m not neutral in this. Like Lesser, I’d like to see the Courant flourish and maintain its tradition as one of the truly great regional newspapers in America. Legally and politically, this bill has to be a distant long shot.

Pandemic aside, this era has seen a reinvention of news reporting, along with the rise of online-only publications that report on public issues, such as The CT News Junkie and The Connecticut Mirror, which counts both the Courant and the Hearst papers as partners.

And it’s not clear what the role of newsrooms will be.

“It won’t change the essence of what we do: Delivering the high-impact journalism readers have come to expect from the Courant,” Julien wrote on Dec. 4, of the building exit, “and crafting creative solutions that meet the needs of our advertising partners.”