Stop the Vultures
The first time I heard the name Alden Global Capital was in 2010 when it acquired the Denver Post. The hedge fund based in New York City quickly pruned the newspaper staff and relocated the newsroom after selling the downtown building. Over the next few years, publisher Mac Tully and editor Gregory Moore both resigned—and the layoffs never stopped.
By 2018, those left in the newsroom had had enough. We’ve probably all seen the “before” and “after’ photo of the Post newsroom, comparing a 2013 photo to a 2018 photo, showing how many journalists have been laid off over the course of just five years. It’s still a chilling image to behold. When more cuts were announced, reporters and staff members rallied together, calling out Alden to sell the newspaper.
“Denver deserves a newspaper owner who supports its newsroom. If Alden isn’t willing to do good journalism here, it should sell The Post to owners who will,” the editorial board wrote at that time.
Despite their best efforts, the Post remains in Alden’s clutches.
Now, we’re seeing history repeat itself.
In May, Alden closed its deal to acquire Tribune Publishing for $633 million, making the hedge fund the second-largest newspaper owner in the country after Gannett. In the weeks that followed, we started seeing reports of how many people were leaving these newsrooms. Poynter’s Rick Edmonds reported that just six weeks after Alden acquired the Tribune papers, at least 10 percent of the newsroom workforce was bought out and let go. At the Chicago Tribune, almost 40 journalists decided to take a buyout. The Capital Gazette in Annapolis, Md. also lost its editor Rick Hutzell, and reporter Chase Cook, who tweeted, “We are putting out a damn paper tomorrow” after a shooter killed five of his colleagues in June 2018 (the buyouts occurred just as the shooter’s trial began, making these newsroom losses even more distressing).
At press time, the number of buyouts wasn't final, and as time goes on, I believe the number of departures will only climb as we’ve seen at the Denver Post and other papers acquired by Alden. If the hedge fund keeps swallowing up our newspapers, there won’t be anything left for these vultures to pick at.
I realize it’s ironic to write about such a grim topic in the same issue where we feature newsrooms celebrating their wins in this year’s Pulitzer Prizes (announced in June), but I felt it was important to highlight both in order to showcase the need to keep journalism alive and honor the newsrooms that continued reporting on some of the biggest news stories we’ve seen in decades: the devastating effects of a global health pandemic, the enormous impact of social unrest and crisis, and a contentious presidential election.
Also, this month, we put a spotlight on the Rebuild Local News Coalition, whose goal is to create public policy to better support local news. In this month’s Shoptalk column, Report for America president and chair for the Rebuild Local News Coalition Steven Waldman shares his own thoughts on how to stop hedge funds from destroying local news organizations: “The collapse of local news was caused by powerful forces. But that doesn’t mean we’re powerless to change the course. It starts with a simple principle: keep local news in local hands.”
Waldman is correct in his assessment that we’re not powerless. The future isn’t written in stone; good journalism and good journalists can prevail—and E&P will be there again next year to recognize them when the Pulitzer Prizes are handed out to the 106th class.