{"id":504,"date":"2022-01-25T15:24:18","date_gmt":"2022-01-25T23:24:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/voices\/?p=728"},"modified":"2022-01-25T16:01:50","modified_gmt":"2022-01-26T00:01:50","slug":"opinion-the-city-shouldnt-pay-alden-global-capital-which-destroys-local-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/voices\/opinion\/opinion-the-city-shouldnt-pay-alden-global-capital-which-destroys-local-news","title":{"rendered":"Opinion: The city shouldn’t pay Alden Global Capital, which destroys local news"},"content":{"rendered":"

There\u2019s a recommendation coming before the City Council on Tuesday that\u2019s frankly, a small financial matter when you compare it to the ongoing and increasingly costly Queen Mary problem<\/a> and the latest issue with Community Hospital<\/a>\u2014those two quandaries combined will amount to a loss of God-knows-how-many-millions of dollars over God-knows-how-many-years; it\u2019s an ethereal figure that is only going to go farther into the financial stratosphere.<\/p>\n

This one is for the tiny (in terms of civic expenditures) amount of $5,500, or $11,000 over its proposed two-year life. The proposed agreement is to pay MediaNews Group for digital access to the Press-Telegram in order for city employees to keep up with local news. Actually, the wording is to obtain access to the \u201cLong Beach Press-Telegram,\u201d which is not the publication\u2019s name, nor does it reflect its mission.<\/p>\n

The once-powerful and popular publication is no longer the juggernaut of Long Beach news as it was 30 or 40 years ago. It no longer has an office in Long Beach (or anywhere, for that matter) and it prints news gathered from its skeletal staff as well as from other MNG newspapers, including the Los Angeles Daily News, the Orange County Register and other papers from cities as far-flung as Riverside, Whittier, Pasadena and others.<\/p>\n

Those are all newspapers that have been decimated and devastated by the vulture capitalist hedge fund Alden Global Capital, which the Washington Post called \u201cone of the most ruthless corporate strip-miners seemingly intent on destroying local journalism,\u201d and Vanity Fair termed \u201cthe grim reaper of American newspapers.\u201d (Want more, watch an upcoming \u201c60 Minutes\u201d report<\/a> on Alden.)<\/p>\n

No one who\u2019s had the sickening and dispiriting feeling of working for an Alden-owned (and -crippled) newspaper can spare a charitable thought about the experience.<\/p>\n

When John Molina bought the Post in 2018 in order to give Long Beach the news coverage it deserves, a half-dozen Press-Telegram employees happily bolted from beneath the suffocating MNG to join the Post. In the next couple of years a few more came over.<\/p>\n

The hedge fund has bought some 200 newspapers and has laid off thousands of journalists and has been the death of local journalism in scores of small towns. When the city of Long Beach signs a check for $5,500 to MNG, not a penny of that will go to the Press-Telegram or any of its other papers. It won\u2019t so much as buy a pencil. It goes, instead, toward Alden Capital\u2019s executives, including Heath Freeman, who collects mansions like some people collect swizzle sticks: Last September, Freeman bought a Coconut Grove mansion in Florida for $19 million. The same month, he bought a restaurant in East Hampton for $4 million. He owns many more luxury properties. You don\u2019t make that kind of money by throwing it away on newspaper workers\u2019 salaries.<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t have a problem with the city paying MNG to allow employees to read the news. If the city is doing that to help support local journalism, we\u2019d find that admirable, because we support whatever work other publications are struggling to provide this city. But the simple matter is paying MNG for the scant news their papers provide about Long Beach, the money will only allow the papers to stay alive\u00a0for the dwindling days before Alden sucks their last dollar.<\/p>\n

I spoke with City Manager Tom Modica, who says the city doesn\u2019t pay the Long Beach Post for news for the somewhat obvious reason that it\u2019s free. Giving the public free access to the news is a key part of our mission statement and our ethics. And, while we offer our work at no cost, it\u2019s not without considerable expense.<\/p>\n

To encourage and help ensure that the Post and the Long Beach Business Journal continue to report true local news, we have received thousands of donations from our readers. These readers do it because they believe in our mission<\/a> and appreciate our work, not because they have to: They\u2019re paying for something that\u2019s free and that gives us great satisfaction and pride.<\/p>\n

If it cares about the news we offer to its employees and the citizens it serves, we won\u2019t turn down a donation<\/a> to help us expand. We\u2019re growing, as opposed to shrinking like every Alden news product, and have provided dozens of local jobs. And your money will go to help us continue to keep local journalism alive in Long Beach.<\/p>\n

If city employees wish to keep up with the real news in their city, they should be reading the Long Beach Post. If they appreciate what we do and wish to make a contribution, that\u2019s great, but not required. And your contributions will stay in Long Beach, not fly off to Coconut Grove or East Hampton.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The simple matter is paying Alden Global Capital, which owns the Press-Telegram, for the scant information their papers provide about Long Beach, the money will only allow the papers to stay alive for the dwindling days before Alden sucks their last dollar.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":208,"featured_media":1138,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"newspack_sponsor_sponsorship_scope":"","newspack_sponsor_native_byline_display":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_native_category_display":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_underwriter_style":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_underwriter_placement":"inherit","inline_featured_image":false,"newspack_ads_suppress_ads":false,"newspack_popups_has_disabled_popups":"","_":"","_author_alias":"","cap-aim":"","cap-description":"","cap-display_name":"","cap-first_name":"","cap-jabber":"","cap-last_name":"","cap-linked_account":"","cap-newspack_employer":"","cap-newspack_job_title":"","cap-newspack_phone_number":"","cap-newspack_role":"","cap-user_email":"","cap-user_login":"","cap-website":"","cap-yahooim":"","newspack_article_summary":"","newspack_email_html":"","newspack_email_type":"","newspack_featured_image_position":"","newspack_hide_page_title":"","newspack_hide_updated_date":false,"newspack_post_subtitle":"","newspack_show_share_buttons":"","newspack_sponsor_byline_prefix":"","newspack_sponsor_disclaimer_override":"","newspack_sponsor_flag_override":"","newspack_sponsor_only_direct":"","newspack_sponsor_url":"","newspack_article_summary_title":"Overview:","newspack_show_updated_date":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[65],"tags":[128,20],"newspack_spnsrs_tax":[],"coauthors":[22],"class_list":["post-504","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-opinion","tag-local-news","tag-tim-grobaty","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/voices\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/504","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/voices\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/voices\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/voices\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/208"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/voices\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=504"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/voices\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/504\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/voices\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1138"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/voices\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=504"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/voices\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=504"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/voices\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=504"},{"taxonomy":"newspack_spnsrs_tax","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/voices\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/newspack_spnsrs_tax?post=504"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/voices\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=504"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}