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We need to encourage Alden to put up or shut up
By Susan Campbell
Dear Hartford Courant reader,
Your roof is on fire.
The signs have been there, but you may not be aware of the damage overhead. What you, the reader, sees are a few typos, a missed paper, or someone on the other end of the phone who cannot stop your paper delivery during your vacation. Worse, there’s no one at your local meeting, because when newspapers had more people on staff, they could afford to come to your traffic commissions, town council meetings, and panel discussions.
Nothing just happens, dear reader, but before we explore what’s going on, see if you can figure out this math: Recently, Tribune Publishing Co. announced that the company’s fourth-quarter profit was $4 million. That should be good news, but these days, newsroom blood-letting has moved from paper cuts to full-on beheadings.
And for that, you can thank Alden Global Capital, a New York-based hedge fund, which owns 32% of the Tribune company. Alden is known for one thing and one thing only: Alden kills newspapers. The corporation walks through the battlefield of struggling newspapers (which pretty much describes 99% of newspapers), lifts up the wounded, props them up at a computer, and then methodically sucks up all the resources until there’s nothing left. Their shady business practices — including an accusation that they moved employee pension assets into their own accounts* — have earned the notice of the Department of Labor.
The next time you want to complain about your local coverage, remember that you have no idea how hard the dead-last-remainders of America’s newsrooms work to do what they do. They are part of a broken business model, but there is your reporter/photographer/editor, spinning as fast as s/he can.
I know. I was a remainder, until I realized I was so angry at the system I couldn’t exist in it. I left in 2012 when I thought things were pretty bad.

Susan Campbell | Provided photo
But this isn’t just me, a disgruntled former employee. Last May, some U.S. Senators, including Sherrod Brown (husband of Pulitzer-winning newspaper columnist Connie Schultz), Tammy Baldwin, and Cory Booker wrote Alden a letter begging them to abandon their attempted hostile takeover of Gannett because newspapers are a “public good.” Gannett shareholders ultimately rejected the takeover.
Alden’s holdings include the Denver Post, where in December, members of the Denver city council passed a resolution that called on the company to either invest in the Post, or sell it. Alden has been draining the blood from that once-fine newspaper since 2011.
In January, two respected Chicago Tribune columnists wrote a New York Times op-ed calling attention to their own newspaper’s struggles as an Alden holding. In February, the Chicago city council passed a resolution similar to Denver’s.
We need that here, in Hartford. We need a concerted effort to save the Oldest Continuously Published Newspaper in the Nation, the newspaper that printed a copy of the Declaration of Independence, and was sued for libel by Thomas Jefferson. We need a full-throated show of support, like that of state Sen. Saud Anwar and others. We, too, need to encourage Alden to put up or shut up. We, too, need wealthy people to invest in local journalism.
The next time you want to complain about your local coverage, remember that you have no idea how hard the dead-last-remainders of America’s newsrooms work to do what they do.
Mostly, we need to stop the dangerous trend that threatens our free press. According to the Pew Research Center, post-Watergate, the circulation of daily newspapers peaked in the late ‘80s. About that same time, third-generation newspaper families began to lose interest in the family business, while corporations began to notice the healthy profit margins found in the newspaper industry. At a rate that accelerated as we barreled through the ‘90s, more and more newspapers became part of media conglomerates.
If the carnage continues, Alden will kill our newspaper. When that happens, we’re left with news deserts, with our “news” shoveled at us by social media, with its lack of fact-checkers and professionalism. Our information age will suffer from an appalling lack of information.
Passivity is not an option. This is our damn newspaper. This is our damn democracy.
*EDITOR’S NOTE: Alden has admitted in court filings that it placed DFM workers’ pension monies, totaling nearly $250 million, into two of its own accounts.
Susan Campbell teaches at University of New Haven, and is the author of several books, including, most recently, “Frog Hollow: Stories From an American Neighborhood.” She can be reached at slcampbell417@gmail.com.
March 12, 2020 at 8:50 pm
I worked at The Courant when the newsroom was full of reporters and editors. I wrote about town councils, zoning commissions, and police reports along with more consequential stories. I left Connecticut in 1984 and retired back to Hartford in 2004. The Courant had changed. Less local news, overwritten stories, stories that weren’t even stories, long narrative leads – all indicating a short staff. True, old-timers could dig up great stories which I enjoyed. When I first started at the Courant, wasn’t it owned by a local corporation? Some folks who want to do the community a service ought to buy the Courant and see it revived.
March 24, 2020 at 2:16 pm
Susan,
Some friends forwarded this to me. As customers we certainly see the decline. After our carriers for many years left their job we stopped service. We read on line now but it’s not the same and there isn’t much.
I can’t imagine angry it must make you feel to have your pension tied up in DFM’s accounts. Especially since they are on the path of obvious destruction.
I will pass this along to friends. There have been many conversations amongst ourselves about the decline in the Courant and when friends finally do give up the paper they do so with great reluctance. Not only because of the Courant history but because of our attachment to writers like you.
Is there anything we can do to publicize your dilemma? Post on personal FB accounts? What would you like to see happen as a result of some publicity? It certainly is worthy of attention in my eyes. I’m glad you used your voice.
Wishing you always the best.
Patricia OConnor
W.H.
860-232-5807 (landline)
April 1, 2020 at 8:05 pm
I’m so glad this article was written. Thank you, Susan Campbell. What a damn shame it didn’t run in the Courant. I am a fairly old fellow at this point, but when I was in elementary school in the late 50s, I was a paperboy for the dearly departed Hartford Times. Yes, Hartford was a two paper town in those days.There is an important place in our nation for the local paper, and it is abhorrent to think they are being slowly bled dry and left to die by hedge fund vampires. That these soulless creeps have usurped workers pensions should be considered a criminal action. FWIW, I posted this on my Facebook page.