Demonstrators rally for local ownership of the Baltimore Sun

By Carlos Medrano Araujo
Baltimore Watchdog Staff Writer

Alden Global Capital’s attempt to purchase the Baltimore Sun and other Maryland newspapers would be a disaster for local journalism because the New York hedge fund company has a reputation for not reinvesting its profits back into its media properties, demonstrators said during a rally at War Memorial Plaza Saturday afternoon.

Instead, demonstrators said they hope Maryland hotel executive Stewart W. Bainum Jr.’s attempt to purchase the Sun is successful because they believe the nonprofit he intends to use to run the newspaper would be more interested in quality local journalism.

“Alden is a New York-based hedge fund known as the destroyer of newspapers,” said Lillian Reed, an education reporter at the Sun who is also a member of the newspaper’s union. “Alden makes their money by buying publications across the country and slashing their budgets to maximize profits. Instead of reinvesting these profits back to journalism, they keep it for themselves and overseas investors.”

The rally, which was organized by the Washington-Baltimore Press Guild, the Chesapeake News Guild, and the Save Our Sun group,  brought out support from an estimated 60 to 80 people.

These included journalists from across Maryland and citizens who said they were enthusiastic to support Bainum’s bid to buy the Sun because they believe a local newspaper should focus on local stories and maintain a link with the broader community.

“I’m here because I want the Sun to survive,” said Douglas Birch, a former reporter for the Sun and the Associated Press. “It’s one of the greatest newspapers in the country. The Sun is very good, a high-quality journalism, and it needs resources. We need decent and honorable journalism to make a community a better place.”

Birch said he believes Alden Global’s bid acceptance would be a disaster and could be the end of the Sun, leaving the city without strong local journalism that can inform people and hold City Hall accountable.

Alden Global and Bainum are currently in a bidding war to acquire Tribune Publishing, which owns the Chicago Tribune and newspapers throughout the country, including the Orlando Sentinel, New York Daily News, Hartford Courant, Sun-Sentinel of Fort Lauderdale, Florida, and other publications.

The company’s Maryland holdings include the Sun, Capital Gazette of Annapolis and Carroll County Times.

In a deal announced in February, Alden said it would purchase the rest of Tribune Publishing’s shares (the company already controls 32% of the stock) for $630 million. As part of that deal, the hedge fund manager would spin off the Sun and other Maryland newspapers to Bainum for $65 million.

The proposal was initially praised by local journalists, city officials and the Baltimore business community because Bainum would bring the Sun under local ownership for the first time in two decades and establish a nonprofit called the Sunlight for All Institute to run the newspaper and other Maryland publications.

The nonprofit business model, experts said, would still require the Sun to make money, but it would remove the relentless pursuit of profits that has led to newsroom cuts at newspapers throughout the country at the expense of quality journalism.

However, the deal began to unravel over the next few weeks and now Banium, the chairman of Choice Hotels International of Rockville, Maryland, is trying to cobble together a group of investors to purchase the entire Tribune chain of newspapers.

Alden has offered to pay $17.25 a share for Tribune stock while Bainum has said he will pay $18.50 a share. Tribune has tentatively accepted Alden’s offer, and Bainum’s bid is contingent on him getting the financing needed to close the deal.

According to a story in MarketWatch, which quoted from pieces in the New York Times and Wall Street Journal, several investors have stepped forward to join Bainum’s attempt to buy Tribune. The article says Wyoming billionaire Hansjorg Wyss has agreed to commit up to $100 million while Mason Slaine, a Tribune investor, is also willing to commit the same amount.

Alden Capital tends to strike fear among journalists because of its reputation for bleeding newspapers dry. Journalists at Tribune, for example, have complained about newsroom cuts since Alden purchased 32% of Tribune Publishing’s stock in 2019. Alden owns 200 newspapers nationwide.

Maryland journalists had the same reaction when news broke earlier this year that the Sun could fall under full ownership by the hedge fund manager.

Danielle Ohl, the chair of the Chesapeake News Guild, said in a speech to the crowd Saturday that news reporters at the Capital Gazette  have already experienced bad corporate decisions, citing how they were treated by Tribune following the fatal shooting that occurred at the Annapolis newspaper on June 28, 2018.

“My colleagues gave all the sacrifice for journalism when a man who was angry about  coverage broke into our newsroom and killed five of us,” Ohl said. “We were promised that Tribune — that our corporate owners — would not abandon us. They came to the funeral, they told me to my face, and then they forgot.”

Eric Miller, a member of the American Federation of Government Employees, Local 1923, said he sympathized with keeping journalism focused on local communities, adding that he feels uneasy over what it would mean for local journalism if Alden took control of the Baltimore Sun Media Group.

“Non-profit media will be good,” Miller said. “Under Alden, local coverage will be less, and it will be more tabloid instead of facts.”

Griffin Sanderoff, a graduate architect from Baltimore, said he came to the rally to accompany journalists and people who believe it is important to support local media ownership and non-profit journalism.

“It’s important to show support to the local ownership and continue to run information for the communities,” Sanderoff said.

Franca Muller Paz, who is a high school teacher in Baltimore, said she was concerned that Alden could win the bidding war with Bainum.

“We must have our stories told,” she said. “If not for the Baltimore Sun and our Sun reporters, how many injustices everyday will go without being published.”

Marigold Lewi, a student activist and organizer for a group called the Student Organizing a Multicultural & Open Society (SOMOS), pointed out the important role that a media organization like  the Sun plays in society.

“Today, many media outlets are known for report using a biased rate, potentially affecting the news for consumers and this cannot happen to the Sun,” Lewis said.

Marvin “Doc” Cheatham Sr., who once served as president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and National Action Network, said Baltimore needs a locally owned newspaper that will reflect the diversity of the community.

“We need a local nonprofit that will give the kind of language, the kind of information, the kind of facts that we have not [gotten] to the degree that we should,” Cheatham said.

State Del. Brooke Elizabeth Lierman, D-Baltimore, and a candidate for state comptroller, said it is important for the Sun to come under local ownership again. She said this would give people  access to local, reliable and factual information. She said the press is essential to a strong community.

“I am here representing the 50-plus legislators who signed a letter to the Tribune Publishing demanding and asking they sell to a local nonprofit,” Lierman said.

Kobi Little, the president of the Baltimore City NAACP, said that while the Sun has not always gotten the story right, he does not believe a large, out-of-town corporations should be allowed the tell the stories of Baltimore’s people. 

“It’s not the most comfortable place to be, because the Sun often does not get it right,” Little said. “I have to be honest. But I am here because I am hopeful. I am here because all of us have stories to tell. Stories of the people who live in this city, stories of the people who are building this city, stories of the people who sacrificed all to be better. I am glad I am standing in solidarity with the members of the guild, who are people who work and do a great job.”

Liz Bowie, an educator reporter and Baltimore Sun and the co-chair of the local unit of the Washington-Baltimore Press Guild, expressed her uncertainty regarding the acquisition of the newspaper to Alden Global and the future that awaits them.

“In the last year, since Alden owned us, we have lost eight really great reporters, and they are not being replace at the same rate they are leaving,” Bowie said. “Those reporters left for better papers, but also because they felt they could not trust what it was coming in the years ahead.”

The community needs a place to express its ideas – and a newspaper is that place, Bowie said. She said Baltimore needs to be owned by a nonprofit board that runs the newspapers for the people of Baltimore and not for somebody outside the area who wants to make more money.

“Keep subscribing to the Baltimore Sun,” Bowie said. “We desperately need those dollars.”