Will Public-Minded Plutocrats Save the Press?

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Alden Global Capital, the most predatory of the private equity companies that have been buying up and hollowing out American dailies, has been on the verge of a deal to take over the Chicago Tribune Company. An interesting footnote to the story was that The Baltimore Sun, now owned by the Trib, was to be sold separately to a Maryland hotel magnate and philanthropist named Stewart Bainum Jr.

Fans of the long-abused Sun, once a great paper, cheered this development. But the latest news in this saga is that the tail may now wag the dog.

Bainum, said to be worth about $100 million, likes the idea of buying out all of the Tribune’s properties and then returning them to local ownership. He’s made the Trib a better offer, and may succeed in fending off Alden.

If so, he will join a small group of socially minded wealthy philanthropists who have reinvested in local papers and saved them from private equity pillage. As I reported in this piece, that small but growing honor roll includes the Minneapolis Star-Tribune, The Philadelphia Inquirer, The Berkshire Eagle, and on good days The Boston Globe under Red Sox owner John Henry (though his wife meddles in the newsroom far too much).

Jeff Bezos could have made the list for his largely hands-off revival of The Washington Post, but first he needs to do right by his Amazon workers.

It would be better still if there were a viable plan for nonprofit civic ownership of America’s dailies. But until one comes along, civic-minded billionaires are better than private equity thugs.

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