Open Markets Institute

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Webinar | A Replanting Strategy - Saving Local Newspapers Squeezed by Hedge Funds

Open Markets

The Center for Journalism & Liberty and the Open Markets Institute host a webinar featuring Steven Waldman in conversation with advocates and experts about saving local journalism.

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Given the ongoing challenges faced by news organizations and journalists —beyond a pandemic and transformative time in media— hedge funds have continued to buy local newspapers, squeezing them until near death.

Steven Waldman, president of Report for America, kicks off this webinar by detailing his new paper and proposals produced under the direction of the Center for Journalism & Liberty. The paper outlines a funding structure for a "replanting strategy" – to acquire and transfer hundreds of newspapers owned by private equity funds and replant them with local community groups.

Waldman’s plan could transform some of the 6,700 privately owned newspapers into more community-grounded institutions, especially many of the 1,100 newspapers owned by private equity firms.

Elizabeth Hansen and Marc Hand also discuss their proposal for a new National Trust for Local News that would assemble capital to finance the transition of locally-owned newspapers to more sustainable forms, including new business models and operating structures. Fraser Nelson shares insight about how she helped convert the Salt Lake Tribune to nonprofit status and Denise Rolark Barnes describes the relationship between for-profit funding structures and the Black press, and their need for a more sustainable system.

Guests:

  • Jody Brannon, director of the Center for Journalism & Liberty

  • Steve Waldman, CEO and co-founder, Report for America, and author of landmark 2011 FCC report on the future of local media

  • Fraser Nelson, vice president, business innovation, Salt Lake Tribune

  • Denise Rolark Barnes, publisher of the Washington Informer and chair of the National Newspaper Publishers Association

  • Elizabeth Hansen, Ph.D., lead researcher of the News Sustainability and Business Models project at the Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy at Harvard's Kennedy School

  • Marc Hand, CEO of Public Media Venture Group