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3:07 PM (48 minutes ago)
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Peter, if it feels like the financial industry has purchased your local newspaper, that's because it probably has. The New York Times reports (emphasis added):
The McClatchy family has been in journalism since 1857, when its flagship publication, The Daily Bee, chronicled the latest for residents of Sacramento in the wake of the gold rush. Now, in keeping with a trend that has placed hundreds of American news outlets in the hands of the finance industry, the McClatchy Company and its 30 newspapers are likely to end up the property of a hedge fund.
How widespread is financial industry ownership of local newspapers? So widespread that McClatchy and its 30 newspapers being purchased by a hedge fund wouldn't even make that much of a difference:
The New York hedge fund Alden Global Capital — now a media heavyweight through a subsidiary, MediaNews Group, a chain with roughly 200 newspapers — saw opportunities in distressed media properties.
Alden Global Capital's 200 newspapers doesn't even make it the biggest player on the scene:
Two of the largest newspaper chains, Gannett and GateHouse Media, merged last year into a leviathan that publishes more than 250 daily papers, including USA Today, The Detroit Free Press and The Arizona Republic. That deal was financed by a private equity fund, Apollo Global Management. The combined company, called Gannett, is controlled by another private equity fund, Fortress Investment Group, which is owned by the Japanese conglomerate SoftBank.
The results of the financial industry owning so many news outlets have been predictable: massive layoffs, less journalism, a for-profit mindset, and a less informed public.
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