what newspapers does alden global capital ownair force approved software list 2021

Read: Local news is dying, and Americans have no idea, From 2015 to 2017, he presided over staff reductions of 36 percent across Aldens newspapers, according to an analysis by the NewsGuild (a union that also represents employees of The Atlantic). Morale tanked; reporters burned out. Even in a declining industry, the newspapers still generated hundreds of millions of dollars in annual revenues; many of them were turning profits. Knight began selling off its Alden holdings in 2012, and got completely out in 2014. The New York-based hedge fund Alden Global Capital - known for slashing its newspapers' budgets to extract escalated profits - won shareholder approval Friday for its $633 million bid to acquire the Tribune Publishing newspaper chain.. But there was still a sliver of hope: Tribune and Alden agreed that the hedge fund would not increase its stake in the company for at least seven months. It is the nations second-largest newspaper owner by circulation. Tuesday, 23 November 2021 07:46 PM EST. A vulture doesnt hold a wounded animals head underwater. Some in the city started to wonder if the paper was even worth saving. How exactly Randall Smith chose Heath Freeman as his protg is a matter of speculation among those who have worked for the two of them. 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 . MediaNews Group came out of bankruptcy in March 2010 under the majority ownership of its lenders. This is predatory.. I asked if anyone there at the time was aware of Aldens vulture business strategy. Researchers at the University of North Carolina found that Alden-owned newspapers have cut their staff at twice the rate of their competitors; not coincidentally, circulation has fallen faster too, according to Ken Doctor, a news-industry analyst who reviewed data from some of the papers. Meanwhile, with few newsroom jobs left to eliminate, Alden continued to find creative ways to cut costs. "[26] Shortly thereafter, Alden Global, through its operating unit Strategic Investment Opportunities, filed a lawsuit in state court in Delaware against Lee Enterprises. Heath Freeman in an undated photo provided by Goldin Solutions . Here was one of Americas most storied newspapersa publication that had endorsed Abraham Lincoln and scooped the Treaty of Versailles, that had toppled political bosses and tangled with crooked mayors and collected dozens of Pulitzer Prizesreduced to a newsroom the size of a Chipotle. To industry observers, Aldens brazen model set it apart even from chains like Gannett, known for its aggressive cost-cutting. Convinced that the Sun wont be able to provide the kind of coverage the city needs, he has set out to build a new publication of record from the ground up. A Secretive Hedge Fund Is Gutting Newsrooms. It financed the deal with the help of Cerberusa private-equity firm that owned, among other businesses, the security company that trained Saudi operatives who participated in the murder of the journalist Jamal Khashoggi. In early 2011, Alden was still considered a non-controlling investor, but by the end of the year, that would change. Meanwhile, in Vallejo, John Glidden went from covering crime and community news to holding the title of the only hard news reporter in town, filling a legal pad with tips he knew he'd never have time to pursue. Prior to the acquisition of the Tribune Company, we purchased substantially all of our newspapers out of bankruptcy or close to liquidation, he told me. The company has been growing its portfolio and as of May 2021, owns over 100 newspapers and 200 assorted other publications. You need real capital to move the needle, he told me. The newsroom was moved to a single room rented from the local chamber of commerce. These include the Chicago Tribune, the New York Daily News, and The Baltimore Sun. 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. When the Smiths win, they pass on the house and take the cash prize insteada $20,000 haul that Randy will eventually use to seed a small trading firm he calls R.D. So Freeman pivoted. On March 9, 2020, a small group of Baltimore Sun reporters convened a secret meeting at the downtown Hyatt Regency. The purchase represents the culmination of Alden's years-long drive to take over the company and its storied titles . He had spoken on this issue before, and it was easy to see why. Many in the journalism industry, watching lawsuits play out in Australia and Europe, have held out hope in recent years that Google and Facebook will be compelled to share their advertising revenue with the local outlets whose content populates their platforms. For two men who employ thousands of journalists, remarkably little is known about them. Caleb will later recall, in an interview with D Magazine, asking his dad why he works so hard. Alden Global Capital already had a 32% stake in Tribune Publishing, which owns famous names like the Tribune, Daily News, the Hartford Courant and others, and on Tuesday announced it would pay . . Meanwhile, the Tribunes remaining staff, which had been spread thin even before Alden came along, struggled to perform the newspapers most basic functions. One known investor, however, is the Randall and Barbara Smith Foundation, named for Alden founder Smith and his wife. The newspaper lost a quarter of its staff to buyouts after it was acquired by Alden Global Capital in May. He declined to meet me in person or to appear on Zoom. It . Alden, which owns more than 200 newspapers across the country, has developed a reputation for using extensive layoffs and severe cost cuts at the newspapers it owns. We were like, Theyre not going to take our newspaper from us! Now he was feeling the effects of their management. Coordinated by . Clearly, for Smith and Freeman, chop-shopping their newspapers paid off. Even as Aldens portfolio grew, Freeman rarely visited his newspapers. Meanwhile, reporters fanned out across their respective cities in search of benevolent rich people to buy their newspapers. If accepted, the $24 per share purchase price would . 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. He started as a general-assignment reporter, covering local crime and community events. Instead, the money was used to finance the hedge funds other ventures. The model is simple: Gut the staff, sell the real estate, jack up subscription prices, and wring as much cash as possible out of the enterprise until eventually enough readers cancel their subscriptions that the paper folds, or is reduced to a desiccated husk of its former self. And two, by at least 2013, those of us who worked at Alden-controlled papers (like me) were already experiencing the slashing and burning. I asked. But if you really started fucking up in grandiose and belligerent ways, if you started stealing and grifting and lying, eventually somebody would come up behind you and say, Youre grifting and youre lying and theyd put it in the paper., The bad stuff runs for so long now, he went on, that by the time you get to it, institutions are irreparable, or damn near close., Take away the newsroom packed with meddling reporters, and a city loses a crucial layer of accountability. The term vulture capitalism hasnt been invented yet, but Randy will come to be known as a pioneer in the field. At the end of last month, Alden Global Capital, a notorious newspaper-owning hedge fund, sought to stake its claim on one of the last newspaper chains it hasn't yet touched: Lee Enterprises, which owns 90 publications across the country.Alden, which currently owns six percent of Lee's stock, sent an unsolicited offer to purchase the newspaper chain for $24 per share. Even in the greed is good climate of the era, Randy is a polarizing character on Wall Street. Shortly after the Tribune deal closed earlier this year, I began trying to interview the men behind Alden Capital. At the time, finalternatives.com reported that the Global Distress Opportunities fund would focus on financial firms as well as homebuilding, gaming and auto-related names.. 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? But he says the worst culprit is the hedge fund Alden Global Capital, which bought the Mercury in 2011 and has since sold the paper's building and slashed newsroom staff by about 70%. It has not, however, retained the Chicago Tribune. The families that used to own the bulk of Americas local newspapersthe Bonfilses of Denver, the Chandlers of Los Angeleswere never perfect stewards. For Baltimore to avoid a similar fate, Simon told me, something new would have to come alonga spiritual heir to the Sun: A newspaper is its contents and the people who make it. Russ Smith is a puckish libertarian whose self-described contempt for the journalistic class animates the pages of the publication. It's a tangled tale but essentially Asylum produced a film for the McDonald's charitable foundation for Leo. Smith & Company, a firm founded by Randall Duncan Smith, initially using the $20,000 cash prize he and his wife won on the 1968-1970 gameshow Dream House. Three days later, Bainumstill smarting from his experience with Alden, but worried about the Suns fatesent a pride-swallowing email to Freeman. NPR reached out to Alden for a response. It is a subsidiary of Alden Global Capital, the New York City hedge fund that backed the purchase of and dramatic cost-cutting at more than 100 newspapers causing more than 1,000 lost jobs. It played with my mind a little bit, Glidden told me. He stops talking to the press, refuses to be photographed, and rarely appears in public. Those that have survived are smaller, weaker, and more vulnerable to acquisition. hide caption. Glidden had heard rumblings about the papers owners when he first took the job, but he hadnt paid much attention. 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?. Its the meanness and the elegance of the capitalist marketplace brought to newspapers, Doctor told me. About a month after The Baltimore Sun was acquired by Alden, a senior editor at the paper took questions from anxious reporters on Zoom. 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. The California Public Employees Retirement System, a few European banks, and Citigroup and Coca Cola Companys pension funds have all invested in Alden, along with charities such as the Circle of Service Foundation and the Alfred University Endowment. So who is investing with them? It emphasizes supporting the emergence of new, sustainable models for local news, through both grantmaking and research, Sherry told me, including grant programs for nonprofit news organizations. he asks. That might sound like a losing formula, but these papers dont have to become sustainable businesses for Smith and Freeman to make money. A spokesman took issue with the entirety of the story, and laid out a long list of questions attacking the integrity of the reporter, The Atlantic and some of his sources without addressing some of the more specific claims within the report. Its hard to imagine theyd show, anyway. They had a father-figure relationship, one told me. But the group that jumps out to me on the list is the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation. Youd be surprised. NPR's A Martnez talks to McKay Coppins of The Atlantic about how a hedge fund, Alden Global Capital, is buying and then gutting newspapers and the implications for democracy. So far, Alden has limited its closures primarily to weekly newspapers, but Doctor argues its only a matter of time before the firm starts shutting down its dailies as well. 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?. Soon, Tribune-owned newsrooms across the country were kicking off similar campaigns. Newspaper publisher Lee Enterprises is asking its shareholders to help it fight off a hostile takeover . After Brian took his own life, in 2001, Smith became a mentor and confidant to Heath, who was in college at the time of his fathers death. The largest share of the blame was assigned to the Tribune board for allowing the sale to Alden to go through. The $633 million sale made Alden the nation's second largest newspaper owner in terms of circulation, with more than 200 newspapers. "The question is, will local communities decide that this is an important issue, that it's worth saving these newspapers, protecting them from firms like Alden, or will they decide that they don't really care?" [4], Alden purchased a 5.9-percent stake in Lee Enterprises in January 2020. This all seemed especially relevant considering many Alden/DFM papers were previously part of the Knight-Ridder chain, the family news empire from which the foundation sprang. If Knights total divestment from Alden in 2014 was because someone made an ethical decision to stop dealing with the vulture fund, good for them. It hurts to see the paper like this, he told her. With full control of Tribune Publishing, Alden Global Capital is scrambling to squeeze out a return on its $600 million investment in the struggling Chicago-based newspaper company. Alden, a New York City-based firm that has become the grim reaper of American newspapers, had recently increased its stake in Tribune Publishing to 32%making it the largest shareholder of the . In my many conversations with people who have worked with Freeman, not one could recall seeing him read a newspaper. Below are highlights from his conversation with Morning Edition's A Martnez. In 2016 (year of the most recent 990 available), the foundation invested $17 million in Alden funds. Somehow, no one's buying it. You could look to Oakland, California, where the East Bay Times laid off 20 people one week after the paper won a Pulitzer. Next up: Chicago, Baltimore, and the New York Daily News. Margaret Sullivan: The Constitution doesnt work without local news. Coppins describes Alden as a specific type of firm: a "vulture hedge fund." In May, The Alden Global Capital a hedge fund, acquired Tribune Publishing TPCO for $633 million. 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. He writes a weekly column called Mugger that savages the citys journalists by name and frequently runs to 10,000 words. Some have even suggested that this represents Americas last chance to save its local-news industry. "[28], In mid-February 2022, the Delaware court found in favor of Lee Enterprises. But maybe the clearest illustration is in Vallejo, California, a city of about 120,000 people 30 miles north of San Francisco. Baltimore is an underdog town, Liz Bowie, a Sun reporter who was at the meeting, told me. Randy claims no editorial role in the Press, and his investment in the projectwhich has little chance of producing the kind of return hes accustomed tocould be chalked up to brotherly loyalty. During its five-year run with Alden, it seems quite unlikely that no one at Knight knew about the hedge funds slash-and-burn strategy for two reasons. But a sense of fatalism permeated the work. [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. [21], Under the acquisition plan, MediaNews Group debt fell to $165 million from about $930 million. Probably not.. For those who cared about the future of local news, it was hard to imagine a better outcomewhich made it all the more devastating when the bid fell through. With Alden in control, he believes the Sun is now a prisoner that stands little chance of escape. The final product, completed in 1925, was an architectural spectacle unlike anything the city had seen beforeromance in stone and steel, as one writer described it. Some in the industry say they wouldnt be surprised if Smith and Freeman end up becoming the biggest newspaper moguls in U.S. history. Alden gradually took control of the papers that would become DFM. Nov. 22, 2021. With his own money, he helps his brother launch the New York Press, a free alt-weekly in Manhattan. But by 2014, it was becoming clear to Aldens executives that Patons approach would be difficult to monetize in the short term, according to people familiar with the firms thinking. * Edited from 'independent . In budget meetings, according to the former executive, Freeman hectored local publishers, demanding that they produce detailed numbers off the top of their head and then humiliating them when they couldnt. The Tampa Bay Times has sold its printing plant at 1301 34th St. N to a real estate arm of Alden Global Capital, a New York hedge fund that is the second-largest newspaper owner in the country. [2] Its managing director is Heath Freeman. (Freeman denied this characterization through a spokesperson. Smith, a reclusive Palm Beach septuagenarian, hasnt granted a press interview since the 1980s. Layout design was outsourced to freelancers in the Philippines. [2][3] By mid-2020, Alden had stakes in roughly two hundred American newspapers. The story of Alden Capital begins on the set of a 1960s TV game show called Dream House. New York hedge fund and U.S. newspaper consolidator Alden Global Capital LLC has made a proposal to take Lee Enterprises Inc. private in a deal that values the company at around $141 million. Aldens calculus was simple. His editor cited a supposed journalistic infraction (Glidden had reported the resignation of a school superintendent before an agreed-upon embargo). Its World War II correspondent brought firsthand news of Nazi concentration camps to American readers; its editorial page had the power to make or break political careers in Maryland. Much of the Knight family's once-grand newspaper empire was ultimately acquired by Alden Global Capital, while the family foundation invested in Alden funds. He wrote, "Alden Global Capital has eliminated the jobs of scores of reporters and editors, and decimated journalism in cities all over the country: Denver, Boston, San Jose, Trenton, etc. But he has a big idea: He believes theres serious money to be made in buying troubled companies, steering them into bankruptcy, and then selling them off in parts. . When The New York Times profiles him in 1991, it notes that he excels at profiting from other peoples misery and quotes a parade of disgruntled clients and partners. When hed agreed to the interview, Id expected him to say the things he was supposed to saythat the layoffs and buyouts were necessary but tragic; that he held local journalism in the highest esteem; that he felt a sacred responsibility to steer these newspapers toward a robust future.

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