Alton Investment Fund on the way to acquiring Sick American Newspapers / WillMedia

“The eagle is hungry again,” Joshua Benton of Niemann Labin writes in the dark.

For decades, regional and urban newspapers have been popular in investment funds: they do not keep their heads above water, but hold a lot of lucrative real estate in prime locations. Sick publishers seize every ransom, including funds that have little to do with journalism.

The following are predictable: real estate goes up for sale, editorial offices are removed and there is less space for stand-alone journalism.

Earlier this year, Alton About the famous publisher Tribune Publishing, Which includes The Chicago Tribune and eight metropolitan dailies.

Sometimes, after such ‘compensation’, a little more than a website is left, maintained by minimal editorial staff. Tens of thousands of jobs have been lost in the regional American journalism industry over the past 17 years. Editorial space It is then used continuously for political purposes.

Investment funds buy strategically: often these are ripe for publishers and consolidators already operating under U.S. bankruptcy laws, Benton reports. Over the past decade, most of the big names in American journalism have split between Alton and the newspaper company Canet.

According to Benton, the latter seems poised to hand over a large portion to Alton soon. This again stimulates the integration of the US publishing market. Publisher McClatchy, a third player, filed for bankruptcy in February 2020, and the investment fund eventually fell into the hands of their largest debtor.

Another major publisher is Lee Enterprises, which owns 77 regional newspapers. Alton also wants to link to this publisher, Benton reports. It offers Lee Enterprises and Gannett’s shareholders an unavoidable offer: the investment fund says it can cash out all acquisitions in full. More on NiemanLab