Newsonomics: Dean Singleton on The Denver Post: “Everything I believe about the news business is being violated”

It might only seem that the walls are tumbling in at The Denver Post. Or it might be reality. In a stunningly quick series of events, the Post has continued to shed staff — not by firing or layoff, but by what might best be described as resigned resignation. At the same time, I’ve learned, a ...

Read More

Newsonomics: Alden Global Capital Is Making So Much Money Wrecking Local Journalism It Might Not Want To Stop Anytime Soon

Is there any chance Alden Global Capital might change course? The majority owner of Digital First Media — publisher of The Mercury News, The Denver Post, the St. Paul Pioneer Press, 11 Southern California dailies, and 49 others from California to Michigan to New Jersey — has faced a rising tide ...

Read More

Newsonomics: The Denver Post’s Protest Should Launch A New Era of “Calling B.S.”

What are we to make of The Denver Post’s “extraordinary display of defiance”? As the paper’s editorial board, led by Chuck Plunkett, fired a fusillade of public protest on Sunday — publishing six pages decrying the paper’s owner, to the social congratulations of the news world — we may have ...

Read More

Newsonomics: Is Tronc About To Go On The Market?

It almost sounds like a riddle: What’s a Tronc without the L.A. Times? As the Tronc sale of the Times and the San Diego Union-Tribune finalizes, now most likely in mid-April, the next question arises: What becomes of Tronc? Its eight remaining titles own an impressive history and still play ...

Read More

Denverite Launches As First Of Would-Be Nationwide Digital-Only Local News Chain

Today, the news landscape in Denver gets just a little more crowded with today’s announcement of the launch of Denverite, about a month away. Denverite is part of a larger, if still tiny, local news reinvestment trend, but it is its lineage — both in funding and in thinking — that compels our ...

Read More

Newsonomics: When News Companies Are No Longer Built To Last

I’ve gotten feedback about vulture capitalists, hatchet men, and chop shops, and of close-to-retirement publishers getting that unexpected knock on the door from visiting corporate vice presidents. I’ve heard about 30-year-old journalists turning in their resignations, and other young reporters ...

Read More

Newsonomics: Are Post-Paton DFM Cuts More Than a Milking Strategy?

Two months ago, Digital First Media’s deal to sell itself to Apollo Global Management collapsed (“Apollo withdraws from DFM deal, Paton leaves”), and its founding CEO (and would-be industry leader) John Paton said he would leave the company. Now, as of July 1, he’s gone. New CEO Steve Rossi, ...

Read More

Cerberus, Apollo Bidding for Digital First Media

First published at Capital New York   After one cost-cutting private equity company has spent close to half a decade wielding the knife at Digital First Media, how many new “efficiencies” might a second P.E. buyer find? That’s the question we may soon see answered, as the sale of Digital ...

Read More

Newsonomics: Digital First Media’s Upcoming Sale Produces Some Surprises

Anxious journalists from San Jose to Saint Paul, New Haven to Novato await the final shouts of the Digital First Media auction. Bidding is still in progress, as DFM’s regional business heads coast to coast make presentations to would-be buyers, anonymous to them, by conference call. They share ...

Read More

The Newsonomics of Digital First Media’s Thunderdome Implosion (and Coming Sale)

Follow Newsonomics on Twitter @kdoctor First published at Harvard’s Nieman Journalism Lab   Today, we’ll hear official word of the demise of Project Thunderdome, one of the news industry’s highest-profile experiments in centralized, digital-first, mobile-friendly, new-news-partner ...

Read More