“If you don’t have a newspaper staff who points out when things aren’t working, there is no impetus behind trying to put somebody new in, right?”
Margaret Sullivan: “Given the tumult in the realm of government and politics, the dire state of the local newspaper industry may seem minor. But it’s of crucial importance to the future of the nation. Local watchdog journalism matters. More than 2,000 local newspapers — mostly weeklies — have gone out of business in the past 15 years … and the pace of that loss has quickened.”
Shareholders cleared the way Thursday for New Media Investment Group and USA Today owner Gannett to join forces in a deal that will create the largest U.S. media company by print circulation, and one that will also vie for the biggest online news audience nationwide. In separate votes, shareholders of each company approved New Media’s $1.13 billion acquisition of Gannett. The companies can now move forward to finalize the deal, which is expected to close Tuesday, Nov. 19.
The Salt Lake Tribune is now a nonprofit, an unprecedented transformation for a legacy U.S. daily that is intended to bolster its financial prospects during a troubling time for journalism nationwide.
Exclusives
The FCC held a meeting with private equity firm Apollo Global Management this week to ask questions about its agreement to finance New Media Investment’s planned purchase of Gannett Co., the publisher of USA Today, sources say. The FCC is concerned that the $1.8 billion loan Apollo is providing to finance the merger could violate its duopoly laws, sources say.
The Las Vegas Sun filed a new federal lawsuit against the Las Vegas Review-Journal. The civil complaint filed Tuesday in U.S. District Court in Las Vegas alleges unfair trade practices. The federal antitrust lawsuit adds to a breach-of-contract complaint filed in state court more than a year ago.
Executives from seven newspaper companies lobbied Capitol Hill this week to urge Congress to pass the “Journalism Competition and Preservation Act,” a bill that fights the dominance of tech companies like Google and Facebook in the digital content business.
GateHouse and Gannett say their $1.4 billion merger will allow GateHouse to accelerate its newspapers’ move to digital while paying down huge sums GateHouse borrowed in order to fund the acquisition. But it’s unclear exactly how it will make that happen.
Deseret News Adds Former CNN Senior Producer
Jill Chappell Adly is joining the Salt Lake City’s Deseret News as director of strategic reach and development to further extend the reach and influence of its news coverage and […]
GateHouse Media, a chain backed by an investment firm, is buying USA Today owner Gannett Co. for $12.06 a share in cash and stock, or about $1.4 billion. The combined company would have more than 260 daily papers in the U.S. along with more than 300 weeklies.
After 114 Years, Chicago Defender Ends Print Run
Reporters at the Capital Gazette in Anapolis, Md., who survived the worst attack on journalists in U.S. history say the trauma has not faded, but their connection with their readers is a source of comfort and inspiration.
READING, Pa. (AP) — The new owners of the Reading (Pa.) Eagle plan to lay off more than a third of the staff after they assume control of the 150-year-old […]
The Wall Street Journal reports that USA Today publisher Gannett Co. has recently held merger talks with GateHouse Media, according to people familiar with the matter, a possible deal that would bring together the nation’s two largest newspaper groups by circulation. Journal subscribers can read the full story here.
The two largest newspaper chains in the country, USA Today publisher Gannett and Chicago Tribune owner Tribune, may reignite merger talks, now that both have dispatched with hostile takeovers by smaller suitors. Sources say that there have already been back-door reach-outs in recent months.
Gannett, the nation’s largest newspaper chain, notched an important victory Thursday in its attempt to fend off a hostile takeover bid. The company, which publishes USA Today, announced that all eight of its board nominees won election based on the results of a preliminary vote. That’s a rejection of Digital First Media’s efforts to win control of Gannett by installing its own board members.
MNG Enterprises, which has dramatically slashed head count at newspapers like the Boston Herald and the Denver Post, stepped up its bid to acquire USA Today publisher Gannett on Tuesday by urging shareholders to help it replace the company’s board.
In tweets over the past week, Trump repeated his contention that the mainstream media is the enemy of the people, and said the Times’ and Post’s Pulitzers should be stripped. The Times, in response, tweeted a picture of its Pulitzer winners and noted that every story cited in their prize-winning entry has been proven correct.
Newspaper circulation in the U.S. has declined every year for three decades, while advertising revenue has nosedived since 2006, according to the Pew Research Center. Staffing at newspapers large and small has followed that grim trendline: Pew says the number of reporters, editors, photographers and other newsroom employees in the industry fell by 45 percent nationwide between 2004 and 2017.
Newspapers are closing or being consolidated at an astounding rate, often leaving behind what researchers label as news deserts — towns and even entire counties that have no consistent local media coverage.
Four print reporters, including one from The Associated Press, were barred from a press availability as Trump sat down for dinner with Kim, the leader of a country where there is no press freedom. That came after two of those reporters asked questions of the president during earlier events at the summit, including one query about upcoming congressional testimony from Trump’s former lawyer, Michael Cohen, that was critical of the president.
Journalists Need To Get Over Themselves
Columbia Journalism Review’s Kyle Pope: “We have to be willing to try something new. Journalism’s next great project has to be not looking in the mirror (which we’ve become quite good at over the past two years, first obsessing over every flaw and blemish, then staring in awe at our own self-importance) but honestly assessing how others see us, and how we can see them better.”
The idea that you would collaborate with your competitor when you’re fighting for ratings is anathema to broadcasters. But it may be a key part of how local news remains sustainable.
New York Times Publisher A.G. Sulzberger on Wednesday responded to President Trump‘s attacks against the newspaper, saying that calling the media the “enemy of the people” is both “false” and “dangerous.”
President Trump on Wednesday labeled The New York Times “a true enemy of the people” one day after an extensive report detailing the ways in which he has sought to influence the investigations into his presidency and allies. The president’s tweet did not refute any specific reporting from the Times, but marked yet another escalation in his sustained attacks on his hometown paper and the media as a whole.
Alden Global Capital’s strategy: Buy newspapers, slash jobs, sell the buildings. Now it’s bidding to buy Gannett, operator of the nation’s largest chain of daily newspapers by circulation, including USA Today — as well as its $900 million in remaining property and equipment — for more than $1.3 billion.
The company is near its goal of $800 million in digital revenue ahead of a 2020 target. Paying subscribers rose to 4.3 million, a record.
Gannett, the nation’s largest newspaper chain and the publisher of USA Today, rejected a takeover bid by MNG Enterprises, the hedge fund-owned company also known as Digital First Media, on Monday. The decision by Gannett’s board of directors was unanimous.
