Please create an account to participate in the Slashdot moderation system

 



Forgot your password?
typodupeerror
×
The Media

Did a US Hedge Fund Help Destroy Local Journalism? (editorandpublisher.com) 125

"What is lost when billionaires with no background nor interest in a civic mission, who are only concerned with profiteering, take over our most influential news organizations? What new models of news gathering, and dissemination show promise for our increasingly digital age? What can the public do to preserve and support vibrant journalism?"

That's a synopsis posted about the documentary Stripped for Parts: American Journalism on the Brink, cited by the long-standing news industry magazine Editor and Publisher (which dates back to 1901). This week its podcast interviewed filmmaker Rick Goldsmith about his 90-minute documentary, which they say "tells the tale" of how hedge fund Alden Global Capital clandestinely entered into the news publishing industry in a big way — and then "dismantled local newspapers 'piece by piece,' creating a crises within the communities they serve, leaving 'news deserts' and 'ghost papers' in their wake." [Goldsmith] spent more than 5-years creating his latest work... a film that tells the tale of how newspapers business model is faltering, not just because of the loss of advertising and digital disruption; but also to capitalist greed, as hedge funds and corporate America buy them, sell their assets and leave the communities they serve without their local "voice" and a final check on power.
On the podcast, Goldsmith notes that in many cases a paper's assets "were the newspaper buildings and the printing presses... These were worth in many cases more than the newspapers themselves." After laying off staff, the hedge fund could also downsize out of those buildings.

By 2021 Alden owned 100 newspapers and 200 more publications — and then acquired Tribune Publishing to become America's second-largest newspaper publisher.

The hedge fund currently owns several newspapers in the San Francisco Bay Area, according to SFGate: At first, Goldsmith's documentary might seem like it's delivering more bad news. But it avoids despair, offering hope on the horizon for news deserts where aggressive reporting is needed. It introduces the notion that the traditional capitalist business model is failing the news industry, and that nonprofit organizations must be providers of local coverage.
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.

Did a US Hedge Fund Help Destroy Local Journalism?

Comments Filter:
  • People stopped buying newspapers
    • by Temkin ( 112574 ) on Saturday January 13, 2024 @10:53AM (#64155727)

      People stopped buying newspapers

      True. I kept trying thru about 2016, but the local rag couldn't find anybody to deliver them. This is the result of moving away from afternoon delivery using kids after school hours to adults delivering papers in the early morning. The kids were happy to have walking around money. An adult's economic needs require them to take a route so large they struggle to provide quality service even using a car.

      It's a shame really... I bought my VIC-20 by saving up 6 months worth of paper route earnings.

      • I think eventually newspaper delivery will just be handled by package delivery, start the early shift of package delivery one or two hours earlier and they can deliver newspapers together with anything which fits through the mailslot. Problem solved.

    • It's true that people not buying the paper is a key driver behind the decline of newspapers, but it's primarily because fewer sales makes the paper a less attractive medium for advertisers. The purchase price of a newspaper often only pays for the physical manufacturing and delivery operations. Everything else - salaries, subscriptions to wire services, administration, etc. - is funded by advertising revenue.

      Source: a newspaper publisher I once knew. ðY

      • Its not just that newspapers lost readers, the web provided a cheaper, better targeted and more effective advertising venue compared to print.
  • Why can't micropayments and local advertising save local journalism?
  • bogeyman (Score:5, Insightful)

    by groobly ( 6155920 ) on Saturday January 13, 2024 @11:00AM (#64155735)

    The capitalist is always the bogeyman.

    The problem is that the newspaper business model collapsed when Craigslist came into being, soon followed by Google advertising.

    Newspapers then realized they had to be online and give away their IP for free. Then they realized that wasn't a good business model either. That led to counting eyeballs to court advertising dollars, and counting eyeballs requires clickbait. To get clickbait, you don't need journalists. Propagandists are more useful. "Journalism" schools were happy to oblige.

    • Newspapers are not meant to make a profit. They are run at a loss to push a particular editorial viewpoint. Its an investment by local businesses to set the public gestalt. Its a meaningless discussion on the business model of newspapers. They are not meant to be businesses.
    • Also, the effective rise of the public Internet from circa 1991 to 1995 also started to doom newspapers, because news could be sent out in effectively real time, not wait a day for a printed paper. This change really accelerated starting in 2007 with the rise of social media, especially the expansion of Facebook and Twitter.

    • Journalism is called the Fourth Estate for a reason. Letting virtually all of it be owned by a handful of billionaires with obvious agendas that are equally obviously not in your interests or mine isn't something we should just shrug off.

      Think about your argument, you're literally arguing that the critical job of informing the public deserved to be replaced with corporate propaganda [youtube.com] and adverts pretending to be news [youtube.com] because it couldn't function in capitalism.

      Your mind is so focused on the free marke
    • by MeNeXT ( 200840 )

      The capitalist is always the bogeyman.

      The problem is that the newspaper business model collapsed when Craigslist came into being, soon followed by Google advertising.

      Newspapers then realized they had to be online and give away their IP for free. Then they realized that wasn't a good business model either. That led to counting eyeballs to court advertising dollars, and counting eyeballs requires clickbait. To get clickbait, you don't need journalists. Propagandists are more useful. "Journalism" schools were happy to oblige.

      What IP? They are supposed to report facts.

      The truth is that the news organizations want to use other peoples IP for free while they lock it down. At the same time they want to dictate their opinion as fact. I'd call it gossip rather than news. Few care about facts anymore.

      • by tepples ( 727027 )

        Newspapers then realized they had to be online and give away their IP for free.

        What IP?

        IP like 146.75.81.111, the address of www.theguardian.com.

  • With WFH and as long as most of the readers are willing to switch to tabloid format, you don't really need any fixed assets to publish a paper.

    Of course once the continuity is gone it will be almost impossible to start backup, they need to make the switch while selling off the assets. So the problem wasn't so much too much greed, but not enough. They went for the quick bucks and left the opportunity for crumbs on the table.

  • by battingly ( 5065477 ) on Saturday January 13, 2024 @11:41AM (#64155801)
    There are some things that are too important to leave to capitalists. Making sure the lights stay on. Providing safe roads. Keeping the public informed about what is going on in their community. Without news outlets which report on local activities, it's becoming increasingly difficult to maintain a democracy.
    • Actually its worse. The news media is like a bunch of two year olds demanding our attention. They have a bullhorn that drowns out any attempt at reasoned adult conversation. There is no space left for it, people can only shout at one another over the constant noise.
  • Local journalism (hell journalism of any kind) was destroyed by the declining quality of the journalists themselves.

    Journalists have only themselves to blame.

    • That really does nothing to refute the basic premise that unfettered capitalism resulted in corporations buying up huge swaths of media and then not paying for good journalism anymore. The real problem seems to be n one is paying for good journalism anymore. I'm a firm believer that if you started paying journalists really well, and let them "off the leash" of extreme editorial oversight ("you can't write stories that make our corporate overlords look bad, or go against their interests"), you'd attract good

      • by sfcat ( 872532 )
        The problem is what is defined by the market to be "good". In this case, its advertisers wanting eyeballs that defines good. So good isn't accurate, but ability to generate engagement. And what does that better: quality fact based reporting which is expensive hard and boring to read, or wild conspiracy theory driven tales that reinforce existing biases? Truth is, people don't really want to know the absolute truth. People like their myths and fairy tales, especially about ourselves. Ugly truths about
        • Very good points. The question is what commercially successful model will provide people with the information they need. I am not sure I see one. It may require reader owned news cooperatives that provide news and information their members want.
  • While companies like that are indeed slimeballs, it was probably inevitable that the papers would eventually fold, as the market for physical papers is shrinking. It's just far more economical to deliver news electronically, and the more it shrinks the greater the cost per paper.

    Maybe if the local companies had folded slower (no pun intended), they'd have time to transition to web news, but that's hard to predict.

  • by PubJeezy ( 10299395 ) on Saturday January 13, 2024 @01:31PM (#64156039)
    This is like asking if John Wilkes Booth helped kill Lincoln.
  • "What is lost when billionaires with no background nor interest in a civic mission, who are only concerned with profiteering, take over our most influential news organizations? "

    You complain only NOW?

    William Randolph Hearst
    Rupert Murdoch
    Ted Turner
    Jeff Bezos
    Sumner Redstone
    Silvio Berlusconi
    Oprah Winfrey ....

  • Was there as much concern from reporters around the country as other industries were destroyed by financialization in the 90s? Seems like it took a decade or two for media to spend much time on the destruction of the rust belt and other manufacturing areas.

    The only sad part is this hurts local media instead of the talking heads with nationwide exposure who parrot the part lines. I'd much rather get news on the local city council than the latest story on who paid Joe Biden through his crack smoking son.

  • by Opportunist ( 166417 ) on Saturday January 13, 2024 @04:32PM (#64156415)

    Well... duh? Do locusts destroy crops?

Top Ten Things Overheard At The ANSI C Draft Committee Meetings: (7) Well, it's an excellent idea, but it would make the compilers too hard to write.

Working...