Newspapers Gutted and Burned Down Like Salerno's in Goodfellas
...Ushering in the quick death of Democracy. (Plus Duke vs. Gonzaga in the Midnight Hour.)
More great news for newspapers dropped just in time for the holidays.
Yesterday, on Thanksgiving Eve Eve, New York hedge fund and the third largest "newspaper consolidator" in the US, Alden Global Capital LLC, decided to take down Lee Enterprises Inc. in a deal that values the small chain at $141 million.
Hahahhahahaha. Awesome.
Now the Midwest doesn't have a chance. Not at all.
Just as a refresher, hedge funds, along with private equity and venture capital, are sort of three of the nine-headed hydra of the late-capitalism apocalypse.
Collectively they're all known as private markets, which were largely deregulated here after financial bros needed a place to do legal(ish) smash and grabs for untold profits during a quick fix push/Wall Street appeasement in the wake of the housing market crash of '08.
Sometimes they're called "alternative investments," but they're all sort of forms of arbitrage. Think, a simultaneous purchase and sale of the same asset in similar markets in order to profit from tiny differences in the asset's price—e.g. the simultaneous retail mergers of Sears and Kmart in the early 00s, which eventually resulted in both brands dying, stores closing, and layoffs en masse.
This is what Alden, which post-acquisition will be just behind Gannett/Gatehouse in terms of total circulation, is doing. They're simultaneously buying up any middle-tier to big newspaper brands, especially ones that are redundant in regions, and dismantling them. They are destroyers of things.
Earlier this year, the hedge fund bought Tribune Publishing, whose flagship newspapers include the Chicago Tribune, the New York Daily News, The Baltimore Sun, and major mid-sized dailies all up and down the Eastern Seaboard. Before that, it was The Denver Post and The Mercury News in San Jose.
In some instances, the reporters didn't go down without a fight. In Tribune Publishing newsrooms, one union organizer, Baltimore Sun education reporter Liz Bowie, helped spearhead an effort she and her colleagues called "Project Mayhem." To undermine the sale they attempted to secure potential buyers outside of Alden in several of the markets of the papers on the block. The effort fell short because Alden already had too big a stake in the company and its founder, Randall Smith, already sat on the Tribune's board. See how that works. No laws against that bros!
All the workers could do then was watch as their newsrooms were hollowed out. The Baltimore Sun newsroom, for example, now has by the latest count fewer than 50 journalists.
In the late-1990s, that number was 400-plus.
"Alden ownership would be a disaster for Chicago, democracy, and society at large," former Chicago Tribune City Hall reporter Gregory Pratt wrote in an open letter upon the eve of the sale in August. "It would likely also be an immediate financial disaster for Tribune Publishing itself."
Gut newsrooms. Put up paywalls. Outsource or consolidate printing. And fill spaces between ads with wire stories, and viola, profits soar (at least temporarily.) Alden sources say the benchmark for all papers is about a 20% profit margin. How long can it last? Doesn't matter.
When they fail, they win biggest.
The next phase is continue to load with debt then do a fire sale, starting with the real estate, then move on until every shitty newsroom chair that leans to the left has been set outside the building for scrap.
It’s really the Salerno's (Bamboo Lounge) Restaurant in Goodfellas model of doing business.
Finance guy knows it's all a short-term play anyway. They're not in it for decades or generations; they're in it for 18 months or so. Squeeze every ounce of capital you can, load it up with bad debt on top of the good debt, and then you bust the joint out. You light a match.
But we all know this; we all know the end game of when journalism and a free press fails. Ghouls take over school boards and city councils and descend into mayhem. Ginormous police stations get built with tens of millions of dollars a city doesn't have through no-bid contracts. Misinformation and disinformation gets spread about vaccines. White supremacists take over the judiciary from prosecutors to the bench.
The powerless have no voice, no platform. And everything that made places worth living, from a school carnival to a bake sale fundraiser by the local biddies doing their best to help permanently buy a vacant downtown lot to turn it into a community garden, it all goes away. Police become armed like military, anti-journalist sentiment bubbles up into death threats, and peaceful protestors get shot in cold blood by teenagers cosplaying as Brown Shirts and on and on.
I worked in some of these newsrooms before and during the purge. At one time they were glorious and dysfunctional and full of underpaid and unappreciated misfits—the humblest of saviors. But everyone, EVERYONE in them, rowed in the same direction.
Delivering the news, they knew, was essential to democracy, just as tearing it down for temporary profit for the very few is essential to the rise of fascism.
Gonzaga vs. Duke
Last night's Final Four Gonzaga vs. UCLA rematch, one that was watched by more than 15 million people in April, staggered through the ratings with a late tip-off (10 p.m. EST) and spotty coverage continuing an early-season streak courtesy ESPN to send their E squad out to the West Coast or not even bother to adjust start times for games with national interest.
Take the no. 5 Villanova- no. 2 UCLA match-up last Friday at 11:30 p.m. ET on ESPN2. Nobody, not even this West Coast-based Pac 12 apologist, was able to stay up to tune in.
As it was on Tuesday night, the AP no. 1 vs. no. 2 programs, both returning a majority of starters, turned out to be a laugher in the first half as the Zags leaped to a 20-point lead at the half and maintained altitude to cruise to an 83-63 win in Vegas (insert joke about Johnny Juzang, Jaime Jaquez Jr., and Tyger Campbell spending too much time at the craps table blah blah blah.)
Anyway, behind how-is-he-not-in-the-G-league-already Drew Timme, the Zags put the experienced and explosive UCLA offense to bed early. "We did a good job today," Timme said. Indeed.
Here's hoping that tryptophan-induced coma doesn't set in on Gonzaga's hot hand (57.7% from the field in the first half) as they square off a young but formidable Duke squad that seems to be returning the program to form. Duke at 6-0 remains largely untested with 20-plus point victories over the Citadel, Lafayette, Gardner-Webb, Army, and the Campbell Fighting Camels, schools you have to actually google their mascot.
Junior Wendell Moore Jr. and super-frosh Paolo Banchero, the probable no. 1 overall pick in June, heated up with a combined 50 points, 16 rebounds, and 15 assists vs. Citadel Tuesday to give the Zags a preview of what's to come when it comes to containment.
If they can keep Duke shooting from the perimeter and the game up-tempo, as they did with the Bruins, the Zags should remain perfect and give everyone who can grab a nap earlier to tune in to the still egregiously late 10:30 p.m. EST tip off the on Friday; a late-march preview will await.
Take Gonzaga -5 vs. UCLA at the Empire Classic in Las Vegas at 10:30 EST