Among journalists at Tribune Publishing, whose newspapers are now set to be fully within the jaws of notorious hedge fund Alden Global Capital, the mood on Wednesday was as dark as you’d expect. “There are a lot of disappointed people in the newsroom right now,” said Todd Lighty, an investigative reporter at the company’s flagship, the Chicago Tribune, where a virtual staff meeting was scheduled for 3 p.m. central time on Thursday. “It’s really disheartening to be owned by someone who does not care about the journalism one iota.”
Tribune Publishing announced Tuesday that its board had cleared the way for Alden—a New York–based firm preceded by its reputation for buying struggling newspapers and cutting them to profitability—to purchase the two thirds of the company that it did not already own, taking Tribune private in a $630 million deal at $17.25 a share. Alden, which has decimated newspapers from Orange County, California, to Denver, Colorado, to Pottstown, Pennsylvania, and many points in between, first sunk its fangs into Tribune in late 2019. Ever since, journalists within the Tribune portfolio—which also includes the New York Daily News, The Baltimore Sun, the Orlando Sentinel, the Hartford Courant, and numerous other papers—have been dreading the seemingly inevitable outcome of full Alden ownership. There were attempts to find deep-pocketed white knights, to buy either the entire company or individual titles, before Alden could gain full control. But those efforts bore no fruit, with the exception of The Baltimore Sun, which Alden has agreed to sell to a public charity formed by Maryland businessman Stewart Bainum Jr.
“We did everything possible to try to find a responsible buyer for the newspaper and for Tribune Publishing as a whole,” said Gary Marx, a former longtime Chicago Tribune journalist. (He took a severance package in January, as did a handful of the Tribune’s esteemed cultural critics.) “It’s just incredibly disappointing that nobody in our city, with all the wealth, all the powerful foundations, the great nonprofits we have, that nobody stepped up. I feel like we did turn up the heat on Alden. We made it a national issue. But in the end, Alden, at least for now, got what they wanted.”
In Tribune circles the one long shot hope is that one of the company’s other shareholders could vote against the deal. Mason Slaine, a former media executive who owns about an 8% stake, told the Chicago Tribune’s business reporter that he wouldn’t be ready to approve the deal until he saw it. “Despite all the talk about saving the papers and community interest, no one stepped up,” Slaine said. “So what happens is that Alden gets it. That’s where we’re at.”
The other key shareholder is Los Angeles Times owner and biotech entrepreneur Patrick Soon-Shiong, who owns nearly 25% of Tribune’s stock. Back in 2018, Soon-Shiong had flirted with the idea of buying Tribune Publishing, which used to include the Times. But sources in Soon-Shiong’s orbit told me it is seen as highly unlikely that he will intervene. That’s despite recent outreach from concerned parties, including the union leadership of the NewsGuild, whose president, Jon Schleuss, wrote to Soon-Shiong last month, “I’m sure you’re as concerned as I am with the proposal for Tribune Publishing advanced by Alden Global Capital.”
Soon-Shiong has his hands full both with a coronavirus vaccine in trial through his other company, NantWorks, and with the Times, which is searching for a new editor in chief (as well as working hard to become profitable). “Everything I hear suggests that he’s gonna take the money,” someone familiar with Soon-Shiong’s thinking told me. “I’d put the odds at 90%.” (A rep for Soon-Shiong said he did not yet have a comment on the Alden deal.)
Another potential pressure point could come from government officials in states that have Tribune newspapers. Connecticut attorney general William Tong, for instance, wrote to Alden on January 14 requesting information about its plans to acquire the whole company. Schleuss said the NewsGuild, which represents 16 Tribune newsrooms, would be stepping up its outreach to state and federal lawmakers. I asked him how likely that would be to have any effect. “I think it’s pretty likely,” he said. “A few years ago no one knew who Alden was, and now they’re a brand name for destroying local media for their own profits.”
Alden, for its part, swears that its intentions are good. In rare interviews given to The Washington Post last year, elusive Alden boss Heath Freeman said, “I would love our team to be remembered as the team that saved the newspaper business…. We have bought almost all of our newspapers out of bankruptcy. Many of these papers were left for dead, and would have been liquidated if not for [our] seasoned newspaper executive team stepping up.” Here’s the statement Alden issued about the Tribune deal: “Our commitment to ensuring the sustainability of robust local journalism is well established and this is part of that effort.”