By gutting local advertising overnight, COVID-19 has accelerated strategies — like cutting print days, corporate consolidation, or even closing down offices — that publishers had hoped could wait a while longer.
The multi-trillion-dollar CARES Act should extend a lifeline to many small local publishers. But for bigger companies and chains, the help they’ll receive is still up in the air — “It’s very unformed.”
By selling Berkshire Hathaway’s newspapers to Lee Enterprises, the world’s most successful investor is acknowledging the industry’s downhill slide is not near an end.
The nation’s second-largest newspaper company had paid off most of its old debt and still generates positive cashflow. But it might head to bankruptcy anyway so investors can get paid.
Two companies with similar editorial values and brands that mostly complement instead of overlap. This is the kind of smart merger we should see more of.
A combined GannHouse (Gatenett?) would own 1 out of every 6 daily newspapers in America. The goal? Buy two or three more years to figure out how to make money in digital.
This hostile takeover didn’t work out. But the thinking of industry executives remains dominated by the inevitable merging of America’s big newspaper chains.
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Doctor, Ken. "Newsonomics: Gannett turns back Alden, but it’s just a hiccup before the big rollup in the sky." Nieman Journalism Lab. Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard, 16 May. 2019. Web. 9 Dec. 2023.
APA
Doctor, K. (2019, May. 16). Newsonomics: Gannett turns back Alden, but it’s just a hiccup before the big rollup in the sky. Nieman Journalism Lab. Retrieved December 9, 2023, from https://www.niemanlab.org/2019/05/newsonomics-gannett-turns-back-alden-but-its-just-a-hiccup-before-the-big-rollup-in-the-sky/
Chicago
Doctor, Ken. "Newsonomics: Gannett turns back Alden, but it’s just a hiccup before the big rollup in the sky." Nieman Journalism Lab. Last modified May 16, 2019. Accessed December 9, 2023. https://www.niemanlab.org/2019/05/newsonomics-gannett-turns-back-alden-but-its-just-a-hiccup-before-the-big-rollup-in-the-sky/.
Wikipedia
{{cite web
| url = https://www.niemanlab.org/2019/05/newsonomics-gannett-turns-back-alden-but-its-just-a-hiccup-before-the-big-rollup-in-the-sky/
| title = Newsonomics: Gannett turns back Alden, but it’s just a hiccup before the big rollup in the sky
| last = Doctor
| first = Ken
| work = [[Nieman Journalism Lab]]
| date = 16 May 2019
| accessdate = 9 December 2023
| ref = {{harvid|Doctor|2019}}
}}
