Alden Global Capital, the hedge fund that “bleeds newspapers dry,” has acquired the San Diego Union-Tribune and, by extension, La Jolla’s local paper, the La Jolla Light. The La Jolla community newspaper has been a cornerstone of local news and life, uplifting voices and strengthening La Jolla’s neighborhood community. The San Diego Union-Tribune‘s recent change in ownership has so far had a detrimental impact on the La Jolla Light.
In July 2023, Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiong, owner of the LA Times and investment firm Nant Capital LLC, sold the San Diego Union-Tribune to Alden Global Capital, a recognized “vulture hedge fund.” The Denver-based MediaNews Group is owned by the secretive Alden Global Capital, which owns roughly 200 publications, including the New York Daily, Boston Tribune, and Chicago Tribune. Media NewsGroup has a reputation for buying smaller daily newspapers in a single area and consolidating their operations, including sharing staff writers and printing facilities. They sharply cut costs and gut newsrooms by reducing the number of journalists working on its papers, and the Washington Post previously dubbed it “one of the most ruthless of corporate strip-miners seemingly intent on destroying local journalism.”
MediaNews Group and the San Diego U-T announced the purchase on July 10th, and the staff was notified that the new owner was offering buyouts to resign. The staff was also informed that if the company did not reach a “sufficient number of employees” to take buyouts, additional layoffs would be necessary. According to NBC 7 San Diego, many long-time employees, including editor and publisher Jeff Light, immediately opted to leave the paper after the sale was announced and publicized, resulting in the loss of some of the publication’s “most seasoned journalistic voices.” It is currently unknown how deep the cuts will be in the Downtown newsroom, but an estimated 30% of employees have been cut. Alden has reportedly sold the newspaper’s real estate and bailed out on the 15-year office lease on B St. For the first time since the founding of the San Diego Union in 1868, San Diego’s newspaper does not have a headquarters, with employees working remotely.
The La Jolla Light is notably in the process of decline, with significant staff cuts in the newsroom, the switch from a full color spread to cheaper partially grey printing, and most notably, the consolidation of its staff with the Union-Tribune. Aside from guest writers like Inga, with her column Let Inga Tell You, the majority of the articles currently being printed are written by reporters from the U-T. The Light editorial team has also dwindled to only two left in the newsroom, with the leaving of reporter Elisabeth Frausto, who recently became Senior Editor for lajolla.ca
Press commentary on Alden’s media acquisitions and business activities is wholly negative. In 2021, publications from NPR to the Washington Post covered Alden’s quick rise to power as one of the largest newspaper operators in the country and their notable predatory devastation of the Chicago-Tribune. The biggest threat to local newspapers is not the rise of digital news; it’s vulture capitalism. As outlined by McKay Coppins in the Atlantic, “The model is simple: gut the staff, sell the real estate, jack up subscription prices, and wring out as much cash as possible.” Researchers at the University of Northern California found that Alden-owned newspapers have cut their staff at twice the rate of competitors, and circulation has uncoincidentally plummeted. With its predatory cost-cutting investment strategy, Alden can “operate its newspapers at a profit for years while turning out a steadily worse product, indifferent to the subscribers it’s alienating.”
In the past 15 years, more than a quarter of American newspapers have gone out of business. Today, half of all daily newspapers in the United States are controlled by financial firms. The social consequence of an absence of local news is the proliferation of misinformation, decline of civic engagement, and increased polarization. The U-T’s newsroom is now 16% of its size in 2006, and the newspaper has persevered through a slew of ownership changes since 2009. The “grim reaper of American newspapers” has set its sights on local journalism, and San Diegans have only seen the beginning of its rapid decline.
For more information, the non-profit Voice of San Diego and KPBS have been covering the acquisition.
