#alden global capital

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Red Lobster was killed by private equity, not Endless Shrimp

For the rest of May, my bestselling solarpunk utopian novel THE LOST CAUSE (2023) is available as a $2.99, DRM-free ebook!

A decade ago, a hedge fund had an improbable viral comedy hit: a 294-page slide deck explaining why Olive Garden was going out of business, blaming the failure on too many breadsticks and insufficiently salted pasta-water:

https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/940944/000092189514002031/ex991dfan14a06297125_091114.pdf

Everyone loved this story. As David Dayen wrote for Salon, it let readers "mock that silly chain restaurant they remember from their childhoods in the suburbs" and laugh at "the silly hedge fund that took the time to write the world’s worst review":

https://www.salon.com/2014/09/17/the_real_olive_garden_scandal_why_greedy_hedge_funders_suddenly_care_so_much_about_breadsticks/

But – as Dayen wrote at the time, the hedge fund that produced that slide deck, Starboard Value, was not motivated by dissatisfaction with bread-sticks. They were "activist investors" (finspeak for "rapacious assholes") with a giant stake in Darden Restaurants, Olive Garden's parent company. They wanted Darden to liquidate all of Olive Garden's real-estate holdings and declare a one-off dividend that would net investors a billion dollars, while literally yanking the floor out from beneath Olive Garden, converting it from owner to tenant, subject to rent-shocks and other nasty surprises.

They wanted to asset-strip the company, in other words ("asset strip" is what they call it in hedge-fund land; the mafia calls it a "bust-out," famous to anyone who watched the twenty-third episode of The Sopranos):

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bust_Out

Starboard didn't have enough money to force the sale, but they had recently engineered the CEO's ouster. The giant slide-deck making fun of Olive Garden's food was just a PR campaign to help it sell the bust-out by creating a narrative that they were being activists* to save this badly managed disaster of a restaurant chain.

*assholes

Starboard was bent on eviscerating Darden like a couple of entrail-maddened dogs in an elk carcass:

https://web.archive.org/web/20051220005944/http://alumni.media.mit.edu/~solan/dogsinelk/

They had forced Darden to sell off another of its holdings, Red Lobster, to a hedge-fund called Golden Gate Capital. Golden Gate flogged all of Red Lobster's real estate holdings for $2.1 billion the same day, then pissed it all away on dividends to its shareholders, including Starboard. The new landlords, a Real Estate Investment Trust, proceeded to charge so much for rent on those buildings Red Lobster just flogged that the company's net earnings immediately dropped by half.

Dayen ends his piece with these prophetic words:

Olive Garden and Red Lobster may not be destinations for hipster Internet journalists, and they have seen revenue declines amid stagnant middle-class wages and increased competition. But they are still profitable businesses. Thousands of Americans work there. Why should they be bled dry by predatory investors in the name of “shareholder value”? What of the value of worker productivity instead of the financial engineers?

Flash forward a decade. Today, Dayen is editor-in-chief of The American Prospect, one of the best sources of news about private equity looting in the world. Writing for the Prospect, Luke Goldstein picks up Dayen's story, ten years on:

https://prospect.org/economy/2024-05-22-raiding-red-lobster/

It's not pretty. Ten years of being bled out on rents and flipped from one hedge fund to another has killed Red Lobster. It just shuttered 50 restaurants and declared Chapter 11 bankruptcy. Ten years hasn't changed much; the same kind of snark that was deployed at the news of Olive Garden's imminent demise is now being hurled at Red Lobster.

Instead of dunking on free bread-sticks, Red Lobster's grave-dancers are jeering at "Endless Shrimp," a promotional deal that works exactly how it sounds like it would work. Endless Shrimp cost the chain $11m.

Which raises a question: why did Red Lobster make this money-losing offer? Are they just good-hearted slobs? Can't they do math?

Or, you know, was it another hedge-fund, bust-out scam?

Here's a hint. The supplier who provided Red Lobster with all that shrimp is Thai Union. Thai Union also owns Red Lobster. They bought the chain from Golden Gate Capital, last seen in 2014, holding a flash-sale on all of Red Lobster's buildings, pocketing billions, and cutting Red Lobster's earnings in half.

Red Lobster rose to success – 700 restaurants nationwide at its peak – by combining no-frills dining with powerful buying power, which it used to force discounts from seafood suppliers. In response, the seafood industry consolidated through a wave of mergers, turning into a cozy cartel that could resist the buyer power of Red Lobster and other major customers.

This was facilitated by conservation efforts that limited the total volume of biomass that fishers were allowed to extract, and allocated quotas to existing companies and individual fishermen. The costs of complying with this "catch management" system were high, punishingly so for small independents, bearably so for large conglomerates.

Competition from overseas fisheries drove consolidation further, as countries in the global south were blocked from implementing their own conservation efforts. US fisheries merged further, seeking economies of scale that would let them compete, largely by shafting fishermen and other suppliers. Today's Alaskan crab fishery is dominated by a four-company cartel; in the Pacific Northwest, most fish goes through a single intermediary, Pacific Seafood.

These dominant actors entered into illegal collusive arrangements with one another to rig their markets and further immiserate their suppliers, who filed antitrust suits accusing the companies of operating a monopsony (a market with a powerful buyer, akin to a monopoly, which is a market with a powerful seller):

https://www.classaction.org/news/pacific-seafood-under-fire-for-allegedly-fixing-prices-paid-to-dungeness-crabbers-in-pacific-northwest

Golden Gate bought Red Lobster in the midst of these fish wars, promising to right its ship. As Goldstein points out, that's the same promise they made when they bought Payless shoes, just before they destroyed the company and flogged it off to Alden Capital, the hedge fund that bought and destroyed dozens of America's most beloved newspapers:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/10/16/sociopathic-monsters/#all-the-news-thats-fit-to-print

Under Golden Gate's management, Red Lobster saw its staffing levels slashed, so diners endured longer wait times to be seated and served. Then, in 2020, they sold the company to Thai Union, the company's largest supplier (a transaction Goldstein likens to a Walmart buyout of Procter and Gamble).

Thai Union continued to bleed Red Lobster, imposing more cuts and loading it up with more debts financed by yet another private equity giant, Fortress Investment Group. That brings us to today, with Thai Union having moved a gigantic amount of its own product through a failing, debt-loaded subsidiary, even as it lobbies for deregulation of American fisheries, which would let it and its lobbying partners drain American waters of the last of its depleted fish stocks.

Dayen's 2020 must-read book Monopolized describes the way that monopolies proliferate, using the US health care industry as a case-study:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/01/29/fractal-bullshit/#dayenu

After deregulation allowed the pharma sector to consolidate, it acquired pricing power of hospitals, who found themselves gouged to the edge of bankruptcy on drug prices. Hospitals then merged into regional monopolies, which allowed them to resist pharma pricing power – and gouge health insurance companies, who saw the price of routine care explode. So the insurance companies gobbled each other up, too, leaving most of us with two or fewer choices for health insurance – even as insurance prices skyrocketed, and our benefits shrank.

Today, Americans pay more for worse healthcare, which is delivered by health workers who get paid less and work under worse conditions. That's because, lacking a regulator to consolidate patients' interests, and strong unions to consolidate workers' interests, patients and workers are easy pickings for those consolidated links in the health supply-chain.

That's a pretty good model for understanding what's happened to Red Lobster: monopoly power and monopsony power begat more monopolies and monoposonies in the supply chain. Everything that hasn't consolidated is defenseless: diners, restaurant workers, fishermen, and the environment. We're all fucked.

Decent, no-frills family restaurant are good. Great, even. I'm not the world's greatest fan of chain restaurants, but I'm also comfortably middle-class and not struggling to afford to give my family a nice night out at a place with good food, friendly staff and reasonable prices. These places are easy pickings for looters because the people who patronize them have little power in our society – and because those of us with more power are easily tricked into sneering at these places' failures as a kind of comeuppance that's all that's due to tacky joints that serve the working class.

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/05/23/spineless/#invertebrates

[msclaritea]

Alden Global Capital - Wikipedia

Alden Global Capital along with Denver, Colorado based Digital First Media, were started by men with an advancement from Bull Gates Foundation, are controversially known for being too aggressive in how much they cut from the businesses they buy, are Jewish American and YES, it matters if this country does not matter to them. It sounds like the U.S. doesn't matter worth a damn to Alden Global. They are the second largest holder of newspapers and have almost singlehandedly killed off our national, interview, public transportation. Tell me this, along with all of the land Gates has been buying, does not sound just like pushing Americans out of more and more spaces?

[iww-gnv]

CHICAGO (AP) — More than 200 reporters, photographers and other staffers with the Chicago Tribune and six other newsrooms around the nation began a 24-hour strike Thursday to protest years of “slow-walked” contract negotiations and to demand fair wages. The strike, which includes 76 members of the Chicago Tribune reporting staff, photographers and some editors, began at 5 a.m., said Caroline Kubzansky, a member of the Chicago Tribune Guild who is a general assignment reporter for the newspaper. It is the latest recent strike in the U.S. news industry. The striking workers are employees of Alden Global Capital, a New York hedge fund that has been buying up newspapers across the country and facing criticism for slashing budgets and cutting jobs. The NewsGuild-CWA, which represents the employees, said the workers participating in the 24-hour strike are demanding fair wages and that management not eliminate their 401(k) match benefits. It said the staffers “have been fighting for a contract through their unions for as long as five years.”

[odinsblog]

“All this happening at once is really startling,” said Joseph Schwieterman, a DePaul University professor who researches intercity bus travel and directs the university’s Chaddick Institute for Metropolitan Development. “You’re taking mobility away from disproportionately low-income and mobility-challenged citizens who don’t have other options.”

Roughly three-quarters of intercity bus riders have annual incomes of less than $40,000. More than a quarter would not make their trip if bus service was not available, according to surveys by Midwestern governments reviewed by DePaul University.

Intercity bus riders are also disproportionately minorities, people with disabilities, and unemployed travelers.

A spokesperson for Greyhound, which is now owned by German company FlixMobility, said it strives to offer customers the most options for connections, but has “encountered challenges in some instances.” The spokesperson also said they “actively engage with local stakeholders to emphasize the importance of supporting affordable and equitable intercity bus travel.”

The terminal closures have been accelerating as Greyhound, the largest carrier, sells its valuable terminals to investors, including investment firm Alden Global Capital.

Last year, Alden subsidiary Twenty Lake Holdings purchased 33 Greyhound stations for $140 million. Alden is best known for buying up local newspapers like The Chicago Tribune, New York Daily News and The Baltimore Sun, cutting staff, and selling some of the iconic downtown buildings.

Alden has started to sell the Greyhound depots to real estate developers, speeding up the timetable for closures.

“I don’t know the specific details of each building, but it is clear what is happening here: an important piece of transit infrastructure is being sacrificed in the name of higher profits,” said Stijn Van Nieuwerburgh, a professor of real estate at Columbia Business School.

“The public sector has turned a cold shoulder to buses,” DePaul’s Schwieterman said. “We subsidize public transit abundantly, but we don’t see this as an extension of our transit system. Few governments view it as their mandate.”

Bus terminals are costly for companies to operate, maintain and pay property taxes on. Many have deteriorated over the years, becoming blighted properties struggling with homelessness, crime and other issues.

But terminal closures cause a ripple effect of problems.

Travelers can’t use the bathroom, stay out of the harsh weather or get something to eat while they wait. People transferring late at night or early in the morning, sometimes with long layovers, have no place to safely wait or sleep. It’s worse in the cold, rain, snow or extreme heat.

Bus carriers often try to switch to curbside service when a terminal closes, but curbside bus service can clog up city streets with passengers and their luggage, snarl traffic, increase pollution, and frustrate local business owners. In Philadelphia, a Greyhound terminal closure and switch to curbside service after its lease ended turned into a “humanitarian disaster” and “municipal disgrace” with people waiting on street corners.

(continue reading)

[anniekoh]

elsewhere on the internet: the internet

How Facebook Screwed Us All (Mother Jones, 2019)

First, starting in the 2000s, came the giant migration of advertising dollars from publishers to Facebook and Google. Today, the two control an estimated 58 percent of the US digital ad market, with Amazon, Microsoft, and the like dividing up the rest and publishers representing barely a rounding error. In large part as a result, there are now roughly 24,000 journalists working in America’s daily print newsrooms, down from some 56,000 in the early 2000s. And more and more of them work for hedge-fund owners who milk what remains of newspapers’ profits—mostly through layoffs—while further degrading coverage. Here in the Bay Area, all the daily papers except the San Francisco Chronicle are owned by one of these hedge funds, Alden Global Capital. There were once more than 1,000 journalists working for these papers, including 440 at the San Jose-based Mercury News, then one of the nation’s strongest regional outlets. Today there are 145 left across more than two dozen publications, covering a region of 7.6 million people.

Tech’s Reckoning (Ed Zitron, 2023)

Raising capital — especially at the scale that Reddit has — always leads to the bill coming due. Every time that Reddit has had to raise money, it has had to express how it will grow its userbase, its headcount, and its revenue. Every time that Reddit has taken on hundreds of millions of dollars of equity funding, it has promised these investors that Reddit will, as a result of the cash injection, become bigger and more fiscally valuable, and each raise has been paired with more promises about how much more Reddit can be worth. And now Reddit has put itself in a corner, promising shadowy organizations like Tencent that their money was well-spent.

Elon Musk broke Twitter, and he's breaking research communities, too. (Paul Musgrave, 2023)

The awful thing, of course, is that in lighting his own money on fire Elon has also decided to knock away the good part of Twitter. Twitter has, over the past decade, come to provide invisible but load-bearing supports for researchers and academics. It’s been a great way for those of us at out-of-the-way institutions to bring visibility to our arguments and research profile (and if you think Amherst isn’t out-of-the-way, just ask someone who’s Boston or New York-based to come out—a drive that we would do without thinking is a major imposition for those in the metropole). We know that scholarly conferences spur connections and research productivity; Twitter has been the conference bar or the post-panel chatter available 24/7 and across (most) borders. It’s accelerated research dissemination and it’s brought me and others into contact with people we otherwise never would have met. And it also connected us to editors and publishers in ways that did more to enrich and diversify the discourse than any number of assistant vice provosts for JEDI initiatives.

[fadingsunsjvj]

My Newspaper Was Gutted by Journalism’s Biggest Bogeyman – Mother Jones

[unitedventurez]

Eight Newspapers Sue Microsoft And OpenAI For Unauthorized Use Of Articles

A group of U.S. newspapers initiated legal action against Microsoft and OpenAI, alleging that the technology companies are using their articles without permission in generative artificial intelligence products and attributing inaccurate information to them.

The lawsuit filed by eight newspapers, including the New York Daily News and Chicago Tribune, is focused on the usage of ChatGPT and Microsoft’s Copilot assistant, which are integrated into various Microsoft products such as the Windows operating system and the Bing search engine.

The other six newspapers are The Orlando Sentinel, the Sun Sentinel in Florida, The Mercury News in California, The Denver Post, The Orange County Register in California, and the Pioneer Press of Minnesota.

All eight are owned by investment firm Alden Global Capital’s MediaNews Group.

The complaint filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York on Tuesday said ChatGPT and Copilot unlawfully appropriated millions of copyrighted articles from the publishers without obtaining permission or providing compensation.

According to the lawsuit, OpenAI has drawn on data sets containing text from their newspapers to train its GPT-2 and GPT-3 large language models. These models can generate text in response to minimal human input.

The publishers also claim that Microsoft incorporates information from their newspapers into the Bing search index, which in turn influences the responses provided by Copilot. However, these responses often lack links to newspaper websites, where readers can access advertisements alongside articles or subscribe to the publications.

The lawsuit comes four months after The New York Times filed a similar challenge against OpenAI for copyright infringement related to the ChatGPT chatbot.

In recent months, OpenAI has entered into agreements with several media companies, such as Axel Springer and the Financial Times, allowing the startup to use the publishers’ content to enhance its AI models.

Meanwhile, Google, which operates its own general-purpose chatbot for responding to user queries, announced in February that it had struck a deal with Reddit, granting it the right to train AI models using content from the platform.

Reacting to the reports of the lawsuit, an OpenAI spokesperson acknowledged the concerns raised by Alden Global Capital and said the company is committed to supporting news organizations.

The spokesperson highlighted OpenAI’s ongoing efforts to engage in constructive partnerships and discussions with various news organizations globally to address concerns and explore opportunities. The spokesperson also cited the potential of AI tools like ChatGPT to strengthen publishers’ connections with readers and improve the news consumption experience.

[lyndentree63]

Because I've been cranky about it all day. . . anti-chemical influencers really get under my skin in a way that a lot of things can't. You know, the 'naturemama' Instagram influencer who constantly makes infographics about the scary chemicals in your everyday skincare and how you should buy organic latex crib mattresses for your baby. It's the scrupulosity that really gets under my skin. . . it's purity culture, rebranded. An unholy blend of white supremacy and capitalism, with fear and control underneath. It's the prosperity gospel: do the Right Things and you'll be safe, happy and healthy.

But that's just not how the world works. You can do all the right things and still get sick with something.

You can do all the right things but your neighbours don't and the government doesn't and the forests up north are burning and now you can't function due to wildfire smoke.

It's also a capitalistic lie, that you can buy yourself into health and wellbeing, by purchasing 'natural' or 'organic' or 'non-toxic' products. Over-consumption is what's killing our planet.

The focus on individual action, and buying stuff is why I fly into a RAGE encountering these influencers on social media. Because unfortunately, individual action is not enough! And that sucks! We can't control other people, but we NEED other people. And that's the terrifying thing about being human. Pretending you can save yourself by your own actions is a fundamental denial of reality.

And pretending that you can buy your way out of that fundamental terror of being human is actually, ironically, what's causing a lot of issues in the world via greed and overconsumption.

My liberation is bound up in your liberation. . . It's TERRIFYING but it's also TRUE and pretending that we can save ourselves through avoiding toxic ingredients in whatever just causes more issues for all of us.

AND THEN the other thing that drives me nuts is that these influencers will almost always freak out about food and cosmetics, but ignore stuff like. . . cars. Which outright kill 1.19 million people every year, and cause so many other health issues through long-term injury, pollution, noise, and global warming.

Or textiles. Which are pretty much completely unregulated and have all kinds of actually nasty chemicals in them that haven't been properly studied (read To Dye For by Alden Wicker for more about this). But oh nooooo your chicken wasn't grass raised organic you'll probably DIE.

I'm just really tired of people freaking out about things that are decently well-regulated and mostly safe (cosmetics, food) while completely ignoring stuff that either has no regulation (textiles, clothing) or does demonstrable harm (cars).

And I'm really tired of the self-absorbed and capitalistic messages of 'you need to switch out your skincare for non-toxic natural stuff because SCARY CHEMICALS'.

[media-bias-fact-check]

Eight Major U.S. Newspapers Sue OpenAI and Microsoft for Copyright Infringement

Eight Major U.S. Newspapers Sue OpenAI and Microsoft for Copyright Infringement

Eight leading U.S. newspapers, owned by Alden Global Capital, have filed a lawsuit against OpenAI and Microsoft for copyright infringement. This action, filed in the Southern District of New York, adds weight to publishers’ claims, following a similar case by the New York Times. Until now, the Times was the only major newspaper to sue AI companies for copyright infringement. Other news…

[influencermagazineuk]

US Newspapers Sue Microsoft and OpenAI for Copyright Infringement Over AI Training

A group of newspapers, including the New York Daily News and Chicago Tribune, filed a lawsuit against Microsoft and OpenAI in New York federal court, alleging the misuse of reporters' work to train their generative artificial-intelligence systems. The eight newspapers, owned by investment firm Alden Global Capital's MediaNews Group, claimed in the lawsuit that the companies unlawfully copied millions of their articles to train AI products, including Microsoft's Copilot and OpenAI's ChatGPT. This lawsuit adds to similar ongoing legal actions against Microsoft and OpenAI, initiated by news outlets such as The New York Times, The Intercept, Raw Story, and AlterNet. Responding to the allegations, an OpenAI spokesperson stated that the company takes great care in its products and design process to support news organizations, while a Microsoft spokesperson declined to comment on the complaint. These cases represent significant legal challenges brought by copyright owners against tech companies concerning the data used to train their generative AI systems. Steven Lieberman, a lawyer representing the MediaNews publications, emphasized that OpenAI's success relies on the works of others, criticizing the defendants for allegedly taking content without permission or payment. The lawsuit highlighted that Microsoft and OpenAI's systems reproduce the newspapers' copyrighted content verbatim when prompted. Additionally, it claimed that ChatGPT generated false articles attributed to the newspapers, including a fake Denver Post article advocating smoking as an asthma cure and a bogus Chicago Tribune recommendation for a recalled infant lounger linked to child deaths. The plaintiffs, which also include the Orlando Sentinel, South Florida Sun-Sentinel, San Jose Mercury News, Orange County Register, and Twin Cities Pioneer Press, seek unspecified monetary damages and an order to halt further infringement. Read the full article

[baccaratgamebaccarat]

Bally’s Reaches Chicago Land Deal with Tribune

The accord represents a cleared hurdle for the Rhode Island-based gaming company in its plans to developed a $1.7 billion integrated resort in the third-largest US city. Last November, Bally’s paid $200 million for the land. 안전카지노사이트 The casino operator subsequently sold the property to private equity firm in a $500 million sale-leaseback transaction to raise capital for the Chicago casino projects.

Under the terms of the previous accord, Tribune Publishing could have stayed at the property for an extended period of time. If reports of the new accord are accurate, 안전바카라사이트 Bally’s will provide the Chicago Tribune publisher with a series of cash payments to speed the newspaper giant’s vacating of the premises to July 2024.

The amount of the payments wasn’t publicly revealed. Tribune has occupied the site for more than four decades. Bally’s will demolish the building there to make way for the Chicago casino ? the operator’s most expensive project to date.

Bally’s Clearly Wants Chicago Land Alden Global Capital, the investment firm that owns Tribune Publishing, recently added 10 years to its lease at Freedom Center, indicating that a near-term deal with Bally’s wasn’t likely in the offing.

There was some speculation that Bally’s would help Tribune find another building to lease, 카지노룰 but now appears to the more expeditious course of action for the regional casino operator is to simply pay the media company to vacate the premises.

Outgoing Mayor Lori Lightfoot (D) selected the Freedom Center site. Initially, that decision didn’t go over well, but she was able to get a majority of the Chicago City Council to support the idea.

Clearing the real estate hurdle is pivotal because Bally’s is still waiting on approval for the 바카라룰 project from the Illinois Gaming Board (IGB). Bally’s is hoping to commence construction on the casino-hotel in 2024 while aiming for a 2026 opening date.

Time of the Essence for Bally’s The impetus for getting a deal done with Tribune Publishing could be as simple as time. Bally’s is already facing potential delays for its temporary Chicago casino, which will be located in the Medinah Temple in the River North section of the city.

Obviously, the more rapidly Bally’s gets approval for a temporary casino and then the permanent project, the sooner it can start making money in Chicago. 바카라게임방법 That opportunity is certainly there. Bally’s Windy City property will be the first integrated resort in the city and data confirm Illinois misses out on hundreds of millions in tax revenue annually by way of Chicagoans traveling to Indiana casinos.

Owing to the precarious financial positions of both Chicago and the state of Illinois, it behooves those entities to see Bally’s project come to life sooner rather than later. 카지노게임방법 The jobs, income and corporate taxes created by the casino-hotel are seen as essential revenue to generators to a city and state grappling with some of the deepest public employee pension problems in the country.

[newswireml]

The scale of local news destruction in Gannett’s markets is astonishing#scale #local #news #destruction #Gannetts #markets #astonishing

Gannett, America’s largest newspaper chain, should wake up each morning thankful for the existence of No. 2 Alden Global Capital. After all, who could ask for a better point of comparison? Alden is the perfect industry villain, a faceless private equity fund dedicated to nothing but cost-cutting and cashflow-draining. Its corporate website contains a total of 21 words, nine of which are “Alden,”…

[nedsecondline]

The scale of local news destruction in Gannett’s markets is astonishing | Nieman Journalism Lab

It might not be as mustache-twirling a villain as Alden Global Capital, but its enormous scale has meant enormous losses for local journalism. — Read on www.niemanlab.org/2023/03/the-scale-of-local-news-destruction-in-gannetts-markets-is-astonishing/

[noisynutcrusade]

The scale of local news destruction in Gannett’s markets is astonishing

Gannett, America’s largest newspaper chain, should wake up each morning thankful for the existence of No. 2 Alden Global Capital. After all, who could ask for a better point of comparison? Alden is the perfect industry villain, a faceless private equity fund dedicated to nothing but cost-cutting and cashflow-draining. Its corporate website contains a total of 21 words, nine of which are “Alden,”…

[fadingsunsjvj]

My Newspaper Was Gutted by Journalism’s Biggest Bogeyman – Mother Jones

[msclaritea]

In case everyone hasn't noticed, a ton of media is being bought up by the Right, in a concerted effort to control all of the news. It's way worse than it used to be. Our weakened anti-trust laws have contributed.

Penske Media, a Trump supporting company owns:

Deadline

Variety

Hollywood Reporter

WWD) Vibe Billboard

Deadline Hollywood

Fairchild Fashion Media

IndieWire

Boy Genius Report

Variety

TVLine

Gold Derby

Robb Report

Rolling Stone

Art in America

ARTnews

Bollywood

Hollywood Life

Sportico

Boy Genius Report (BGR)

TVLine

 SHE Media

Sourcing Journal

Bookforum and Artforum, now closed

Also:

Chicago Tribune, Alden Global Capital, Hedge fund

Washington Post, Jeff Bezos

New York Times:

Since 1967, the company has been listed on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol NYT. Of the two categories of stock, Class A and Class B, the former is publicly traded and the latter is held privately—largely (over 90% through The 1997 Trust) by the descendants of Adolph Ochs, who purchased The New York Times newspaper in 1896. is an American journalist serving as chairman of The New York Times Company and publisher of its flagship newspaper, The New York Times.

A.G. Sulzberger is an American journalist serving as chairman of The New York Times Company and publisher of its flagship newspaper, The New York Times. Sulzberger is a grandson of Arthur Ochs "Punch" Sulzberger Sr., great-grandson of Arthur Hays Sulzberger, and great-great-grandson of Adolph Ochs.

Then there is the L.A. Times

"This past May, a young reporter for the Los Angeles Times working a weekend shift filed a 190-word story about people suspected of stealing expensive watches before fleeing in a black Rolls-Royce.

The item by Jeong Park enraged activists. They were upset not by the crime, but by how the Times framed the incident in West Hollywood. Online, advocates pushing to slash police budgets derided it as a “press release” for law enforcement.

But it was one activist who joined the pile-on that turned heads across the newsroom.

Nika Soon-Shiong, the 29-year-old daughter of Times owner Patrick Soon-Shiong, posted a critical tweet atop a screenshot of the article bearing Park’s name. In her post, which has since been deleted, the younger Soon-Shiong suggested the Times was helping to “protect the Rolls-Royce and luxury watches” while turning a blind eye to the sheriff’s department “overcharging, manipulating crime stats, or lying about the cost per deputy…”

There are accusations that ownership, including Nika Soon-Shiong, is meddling in news coverage.

The tweet quickly circulated among newspaper staffers, who were taken aback that the ownership family would publicly call out a junior reporter.

The situation produced whiplash the next day when Nika Soon-Shiong’s parents appeared at a newsroom-wide meeting to celebrate the Times winning a Pulitzer Prize for photography. There, staffers recalled how Patrick Soon-Shiong lauded the winning photographer along with the entire staff.

For journalists at the newspaper, the moment was a vivid display of the awkward and at times tense relationship that has developed between the newsroom and the ownership family.

In conversations with POLITICO, more than three dozen current and former staffers said that the paper experienced growing pains relating to its novice billionaire owner. Soon-Shiong, the wealthy pharmaceutical executive, has tried to bring an era of revitalization and reinvestment to the Times. But his stewardship has also witnessed internal discord and concerns over priorities.

Those staff, many of whom were granted anonymity to assess the masthead candidly, said Soon-Shiong’s attention can be ephemeral. They note that leadership issues have extended to the D.C. bureau, resulting in a staff exodus and tense clashes between the bureau chief and a star reporter. And there are accusations that ownership, including Nika Soon-Shiong, is meddling in news coverage.

“Every media company has its challenges,” said Kevin Merida, the paper’s executive editor. “We’re building a brave modern media company at the L.A. Times. Actively experimental, restructuring ourselves organizationally, amping up our journalistic and storytelling ambition—not shrinking it. ... I am extremely confident about our future, our leadership and the extraordinary collection of journalists I get to ride with.”

The Los Angeles Times is regularly praised for its coverage on issues of climate change, politics and culture, having scored at least one Pulitzer Prize each year under its new ownership.

The Times is one of the country’s most historic and formidable journalism institutions, with digital subscriptions growing by more than 360 percent since the Soon-Shiongs purchased it in 2018, according to a representative for the newspaper. It is regularly praised for its coverage on issues of climate change, politics and culture, having scored at least one Pulitzer Prize each year under its new ownership. And it scored a coup when Merida, one of the most sought-after editors in the business and a former top editor at the Washington Post and ESPN, came on board last year.

Like other papers, however, it’s a fraction of the size it was decades ago. In its heyday, the paper had more than 1,200 journalists. Today there are 550 people in the newsroom. The family has grown its staff ranks by 20 percent, newspaper representatives said. But they declined to detail the financial status of the Times, save to say: “The business is still in an investment period. We’re working to become self-sustaining with the support of the Soon-Shiongs.”

Despite Merida’s optimism, Times journalists continue to fear that the paper is stuck in a helpless middle ground: identifying as a national player but without the readership of its biggest competitors; eager to adapt to the digital era but uncertain about how best to do it; blessed with a billionaire benefactor but unclear on his vision.

“Neither [Nika] nor her parents have any idea what it means to run a media institution,” one former Times executive said of the Soon-Shiong family. “And they have in their own way resisted efforts to learn. They don’t care that much about the institution’s history. They’re not super interested in the media in general, in terms of how it works.”

Patrick Soon-Shiong, the wealthy pharmaceutical executive, has tried to bring an era of revitalization and reinvestment to the Times. But his stewardship has also witnessed internal discord and concerns over priorities. | Danny Moloshok/AP Photo

When Patrick Soon-Shiong purchased the Los Angeles Times, the newspaper had been languishing for years, struggling to compete with better-funded national outlets while under the stewardship of the Tribune Company.

The Tribune Company (later Tronc) had become an avatar for the collapse of the newspaper business, shuttering various local properties across the country. Soon-Shiong was seen as a savior: He promised a new office, serious investment, and stability. He professed to be motivated by civic duty. His tinkering would be on the business side of matters, not the editorial.

Along the way, his daughter became more actively involved at the newspaper. A Stanford graduate who was focused on community development projects in Los Angeles, Nika Soon-Shiong had grown interested in improving the paper amid criticism of its coverage of nonwhite communities. Several years before her father bought the Times, she was an intern on the photo team.

In 2020, Nika Soon-Shiong started participating in staff meetings about the paper’s failures in covering race and how it could become more inclusive in hiring. She suggested the paper avoid using the word “looting” when covering the unrest over police brutality, which inspired the paper to tweak style guidelines.

Times company leaders at the time asked then-top opinion editor Sewell Chan to brainstorm ways that Nika Soon-Shiong could get more involved in the paper. He talked with her about whether working with the opinion section would be a possibility. (Chan declined to comment.)

Many staffers thanked her for publicly pushing back on a Wall Street Journal article that said her father was thinking of selling the paper.

But those positive feelings have largely evaporated the past year. Some journalists at the Times and well-known political figures recoiled as the younger Soon-Shiong’s political views and activism became more visible and — they believe — crept into her relationship with the paper. After Nika Soon-Shiong received an appointment to serve as a West Hollywood Public Safety Commissioner — which advises city government on public safety reforms — Times journalists said she had, on at least two occasions, pitched them on the commission’s work and complained about headlines.

One senior reporter at the Times said it’s hard to know “where Nika starts and the paper stops.”

“People who had good will toward the paper don’t and it’s because of her and what she’s doing,” another reporter said.

Addressing staff concerns over Nika Soon-Shiong, Merida said she had “a right to critique our journalism, offer story ideas and other suggestions she believes will help make us better.” He noted that the “same right is extended to those we cover and to those who read us.”

In her own statement to POLITICO, Nika Soon-Shiong acknowledged that she does, in an advisory role for the paper, “advocate” for her interests, specifically on criminal justice reform and poverty. “There are profound problems with the media’s coverage of safety issues,” she said, “and these problems sometimes manifest themselves at the LA Times, just as they do at virtually every other major outlet.”

But she dismissed the “suggestion that I control the editorial decisions of the paper, which are made by independent and experienced journalists based on their own judgment.” She did not, she stressed, “have a formal role in the LA Times.”

In her bio page for her organization Fund for Guaranteed Income, a nonprofit focused on building technologies for recurring cash payments to vulnerable people, Nika Soon-Shiong is described as a “special adviser” to the Times. She also has a Times email address and an active profile on the paper’s Slack messaging network, according to shared screenshot images.

As Nika Soon-Shiong’s political activism grew, it became harder for the paper to chart out coverage that converged with her interests. Staffers grew alarmed when she clashed with an editor on the Metro desk earlier this year over the Times’ reporting on the LAPD. It was not lost on staff that they did not initially report on the public safety commission’s decision to reduce funding for the LA County Sheriff’s Department — a move she pushed for aggressively and one that was covered widely by other Los Angeles outlets.

The ownership of a paper retains the right to endorse whichever candidates they want. Executive editor Kevin Merida said that Nika Soon-Shiong has no “say in endorsements.”

There were internal grumbles after the paper endorsed Democratic West Hollywood Council member Lindsey Horvath for the powerful LA County Board of Supervisors. Horvath had a close relationship with Nika Soon-Shiong — she defended her publicly and said attacks on her were “rooted in racism” — and helped appoint her to the public safety commission.

More recently, the Times endorsed Kenneth Mejia, a self-described radical and Nika Soon-Shiong favorite, for the job of city controller. Two days after the endorsement, City Hall reporters David Zahniser and Julia Wick wrote a story detailing how Mejia, as a Green Party member, said he considered both Joe Biden and Donald Trump to be “sexual predators.”

The ownership of a paper retains the right to endorse whichever candidates they want. Often, they exercise that liberty. Merida said that Nika Soon-Shiong has no “say in endorsements.”

But the Mejia editorial sparked immediate backlash over the perception that she had a hand in it. City Council member Paul Koretz, a Democrat and Mejia’s opponent in the race, accused the paper of acting “as if it were run by the Mejia campaign itself.”

“People are just scratching their heads about their editorial board and how they can come to these decisions,” Koretz told POLITICO. “I have never seen an election where the newspaper is the story.”

Though Nika Soon-Shiong in recent weeks publicly announced plans to leave Los Angeles to pursue a doctorate at Oxford University, questions persist over where the line should be drawn—if at all—between the Soon-Shiong family’s interests and the editorial product of the Times.

Staffers privately expressed concern about the paper’s coverage of Los Angeles’ mayoral contest. Democratic Rep. Karen Bass, the mayoral frontrunner, won the Times’ backing in the primary against billionaire developer Rick Caruso while being cheered on by Nika Soon-Shiong and wooing her father.

Before the endorsement, Bass chaired a March congressional hearing on the Covid crisis in Africa, at which the elder Soon-Shiong, who is working to manufacture vaccines on the continent, was a witness.

Months before then, Bass announced her plan to combat homelessness at an abandoned building that housed the old St. Vincent Medical Center. The building, long identified as potential housing for homeless people, is owned by Soon-Shiong. Later, in a debate sponsored by the Times and radio station KCRW, Bass again raised using St. Vincent. She noted that she would have no problem getting “the owner” on the phone after being told others had trouble reaching him.

“It’s almost like she became a real estate agent for Patrick Soon-Shiong,” said one Democratic official who worked in the mayoral primary.

In a statement, Bass campaign spokesperson Sarah Leonard Sheahan said the congresswoman was highlighting “an empty hospital right here in Los Angeles she believes can be used to safely and compassionately house mentally ill homeless Angelenos.”

“We are in a crisis, and the situation needs an all hands on deck response,” Leonard Sheahan said.

Rep. Karen Bass announced her plan to combat homelessness at an abandoned building that housed the old St. Vincent Medical Center, which is owned by Patrick Soon-Shiong. | Los Angeles County

As for the congressional hearing, Leonard Sheahan said Bass has called dozens of witnesses to testify on issues pertaining to health care and human rights on the continent. “Committee staff invited Mr. Soon Shiong, who was born and raised in Africa and had just opened a vaccine manufacturing plant in Botswana.”

Some staffers defended the Times by pointing to tough stories on Bass, particularly a recent piece looking at the free degree she received from University of Southern California.

Still, the perception that Nika Soon-Shiong and her father were rooting for Bass — and that Bass encouraged it — was internalized by staffers. One reporter tried to share Caruso’s personal concerns about slanted coverage with his editor only to accidentally send it to Caruso himself, according to text messages obtained by POLITICO.

Other Times staffers experienced the dynamic more directly. After reporter Benjamin Oreskes wrote a story about Bass’ campaign launch that noted, in the headline, the absence of an indicted city council member who is a close ally of Bass, Nika Soon-Shiong expressed displeasure to him, according to a Times journalist familiar with the matter. Nika Soon-Shiong encouraged the reporter to get in touch with Bass’ campaign manager. The paper did not change the headline. Oreskes declined to comment.

“As owners of the Los Angeles Times, the Soon-Shiongs have the prerogative to make decisions about all aspects of the organization,” said Hillary Manning, vice president of communications at the paper. “One decision they made and have been vocal about since the time the acquisition was announced is that maintaining an independent newsroom is vitally important to them, to the L.A. Times itself and to the community as a whole. We can appreciate that staff have differing opinions about how involved the Soon-Shiongs should be in the day-to-day operations of the organization.”

When Patrick Soon-Shiong purchased the Los Angeles Times, the newspaper had been languishing for years, struggling to compete with better-funded national outlets while under the stewardship of the Tribune Company. | Irfan Khan/Los Angeles Times via AP Photo

Patrick Soon-Shiong’s level of engagement at the Times has been a long-running source of intense interest inside the building, with sightings used as a measure of his commitment.

Those who have worked for Soon-Shiong say his focus is fleeting and that he can be impulsive. He is frequently tied to other ventures (he owns the San Diego Union-Tribune and his name has popped up as a potential buyer of the Los Angeles Angels). With so many initiatives and commitments, he often parachutes into newspaper matters, usually with sweeping proposals for moving the business forward or coverage priorities to emphasize.

The former executive described Soon-Shiong as both an “absentee landlord and also a micromanager” who can be deeply indecisive.

That has been particularly true during Covid. Several Times employees said Soon-Shiong has been distracted since the start of the pandemic. In private, he indicated to the former executive that he’d become “obsessed” with Covid and to another person it would be diverting his attention. Still, he has personally contacted multiple Times journalists during the pandemic to urge them to write specific stories featuring people he has worked with on vaccines, according to a person directly familiar with the matter. That person added that those interactions left the reporters and editors feeling uncomfortable.

Manning said Patrick Soon-Shiong is passionate about many subjects and “often” discusses coverage with news staffers. “With the onset of the COVID pandemic, he has also had discussions with reporters to highlight the science underlying the virus, concerns of long COVID, consequences of mutations and studies coming out of his home country, South Africa,” Manning said.

Still, both Manning and Merida disputed that Patrick or Nika Soon-Shiong had explicitly ordered certain stories or editorials be written.

“Patrick does have interests he cares about. And what owner doesn’t? He has never compelled us to do a single story on any of his interests,” Merida said. “That decision making authority resides with me.”

Patrick Soon-Shiong acknowledged but did not return a request for comment.

The blurry intersection of his interests was evident in the winter of 2021 when he published a video about Covid on the newspaper’s website. In it, he appeared to promote a vaccine his own company has been working on, even though it’s not approved in the U.S.

Soon-Shiong’s indecisive but micromanaging approach has been evident at other times, too. In one oft-recalled anecdote, he told staffers he wasn’t pleased with what he saw as favorable editorials about then-candidate Biden. “He couldn’t stand Biden,” one of the former executives recalled.

But Soon-Shiong struggled over who else to endorse. The Times editorial board had done multiple interviews with 2020 Democratic hopefuls, but he refused to tip his hand despite prodding.

The paper didn’t endorse in the primary. It endorsed Biden in the general election.

For seasoned Times watchers, it’s been vexing — a dash of positive movement for the paper clouded by uncertainty about the owner’s approach and commitment.

“Clearly Patrick Soon-Shiong brought stable ownership to the paper,” said Gabriel Kahn, a professor at the USC Annenberg School of Journalism. “What has not emerged is any clear business plan beyond newspaper 101 and, though this might be changing, a full-throated explanation of what their editorial mission is going to be.”

Despite Kevin Merida’s optimism, Times journalists continue to fear that the paper is stuck in a helpless middle ground. | David Livingston/Getty Images

Perhaps Soon-Shiong’s biggest breakthrough was the hiring of Merida. There was universal acclaim from the newsroom over the announcement. Soon-Shiong himself heralded it as a chance to bring stability to the paper — “to grow and be around for another 139 years” — and broaden ambition.

“His mandate will be to maintain the highest level of journalistic strength and find ways to grab the attention of our community,” Soon-Shiong said, “not just Los Angelenos but also readers in the western region and hopefully even the nation.”

No sooner did Soon-Shiong hail Merida’s hiring than he made his job more difficult. The owner did not call some of the other internal candidates to thank them for applying, according to a person familiar with the matter, creating some bitterness within the newsroom.

Merida appeared to understand that maintaining Soon-Shiong’s attention was a top priority. As LA Magazine noted, he moved into a Brentwood guest house across the street from Soon-Shiong. He also took on much of the responsibility for managing the relationship between the family and staff.

Both before Merida started and after he came on board, the paper was lauded for its work, including coverage of the rise-and-fall of superlawyer Tom Girardi and “Real Housewives of Beverly Hills” star Erika Jayne; for reporting on the deadly shooting on the set of the Alec Baldwin film “Rust”; for scrutiny of the Sheriff’s Department; and for coverage and major projects on climate change.

But creating the stable work environment that Soon-Shiong outlined has been elusive, particularly in the paper’s Washington bureau.

A fixture in political coverage, the D.C. office was celebrated when it brought on board Kimbriell Kelly, a Pulitzer-winning reporter at the Washington Post, to serve as a top editor in 2019. In the fall of 2020, Kelly was promoted to the bureau chief role. She became the first person of color, and only the second woman, to serve in that post.

Her directive was to expand the scope and impact of the bureau’s reporting. But her approach quickly created problems.

Shortly after the election, Kelly began butting heads with one of the bureau’s best known staffers, Jackie Calmes. Calmes had taken over as White House editor around that time. But Kelly informed her that she wanted to hire her own deputy before making a decision about who would occupy the editor role permanently. On that call, according to four people with knowledge of the incident, Kelly told Calmes that her grief over two recently deceased family members was affecting her work.

The friction escalated. When Calmes asked for two weeks of comp time in late January, Kelly said she had not authorized her to work extra hours for the preceding three months. That soon led to several Zoom calls with Kelly, as well as human resources and union representatives. On the first call, Kelly reiterated that she had not authorized Calmes’ extra work. Calmes responded by saying the bureau had been short-staffed during a news cycle that featured ongoing election objections and the January 6 riots and that she had to pick up the work.

People close to Kelly said Calmes was openly disrespectful. Kelly was a newcomer to the job and a Black woman joining a bureau that was largely white and male. Calmes, for her part, refused to speak with Kelly without a union representative present. In early summer, Kelly filed a disciplinary action accusing Calmes of insubordination and suggesting it could lead to her termination.

Ultimately, both sides moved on after fellow D.C. staffers wrote a letter to Kelly encouraging her to retract her insubordination accusation, which she did.

Eventually, Calmes shifted from an editorial role under Kelly to the paper’s opinion section. Calmes declined to comment beyond saying she had never shown any disrespect to Kelly.

In a statement to POLITICO, Kelly did not directly address the Calmes incident, but touted the changes she’s brought to the bureau, including increasing diversity among staff covering the White House and Congress.

“We’ve … built one of Washington’s most inclusive reporting staffs as we work to realize the shared vision of Kevin Merida and the Soon-Shiong family for a new LA Times. Like many news organizations, we have had staffing changes,” she said. “I’m incredibly proud to work with our amazing staff, and I look forward to continuing to lead our Washington coverage and serving our LA Times audiences everywhere.”

Frustration in the bureau has lingered, however. At least eight journalists out of a staff of 30 have left the bureau since Kelly took over, though she noted that eight had been added “within the last year.”

This March, the D.C. bureau held a virtual meeting with Merida and Kelly in which higher-ups were grilled about staff leaving. One staffer told him the exodus was a “five-alarm fire.” Merida didn’t address how the paper was handling the departures, save to say he cared about Washington coverage and knew the bureau was having issues, according to a person in the meeting.

“They continue to swing way above their weight and the LA Times still covers stories that others in Washington do not,” said Bob Drogin, the paper’s former deputy Washington bureau chief who spent nearly 38 years at the paper. But, he added, “It’s unfortunate that there’s been so much turmoil in the bureau over the last two years … I fear it has distracted from the core mission of the Washington bureau, and the loss of so many experienced and talented reporters clearly has hurt the daily production of news.”

Staffers grew alarmed when Nika Soon-Shiong clashed with an editor on the Metro desk earlier this year over the Times’ reporting on the LAPD. | Damian Dovarganes/AP Photo

To a large degree, the tensions inside the D.C. bureau have mirrored problems throughout the Times, as leadership has struggled to bring the institution into the modern age of publishing.

Despite Soon-Shiong’s deep pockets, several former staffers complained about the company’s antiquated publishing technology and the small engineering staff. The former executive said the search system is “still very janky” and that the paper still doesn’t have control over its complete archives, with some having been transferred by prior owners to “other entities,” as Manning phrased it.

Other staff have been confused by editorial priorities. Earlier this year, the paper launched the 404, a social team dedicated to content creation for TikTok and Instagram. Times employees winced when, within just a few days, the paper faced criticism over creating factually inaccurate memes that mocked Caruso.

The Times also spent significant money building a test kitchen designed by Soon-Shiong’s wife, Michele, in anticipation of enhancing food offerings. Recipes have been an enormous success for other publications. But the kitchen saw little use because of the pandemic.

Manning said costs associated with the kitchen do not impact the Times’ operating budget and that the kitchen has added value to the organization. She noted that the Times also produces the largest literary festival in the country and several culinary events during the year. She added that since the 404’s Caruso snafu, it has worked more closely with the editing staff and multi-platform copy desk.

“The unwavering commitment, investments and thoughtful stewardship of our owners has radically improved the current state and future prospects of the Los Angeles Times,” she said.

And, indeed, despite the hurdles and hiccups, few, if any, Times staffers are eager to return to the era of Tribune/Tronc. Then, the papers’ future was clouded by a seemingly endless series of cuts. The hollowed-out institution that was left had far less promise, many employees say, than the one today.

But doing better than Tribune/Tronc is considered a low bar for Times journalists. Instead, a few years after Patrick Soon-Shiong purchased the paper to great fanfare, they’re left hoping he doesn’t lose interest and that he is preparing the next generation of his family to be good stewards. A member of the publishing family most closely associated with the Times’ glory days suggested the Soon-Shiongs had bought into something much bigger than just a newspaper — and that they needed to better appreciate that the public trust they control is vital to the health of the city, Southern California and the landscape of journalism writ large.

“Running a big metropolitan paper like the Times requires constant oversight, support and encouragement,” said Harry Chandler, a former executive at the paper. “And I hope that Patrick and his family go back to how my father Otis and my other ancestors who were publishers ran the paper, where they were very involved and supportive.”