Destroyer of newspapers eyeing America’s oldest

The fate of America’s oldest, continuously published newspaper, the 256-year-old Hartford Courant, is in the hands of a man accused by 21 United States senators of “the reckless acquisition and destruction of newspapers,” including some of the nation’s best.

Heath Freeman, the 40-year-old head of the New York hedge fund Alden Global Capital, discovered a decade ago that many of the newspapers facing bankruptcy due to the Great Recession and the competition of electronic media could be saved with thoughtful economies and a disregard for that thing called journalism.

“We saw an opportunity,” Freeman told The Washington Post, a paper fortunately owned by Amazon’s billionaire Jeff Bezos, “to help fix the broken model.”  He started by acquiring MediaNews Group, the owner of more than 50 papers, including the Denver Post, and initiating deep staff cuts.  Staff members there have staged protests, asking the hedge fund to sell the paper to someone who will restore its journalism.

Brutal cuts in the staffs of the MediaNews chain prompted the 21 senators to urge the hedge fund to stop ruining the papers in the states they serve but Freeman responded that he’s actually the savior of the newspaper business. It reminds me of the major in the Vietnam War who said he ordered his troops to “burn the village in order to save it.”

Times have been very tough for print journalism, even those not in the saving hands of Alden Global Capital.  

The industry’s news monopoly was first breached by radio news nearly a century ago. Then, television newscasts killed evening newspapers and local TV newscasts became the public’s primary source of news. But nothing has been as devastating as the internet. In the current century, the number of employees at U.S. newspapers has been cut in half, according to the Pew Research Center.

But newspapers “saved” by Alden Global have seen their staffs cut by more than 70%, says the Communication Workers of America, the union representing news and other staff members at many large city newspapers. When I worked for the Courant long ago, the Newspaper Guild would occasionally try to unionize the staff and the paper’s response would always be the announcement of raises. It always worked.

But while labor unions have suffered declining membership in recent years, except in the public sector, newspaper unions have thrived. The Harvard-based Nieman Foundation, devoted to promoting high journalistic standards, says unionization is the result of accumulated rage over downsizing, years without raises and worsening health benefits.  

The weekly Courant, founded in 1764, and the daily, which dates to 1837, were locally owned until 1977 when the paper was bought by the Los Angeles-based Times Mirror Corp. It continued to prosper — its newsroom staff peaked at nearly 400 in 1994 — until it was sold to another media giant, the Tribune Company, along with the rest of Times Mirror in 2000.

Tribune has had a rocky history of bankruptcy, multiple owners and takeover attempts by conservative outlets Fox and Sinclair in recent decades. Today, Alden Global is getting close to full control of the company and the Courant, Chicago Tribune, Baltimore Sun and other notable newspapers.

Reporters and editors at many of these papers, including, presumably, the Courant, have tried to find deep-pocketed local owners to save their papers from further cuts by Alden’s self-designated savior Heath Freeman. The Hartford City Council is considering a resolution urging the hedge fund to stop “decimating” the paper’s staff.

Local ownership by families or chains run by financially successful journalists named Pulitzer, Scripps, Sulzberger, Hearst and McCormick accounted for the newspaper’s golden era but even then, you’d find an occasional Heath Freeman.

Probably the most notable and ruthless was Frank A. Munsey, who was immortalized in a memorable obituary/editorial by the great Midwestern editor, William Allen White.

At his death in 1925, Munsey left an empire of major city newspapers he created by buying, merging and terminating properties with his eye always on the bottom line. Here was White’s “tribute:”

“Frank Munsey contributed to the journalism of his day the talent of a meat packer, the morals of a money changer and the manner of an undertaker. He and his kind have about succeeded in transforming a once-noble profession into an 8 percent security. May he rest in trust.” 

The more things change … .

 

Simsbury resident Dick Ahles is a retired journalist. Email him at rahles1@outlook.com.

 

 

 

 

The views expressed here are not necessarily those of The Millerton News and The News does not support or oppose candidates for public office.

Latest News

All are welcome at The Mahaiwe

Paquito D’Rivera performs at the Mahaiwe in Great Barrington on April 5.

Geandy Pavon

Natalia Bernal is the Mahaiwe Performing Arts Center’s education and community engagement manager and is, in her own words, “the one who makes sure that Mahaiwe events are accessible to all.”

The Mahaiwe’s community engagement program is rooted in the belief that the performing arts should be for everyone. “We are committed to establishing and growing partnerships with neighboring community and arts organizations to develop pathways for overcoming social and practical barriers,” Bernal explained. “Immigrants, people of color, communities with low income, those who have traditionally been underserved in the performing arts, should feel welcomed at the Mahaiwe.”

Keep ReadingShow less
Living with the things you love:
a conversation with Mary Randolph Carter
Mary Randolph Carter teaches us to surround ourselves with what matters to live happily ever after.
Carter Berg

There is magic in a home filled with the things we love, and Mary Randolph Carter, affectionately known as “Carter,” has spent a lifetime embracing that magic. Her latest book, “Live with the Things You Love … and You’ll Live Happily Ever After,” is about storytelling, joy, and honoring life’s poetry through the objects we keep.

“This is my tenth book,” Carter said. “At the root of each is my love of collecting, the thrill of the hunt, and living surrounded by things that conjure up family, friends, and memories.”

Keep ReadingShow less
Clued in

The first play in four years returned to the Webutuck Auditorium Friday, March 28. The production of Clue was put on entirely by students from the Webutuck Middle School and starred an ensemble cast of, from left to right, Jacob Dean as Mr. Green, Caroline Eschbach as Mrs. White, Brooke Bozydaj as Yvette, Liam Diaz as Wadsworth, Nolan Howard as Colonel Mustard, Mariah Bradley as Miss Scarlett and Lois Musgrave as Mrs. Peacock who is pictured on the floor of the stage.

Photo by Nathan Miller