‘The Baltimore Sun’ new owner has paper on edge

A few years ago, desperate to avoid being acquired by a hedge fund, staff members of The Baltimore Sun made public pleas for a local entrepreneur to buy their publication.

That request was recently realized: A Maryland businessman, David Smith, bought the storied newspaper, returning the 186-year-old publication to local hands for the first time in nearly 40 years.

But Smith may not be quite what the Sun’s journalists were hoping for. According to interviews with current and former employees at the newspaper, Smith’s purchase has already raised alarm among many inside and outside the newsroom, who fear he will impose his political interests on the organization as a final coda to a once-proud newspaper that has been facing a long decline.

Smith is executive chairman of the conservative Sinclair Broadcast Group, one of the country’s largest local television station operators with nearly 200 stations, including Fox45 in Baltimore. Sinclair has been a reliable ally for former President Donald Trump; Smith reportedly told Trump in 2016, “We are here to deliver your message.” In 2018, the company required its stations to film promos echoing some of Trump’s attacks on the news media.

Smith has regularly supported conservative causes. According to tax records, his family foundation has given more than $500,000 in recent years to Project Veritas, a right-wing group that has tried to covertly record political opponents and journalists.

The Sun’s new owner did little to assuage the internal concerns during a three-hour meeting with staff members Tuesday. According to two people in the meeting, Smith told the newsroom he had read the paper only a few times in recent months and hadn’t read it at all in the previous 40 years; urged them to increase profits; and said he wanted the publication to emulate the local Sinclair station, Fox45. He also said at the meeting he wanted the paper to cover corruption.

“I think it will mean disaster,” John McIntyre, an editor at the Sun for 34 years, said of Smith’s ownership. McIntyre took a buyout in 2021 and now does occasional freelance work for the new crosstown rival, The Baltimore Banner.

“What I expect is that he will make good on what he said, to turn The Baltimore Sun into the same thing that his Fox45 TV station is: a megaphone for right-wing disinformation and contempt for the city of Baltimore,” McIntyre said.