NewsGuild-CWA activist Veronica Serrano urged the board of directors of the Texas County and District Retirement System to divest its holdings in Cerberus Capital Management at the board’s quarterly meeting in Austin today, in a statement submitted in writing.
Continue reading “NewsGuild calls on pension funds to boot Cerberus”
The 12 unionized newsrooms of Lee Enterprises implored the Board of Directors to reject any offer by Alden Global Capital to acquire the company in a letter dated Nov. 29.
Calling Alden’s claim that it is committed to the newspaper industry a “bald-faced lie,” they urged Lee’s board to, “Stand up for us. Stand up for your investors. Stand up for your communities. Stand up against Alden.”
Continue reading “Guild leaders urge Lee board to continue the fight against Alden”
Editor’s note: This article first appeared on the website of DFMworkers.org on Nov. 23, 2021.
The executives at Florida-based hedge fund Alden Global Capital must be restless.
No longer content with extracting the lifeblood from two of the nation’s largest local newspaper chains, it’s now stalking Lee Enterprises.
Alden announced, via a Monday-morning press release, that it wants to buy all of Lee Enterprises for $24 a share, in cash.
Continue reading “Alden’s sleight-of-hand bid demands a closer look”
The union is calling on Lee’s board to reject Alden’s takeover bid.
The NewsGuild-CWA denounces the purchase offer made yesterday by Alden Global Capital for Lee Enterprises. If advanced, the deal would give Alden control of three of the four largest chains of newspapers in the United States. Such industry concentration would have a negative impact on consumers who depend on local news, employees who work for Lee papers and on our democracy.
Continue reading “NewsGuild denounces Alden’s continued bid to destroy local news”
Recommended reading: This article by McKay Coppins and published in The Atlantic, is being hailed as the definitive exposé of Alden Global Capital.
“To find the paper’s current headquarters one afternoon in late June, I took a cab across town to an industrial block west of the river. After a long walk down a windowless hallway lined with cinder-block walls, I got in an elevator, which deposited me near a modest bank of desks near the printing press. The scene was somehow even grimmer than I’d imagined. Here was one of America’s most storied newspapers—a publication that had endorsed Abraham Lincoln and scooped the Treaty of Versailles, that had toppled political bosses and tangled with crooked mayors and collected dozens of Pulitzer Prizes—reduced to a newsroom the size of a Chipotle.”
Continue reading “The Men Who Are Killing America’s Newspapers”
This article first appeared on dfmworkers.org on Sept. 23, 2021.
Saying their investments are “enabling the destruction of local news,” The NewsGuild-CWA is calling on two of the nation’s largest public pension plans to consider divesting from the private equity firm Cerberus Capital Management.
Continue reading “NewsGuild urges public pension funds to divest from Cerberus, citing the firm’s role in the destruction of local news”
Editor’s Note: This article appears in full on Nieman Lab.org.
To the ancient Greeks, Cerberus was the hound of Hades, a multi-headed dog with a serpent’s tail who kept souls from escaping the underworld. His eyes burned with fiery lava and he vomited bile.
The canine’s namesake, Cerberus Capital Management, is a private equity firm that, like Alden Global Capital, specializes in acquiring distressed businesses — and, alongside Alden, it is now in the business of devouring newsrooms in the name of profit.
Cerberus was Alden’s financial backer for its recent takeover of Tribune Publishing, but the two secretive companies have a shared history that goes back to at least 2015.
About 140 journalists at 11 newsrooms in the Southern California have formed the SCNG Guild, after 64 ballots were counted in support of unionizing, versus 19 against on Friday.
Continue reading “Journalists under hedge fund ownership overwhelming vote to form union”
Thousands of NewsGuild-CWA members, myself included, were upset by Tribune Publishing’s announcement today that shareholders approved the company’s takeover by Alden Global Capital, a hedge fund known as “the destroyer of newspapers.”
Continue reading “Tribune Publishing shareholders let everyone down”
NewsGuild units at the papers of Tribune Publishing issued the following joint statement on the vote by shareholders regarding the takeover by Alden Global Capital.
Today, Tribune Publishing shareholders voted to put profit and greed over local news in our country.
While we are saddened by the turn of events, we know that our work over the past year — to build allies in the community and to raise awareness about Alden — is not in vain. Those allies will support us as we fight against Alden to protect local news and the cuts that they will inevitably try to make.
Continue reading “Statement on Tribune Shareholders Vote from NewsGuild’s Tribune newsrooms”