Gannet, the largest newspaper owner in the country, has become the hunted.
According to The Week, hedge fund Alden Global Capital has made a move to purchase Gannett. Large publications such as USA Today, The Arizona Republic, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel and The Cincinnati Enquirer are published by Gannet. Alden is looking to add more newspapers to the roster of its subsidiary Digital First, which includes The Denver Post and The Orange County Register.
Sadly, Alden’s reputation among the journalism industry is far from great. According to Crain’s Detroit Business, the hedge fund has a “bruising reputation for cutting newspaper staffing to the bone to maximize profits.” Should Gannett be acquired and its subsidiaries added to the roster of Digital First, the future of many newspapers could be bleak.
As journalists ourselves, it pains us at The Pacer to see more journalism jobs being cut. But at the end of the day, the bloodletting of newsrooms isn’t unexpected, especially when it comes to print journalism.
Times are changing and newspapers haven’t been able to adapt. Journalism isn’t dying; the medium in which people prefer to consume news has changed.
As long as there is news occurring in the world, journalism will continue to exist in some form. But the advent of the Internet has resulted in less manpower being required, which inevitably leads to cuts.
We at The Pacer don’t want more newsrooms to be cut, so it goes without saying that we don’t want Gannet to be absorbed by Digital First. Regardless of whether or not Gannet is bought, we don’t have high hopes for the journalism industry’s longevity in the future.
When they’re publishing propaganda and lies, are they really journalists? And yes, they do deserve to lose their jobs. Fucking morons.