• by Ray Schultz , Columnist, November 1, 2023

Alden Global Capital has been accused of gutting newsrooms since its takeover of Tribune Publishing in 2021. But the criticism has seemed muted lately.  

No more. Andrea Donohue writes in the Voice of San Diego that the hedge fund is in the process of cutting staff at The San Diego Union-Tribune, the paper Alden bought from Patrick Soon-Shiong, owner of The Los Angeles Times, in July of this year for an undisclosed sum. 

Barely two weeks after Alden acquired the Union-Tribune, Jeff Light, editor and publisher, left the paper. And that was just the start of the talent exodus made of staggered buyouts, Donohue writes. 

“Internally, one newsroom worker said employees estimate that somewhere between 60 and 80 people are left from the 108-person newsroom under Soon-Shiong,” Donohue continues. 

He adds, “Another said the mostly editorial staff meetings that used to have between 100 to120 people now feature 50 to 60…If the newsroom is now at, say, 75 people, that would be just 18 percent of its 2006 size."

Many may not realize that the La Jolla Light was also acquired during that transaction. 

This is not some small town: San Diego is a major city and military center that, like Chicago, may now see its local journalism suffering. 

Alden is not the only hedge fund in the journalism game. Nor is it the only one accused of reducing newsrooms. But it symbolizes much of what is wrong in the news business: a bottom-line approach that puts short-term profits above product-building. 

You may recall that Alden acquired Tribune Publishing, publisher of The Chicago Tribune, The Baltimore Sun and numerous other newspapers, for a reported $633 million in 2021. 

The Union-Tribune was “big and important and it employed a lot of journalists at one point, and many of them were quite good,” Donohue writes. “The paper won a Pulitzer Prize in 2006 for a stunning investigation that sent Congressman Randy “Duke” Cunningham to prison for spectacular corruption. It had bureaus in Washington, D.C. and Mexico City. Even when it wasn’t great, it was at least there: watching meetings of the City Council, school board, supervisors, Port of San Diego and more.”    

We’ll see if that tradition continues.