Alden | The NewsGuild

Boundless Greed: Alden walks away from bills, gathers wealth and guts news organizations

The founders of Alden Global Capital — the infamous ‘destroyer of newspapers’ — are walking away from unpaid bills as they amass ever more personal wealth (and continue to gut news organizations)

Editor’s Note: The article first appeared on the website Save Local News on Sept. 23.

Randall Smith, cofounder of the hedge fund Alden Global Capital, is infamous for two things: gutting local newspapers and a voracious acquisition of pricey real estate.

Guild’s Tribune-owned units win big victory: NLRB issues complaint on healthcare changes

The NewsGuild’s Tribune-owned units won an important victory Monday when the National Labor Relations Board issued a complaint against the company for unilaterally changing employees’ healthcare benefits in October 2021.

Newsletter: We are worth more.

Subscribe to the Guild’s newsletter here.

Over the weekend there was devastating news out of Buffalo, N.Y. Ten people were killed and three wounded when a gunman opened fire in a supermarket on Saturday in an act of racist violence. My heart goes out to the people of Buffalo, which is known as the city of good neighbors. I commend the brave reporting by Buffalo Newspaper Guild journalists. Members “jumped into action to faithfully tell the story. It’s a task we will continue to vigorously pursue.”

Morning Call journalists walk out

Unionized journalists at the Morning Call in Allentown, PA, staged a one-day work stoppage on May 13 to send a message to Tribune Publishing and Alden Global Capital: It’s time for them to stop devaluing the journalists’ work.

Newsletter: Packing bargaining to deliver a message

Subscribe to the Guild’s newsletter here.

Workers at the Chicago Reader took to the streets to save their publication. Last Tuesday they tweeted “We won,” after co-owner Len Goodman stepped down, ending his attempt to delay the publication’s transition to a nonprofit.

America needs stronger reviews of news company mergers

Gannett and GateHouse merged in 2019.

Alden Global Capital gobbled up Tribune Publishing in 2021.

Alden made a play for Lee Enterprises in 2022 – and may make another.

“Consolidation is killing local news,” said NewsGuild President Jon Schleuss. “We will continue to fight consolidation and we call on the federal government to review news industry megamergers by examining how they negatively impact workers, readers, communities, local reporting and U.S. democracy.”

Newsletter: Could a Pulitzer do it?

Subscribe to the Guild’s newsletter here.

First, I hope you have been staying safe! After about two years of avoiding COVID, I came down with it along with several others (in unrelated gatherings). The pandemic is still very much here. Please take steps to get vaccinated, boosted, test yourself regularly if you can and wear a mask if you’re around other people indoors. I luckily healed quickly, but know many who are still suffering from the lingering effects of the virus. So, please take care of yourself and each other.

Could the chance to win a Pulitzer motivate news organizations to be transparent about diversity – or the lack of diversity – in their newsrooms? That’s the question Meredith Clark, Sisi Wei, I and others have been asking for awhile.

Newsletter: Miami walks out, Buzzfeed authorizes a strike and Condé union gets bigger

Subscribe to the Guild’s newsletter here.

Journalists at Condé Nast are forming a company-wide union that, once certified, will cover more than 500 media employees! The Condé Nast Union will represent workers at the firm’s iconic magazines, including Vogue, Bon Appétit, Vanity Fair, Architectural Digest, and GQ. It will be one of the biggest units in recent NewsGuild history.

NewsGuild urges public pension funds to divest from Cerberus

The shadow bank’s legacy includes controversial investments, lawsuits and financing the destruction of local news

Editor’s Note: This story first appeared on SaveLocalNews.org on March 31, 2022.

Citing a New York shadow bank’s dual track record of “funding gun violence and death” and the destruction of local news, the NewsGuild-CWA is urging two of the nation’s largest public pension funds to divest from Cerberus Capital Management.

Newsletter: Meet the new Guild staffers

Subscribe to the Guild’s newsletter here.

This every-other-week newsletter is packed with a lot of news. My hope is that we help communicate all the fights of our members through this newsletter and build solidarity within the Guild. Can you do me a favor and forward this newsletter to at least one of your colleagues and ask them to subscribe?

Folks can subscribe right here.

We’ve got two new staffers! I’m thrilled to announce them after a lot of work to make it happen. Danielle Newsome (she/her) joins us as a new staff representative, with a focus on the jobs that used to be part of the Guild’s director of collective bargaining. This comes after all of our discussions last year to increase capacity and provide more support to our locals. And while CWA still has a hiring freeze, this position was created after the passage of the SMART resolution at CWA’s October Convention.