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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsThe scale of local news destruction in Gannett's markets is astonishing
https://www.niemanlab.org/2023/03/the-scale-of-local-news-destruction-in-gannetts-markets-is-astonishing/Gannett, Americas largest newspaper chain, should wake up each morning thankful for the existence of No. 2 Alden Global Capital.
After all, who could ask for a better point of comparison? Alden is the perfect industry villain, a faceless private equity fund dedicated to nothing but cost-cutting and cashflow-draining. Its corporate website contains a total of 21 words, nine of which are Alden, Global, or Capital. Its run by a secretive billionaire who last gave an interview in the 1980s the sort of person who can own 15 mansions in Palm Beach and still think: I could really use a 16ththe
Its the type of company that inspires debates over whether vulturous is too kind of an adjective. If youre writing an Atlantic cover story on Who Killed Americas Newspapers? Alden Global Capital will hand you the murder weapon, already dusted for prints.
Gannett, meanwhile, is at least a newspaper company, one more than a century old. Its rarely been considered a particularly good one, mind you its reputation for cheapness and cookie-cutter products go back decades. (As The New York Times described it in 1986: a chain of mostly small and undistinguished, though highly profitable, newspapers.) But it was at least a familiar name, run by news people and with at least some dedication to its civil role in hundreds of communities.
When Alden attempted a hostile takeover in 2019, anyone who cared about local news was put in the unfamiliar position of rooting for Gannett. Heck, if you squinted hard enough, Gannett could almost feel like the good guy. (If only because people like to believe there is a good guy in their industry, somewhere or another.)
*snip*
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The scale of local news destruction in Gannett's markets is astonishing (Original Post)
Nevilledog
Mar 2023
OP
moniss
(4,242 posts)1. Sounds like
an Irwin Jacobs/Eddie Lampert/Al Dunlap type.
summer_in_TX
(2,738 posts)2. Geez. And my hometown newspaper fell
into the hands of Gannett a few years ago.
Nothing good has come of it, but the Austin-American Statesman has not shuttered it's doors. Yet.