A weekly newspaper publisher in Northern California is selling stock to its readers, who hope to save their paper and, some of them believe, democracy.
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.
Newspaper circulation is down sharply, and so is employment in the newspaper industry. Financial cutbacks have led to the shutdown of nearly 1,800 daily and weekly newspapers since 2004. Two developments this week brought the issue into further focus. Facebook, whose success has contributed to the news business’ decline, announced Tuesday it would invest $300 million over three years in news initiatives with an emphasis in local coverage. More ominously, the hedge fund-backed Digital First Media, known for sharp cost-cutting strategies, bid to buy Gannett Co. , the publisher of USA Today and several daily newspapers across the country.
The Wall Street Journal, citing “people familiar with the matter,” reported Monday that MNG, Enterprises, better known as Digital First Media, which is backed by a hedge fund, holds 7.5% of Gannett’s stock and has been rebuffed repeatedly by the company when it has approached it about a sale. Digital First plans to offer to buy Gannett for $12 per share, nearly a quarter above its closing share price Friday of $9.75.
Gannett, owner of USA Today and the nation’s largest newspaper chain, has instructed its head-hunting firm to look for candidates outside the newspaper industry as it searches for a new CEO. The incumbent, Robert Dickey, 61, announced last month that he will step down in mid-May.
Tribune Publishing Co.’s talks over a potential takeover by McClatchy Co. have ended without a deal for the regional newspaper owner, according to people familiar with the matter. Tribune Publishing rejected a fully financed cash-and-stock offer from McClatchy valuing the company at $16.50 a share, said the people, who asked not to be identified because the details aren’t public. Tribune Publishing is talking to other potential buyers, one of the people said.
Exclusives
One-in-five U.S. adults say they often get news via social media, slightly higher than the share who often do so from print newspapers (16%) for the first time since Pew Research Center began asking these questions. In 2017, the portion who got news via social media was about equal to the portion who got news from print newspapers.
DMA 3: CHICAGO
Chicago Sun-Times Brings Back TV Listings
DIGITAL DEFEATS PRINT
Gannett Drops Printed Election Results
In cities across America, you won’t be able to find even the most cursory election results in your Wednesday morning newspaper next week. Is this speeding up newspapers’ transition to digital — or just burning a bridge they still need to cross?
QUARTERLY REPORT
The New York Times Now Has 4M Subs
The New York Times now has more subscribers than at any time in the newspaper’s history. The newspaper announced the milestone Thursday along with its third quarter earnings results. It now has 4 million total subscribers, with about 3 million of those subscribers receiving the digital only edition.
Newspaper giant Tribune Publishing has finally put its lengthy, floundering sale process on the clock. The Chicago-based company formerly known as Tronc — which owns the Chicago Tribune, the Baltimore Sun and the struggling New York Daily News — has asked suitors to submit first-round buyout bids by Thursday.
It will add 11 technology roles based in San Francisco, Seattle and Washington.
Two years after the parent company of the Chicago Tribune renamed itself Tronc, it’s going back to calling itself Tribune Publishing, the company announced Thursday. The name change, which formally takes effect Tuesday, will close a sorry chapter in the history of the Chicago media giant, which drew nearly universal revulsion and ridicule when it unleashed Tronc on the world in June 2016.
Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiong, the Los Angeles health care billionaire, has apparently shifted sides and is now backing the bid by McClatchy Co. to take over Tronc, owner of the Chicago Tribune, the Baltimore Sun and the struggling Daily News. He had originally backed a bid by hedgie Will Wyatt’s Donerail Group to take over Tronc — but a rift developed between the two in recent weeks, sources say.
Tronc is looking for a new director of labor relations, and one of the job responsibilities will be “maintaining the non-union status of the unorganized employee population.”
The bid by Will Wyatt’s Donerail Group hedge fund to buy Tronc, owner of the Chicago Tribune and the New York Daily News, “is progressing,” but no deal is done yet. Odds of getting one done are improving, however, says one source close to the situation.
James Bennet, the Times’s Opinion editor, discusses the origin of the Trump administration’s bewitching cry for help.
NEWS ANALYSIS
Tronc May Be Chopped Up, Sold For Parts
Rupert Murdoch owning the New York Daily News? A McCormick controlling the Chicago Tribune again? The L.A. Times pulling a Washington Post, aiming to run the industry’s underlying infrastructure? A lot of change is coming soon.
NEW YORK (AP) — Newspapers from Maine to Hawaii pushed back against President Donald Trump’s attacks on “fake news” with a coordinated series of editorials in defense of a free […]
About 350 newspapers will all have one thing in common on Thursday: A statement supporting the free press and decrying President Trump’s attacks against the media.
Donerail Group, an investment firm led by former activist hedge fund Starboard Value LP executive Will Wyatt, is in talks to acquire Tronc Inc., the publisher of Chicago Tribune and other newspapers, people familiar with the matter said on Thursday.
Scott Kraft becomes managing editor. Kris Viesselman, on Monday joined The Times in the newly created position of chief transformation editor and creative director. Kimi Yoshino, 46, who has served as business editor for the last four years, becomes deputy managing editor, overseeing sports, business, arts, entertainment and lifestyle coverage.
Tronc Inc., the newly slimmed-down newspaper publisher, could get even slimmer. After completing the sale of the Los Angeles Times to billionaire Patrick Soon-Shiong, the Chicago-based company must now decide whether to […]
The New York billionaire’s buyout shop Apollo Global Management is eyeing an acquisition of publishing empire Tronc — swooping in as negotiations to sell the company’s Los Angeles Times and San Diego Union-Tribune papers have stalled.
Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiong, who will soon take over the newspaper, dropped a bombshell to employees on Friday: He is moving the offices to El Segundo.
The newspaper took the unusual step of using its pages to publicly excoriate its out-of-town owner on Sunday. A civic group wants to return the paper to local ownership.
Former Los Angeles Times editor-in-chief Lewis D’Vorkin and dozens of other employees of Tronc Inc. were dismissed on Thursday. The cuts, which were made in a joint meeting with all the laid off employees present, included Tribune Interactive’s Los Angeles-based video and online content teams, which operate separately from the Los Angeles Times. No information on the total number of layoffs was immediately available.
The Washington Post now has about 25 people working on retention as it seeks to grow its digital subscriptions, now at 1 million.
Gannett veteran Maribel Perez Wadsworth is the new publisher of USA Today. She currently is president of the USA Today Network, which includes USA Today as well as 109 other media brands across the country. She takes the reins as incumbent publisher John Zidich retires.
