The deal nearly Doubles Lee’s size

The deal nearly doubles Lee's audience size. Davenport-based Lee is currently in 50 markets. Serving communities in 10 states, BHMG owns the print and digital operations of 30 daily papers, as well as more than 49 paid weekly publications with digital sites and 32 other print products.

The transaction also includes The Buffalo News, which is separately owned by Berkshire Hathaway.

BHMG’s real estate (including permanently attached equipment) and cash are excluded from the acquisition. “On the value of the sale, Buffett took a bath. But BH is retaining the property, which it will lease to Lee — keeping a solid source of income. Plus it could sell them later as real estate values appreciate,” wrote Rick Edmonds of Poynter.

“This is a compelling and transformative transaction for Lee,” said Mary Junck, Lee’s chairman. “It both refinances our long-term debt on attractive terms and provides new revenue opportunities as well as operational synergies across an expanded portfolio.”

In a 2019 interview with Yahoo Finance, Berkshire Hathaway chairman and CEO Buffett expressed doubt about the viability of papers outside of The New York Times, Wall Street Journal and Washington Post. “They're going to disappear,” he said.

“We had zero interest in selling the group to anyone else for one simple reason: We believe that Lee is best positioned to manage through the industry’s challenges,” Buffett said in a statement on the sale.

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Thursday Morning in the Blogosphere

A History Of Newspaper Puzzles - The Spokesman-Review

Why We Should Care About the Tribune Crashing - Loyola Phoenix

Overseas journalism jobs: How to find them and succeed - Journalism UK

Publishers are using a Starbucks Wi-Fi program to hunt for new readers - Digiday

Virginia, here’s why you should worry about your newspapers - Virginia Mercury

Four Stories Show That Disinformation Has a Home on Iran’s State Television - Poynter

How Emily Ramshaw plans to build the most representative newsroom in America - Poynter

Macy’s to close 125 stores — about 1 in 5 — and cut 2,000 corporate jobs - Chicago Tribune

MediaNews Group Acquires Assets of Red Wing Publishing CO.- Dirks, Van Essen, Murray, April

Hedge Fund That Bleeds Newspapers Dry Now Has the Chicago Tribune by the Throat - Vanity Fair

Notorious hedge fund that owns the Pioneer Press buys Minnesota media group - Bring me the News

Alden takes stake in Lee after BH Media news

Hedge fund Alden Global Capital’s MNG Enterprises has taken a 5.9% stake in Lee Enterprises. The move came on the heels of the Jan. 29 announcement that Lee is buying Warren Buffett’s BH Media Group publications and The Buffalo News for $140 million in cash.

Various media watchers reacted to the news.

Nieman Lab Director Joshua Benton took a dim view of the news, while the NewsGuild’s Julia Reynolds provided info on MNG’s background, parts of which are “shrouded in secrecy,” claims Reynolds.

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Today in Labor History February 6th

General Strike

A strike by shirtwaist workers, primarily immigrant women and girls, in Philadelphia’s garment sweatshops ends. Despite mass arrests, intimidation, scabs, and media blasts against them, the workers refused to back down until their demands for improved working conditions, reduced working hours, increased wages, and union recognition were met. – 1910

Striking shirtwaist workers in Philadelphia win, the Seattle General Strike begins, and after 136 days on strike, Fisher Bodyworkers ratified a new agreement.CLICK TO TWEET

The Seattle General Strike began on this date. The city’s 10,000 Japanese immigrants participated in the walkout, along with longshoremen, trolley operators, and bartenders. The strike began in response to government sanctioned wage cuts. During the strike, councils were formed consisting of workers, soldiers and sailors, which took over virtually all major city services, including food distribution and security. The strike ultimately ended as a result of bureaucratic labor union intervention.  – 1919

After 136 days on strike, Fisher Bodyworkers ratified a new agreement. – 1970

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Lee buying Berkshire Hathaway papers

In a move that industry watchers could have seen coming, Iowa-based Lee Enterprises is buying Warren Buffett’s BH Media Group’s publications and The Buffalo News for $140 million in cash.

Lee has managed BHMG’s publications since July 2018 under a management agreement. Buffett has been pulling away from the industry for some time and has expressed doubts about the long-term viability of many operations.

In the deal, Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway, BH Media parent, is providing approximately $576 million in long-term financing to Lee at a 9 percent annual rate. The proceeds from the Berkshire financing will be used to pay for the acquisition, refinance Lee’s approximately $400 million of existing debt and provide enough cash on Lee’s balance sheet to allow for the ending of Lee’s revolving credit facility, Lee says. Subsequent to the deal closing, expected in March, Berkshire Hathaway will be Lee’s sole lender.

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Wednesday Morning in the Blogosphere

The future of newspapers is bleak

7 ways newspapers benefit students - Rome News-Tribune

Pride Media’s New CEO Pledges to ‘Right the Ship’ - Folio

Tribune Publishing CEO leaves as Alden tightens its grip - Poynter

Infographic: Saudi attacks on the press - Committee to Protect Journalist

David Leigh's survival guide to investigative journalism - Journalism UK

Letter: The need for an independent press has never been greater - Inforum

CBS 2 eyes launch of 24/7 streaming news service in March - Robert Feder

Nicaragua, Soon to Become the Only Country Without a Print Newspaper - Havana Times

As Other U.S. Publishers Exit the Mexican Market, Business Insider is Moving In - Nieman Lab

Long Beach Business Journal Sold to Pacific Community Media - Dirks, Van Essen, Murray, April

Future moves?

In a filing with the SEC, MNG (MediaNews Group) says it intends to talk to Lee about “the recently announced acquisition of Berkshire Hathaway’s newspaper operations” and matters pertaining to Lee’s 2020 annual meeting.

The buy involved 3.4 million shares at $2.7173/share.

The news will undoubtedly generate speculation about future Alden moves in the industry, which could be significant. Tribune Publishing and McClatchy are among properties to watch.

In November, New York-based Alden became the biggest shareholder in Tribune Publishing. Tribune Publishing then added two Alden representatives to the company’s board, making it eight members. Alden is barred from boosting its stake in the company to more than 33 percent until the end of June. “Journalists are wary of Alden because of its cut-to-the-bone management strategy,” said a Jan. 26 story in The New York Times.

The piece focused on Chicago Tribune staffers’ attempts to get entities other than Alden to take over the paper.

Sacramento-based McClatchy, the second-biggest newspaper publisher in the country by circulation, skipped a $12 million debt-interest payment due Jan. 15. The company also missed a pension payment.

McClatchy has been in restructuring negotiations with lenders and bondholders as well as Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp., the U.S. government’s pension insurer, as it aims to stave off bankruptcy.

Denver-based MNG Enterprises, which also does business as Digital First Media, was recently in the news for its hostile takeover attempt to acquire USA Today parent Gannett. GateHouse parent New Media Investment Group completed a $1.2 billion cash-and-stock buy of Gannett, the companies announced Nov. 19.

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Today in Labor History February 5th

Modern Times

The first daily labor newspaper, the N.Y. Daily Sentinel, began publication. – 1830

The movie Modern Times premiered. The tale of the tramp (Charlie Chaplin) and his paramour (Paulette Goddard) mixed slapstick comedy and social satire, as the couple struggled to overcome the difficulties of the machine age, including unemployment and nerve wracking factory work. – 1937

The movie Modern Times permiered, President Clinton signed the Family and Medical Leave Act, Circuit City fired 3,900 experienced salespeople, and more.CLICK TO TWEET

President Bill Clinton signed the Family and Medical Leave Act.  The law requires most employers of 50 or more workers to grant up to 12 weeks of unpaid leave for a family or medical emergency. – 1993

In what turned out to be a bad business decision, Circuit City fired 3,900 experienced sales people because they were making too much in commissions. Sales plummeted. In 2007, the company laid off approximately 3,400 higher-paid workers and replaced them with workers starting off at $7.40 an hour. In 2009, Circuit City declared bankruptcy. – 2003

Cal/OSHA, California’s state-run OSHA office, held a meeting to discuss a draft of what would become the nation’s first ever comprehensive workplace violence prevention regulation for healthcare workers. Healthcare and social assistance workers experience the most assaults on the job, accounting for almost 60 percent of violent assaults in the workplace, but management’s response too often is that it is just “part of the job”. – 2015

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Google Chrome to phase out support for third-party cookies

Google plans to phase out support for third-party cookies in Chrome, the company announced in a blog post Jan. 14. The company plans to do so within two years. “But we cannot get there alone, and that’s why we need the ecosystem to engage on these proposals. We plan to start the first origin trials by the end of this year, starting with conversion measurement and following with personalization” says the blog.

In August, Google announced a new initiative known as Privacy Sandbox to develop a set of open standards to enhance privacy on the web, the company says. The cookies announcement is an update on that initiative.

“Users are demanding greater privacy — including transparency, choice and control over how their data is used — and it’s clear the web ecosystem needs to evolve to meet these increasing demands” says the blog.

Google says it’s gotten positive feedback in forums like the W3C (World Wide Web Consortium) that the mechanisms underlying the Privacy Sandbox represent key use-cases and go in the right direction. 

Meanwhile, new research has found that cookies represent higher revenue to online publishers. According to the study, titled “Consumer Privacy Choice in Online Advertising: Who opts out and at what cost to industry?” there is a 52 percent reduction in advertising revenue to publishers when cookies are eliminated through user opt-out protocols. When cookies are present, publishers’ ad pricing doubles, the study says.

The study is authored by Garrett Johnson of Questrom School of Business at Boston University; Scott Shriver of the Leeds School of Business at the University of Colorado; and Shaoyin Du of the Simon Business School at the University of Rochester. It can be found in the January edition of the INFORMS journal “Marketing Science.”

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Tuesday Morning in the Blogosphere

Even Warren Buffett's Given Up on Newspapers - The Motley Fool

Stop the hand-wringing over decline of newspapers - Journal Standard

The end comes for another local newspaper, 165 years after it began - WaPo

Coastal Bend Publishing buys five newspapers in Texas - Americas Newspapers

CEO Tim Knight leaves Tribune Publishing in company shakeup - Robert Feder

The keys to keeping digital subscribers — and their revenue - Americas Newspapers

The Iowa Caucus is a Reminder That ‘Horserace’ Journalism is Still the Norm - Guardian

Meet the first cohort of Poynter’s 2020 Leadership Academy for Women in Media - Poynter

A “management transition” is the latest gloomy sign to come out of Tribune Publishing - NL

Tribune Publishing announces Terry Jimenez has assumed role of President and CEO - Street Insider

2019 was a good year for digital growth at NYT

The New York Times Company now has more than 5 million total subscriptions, an all-time record for the company.

President and CEO Mark Thompson announced that and other significant milestones at town hall meetings inside the company Jan. 14.

The company passed its goal of $800 million of annual digital revenue a year ahead of schedule. In 2015, when digital revenue was around $400 million, The Times set itself the objective of doubling this category of revenue by the end of 2020.

The company added more than 1 million net digital subscriptions last year. This is the highest annual run-rate since the launch of the digital model in 2011 and the largest number of net subscription additions in a year in the history of The New York Times Company.

The company’s 5 million subscriptions include 3.4 million core news subscriptions, more than 300,000 to NYT Cooking and 600,000 to NYT Crossword, as well as nearly 900,000 print subscriptions.

The company will release full details of its fourth-quarter and full-year 2019 performance in its quarterly earnings conference call Feb. 6.

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Today in Labor History February 4th

Big Bill Haywood

The Ohio legislature authorized construction of the 249-mile Miami and Erie Canal to connect Toledo to Cincinnati. Local historians said “Irish immigrants, convicts and local farmers used picks, shovels and wheelbarrows,” at 30 cents per day, to construct the 249-mile-long waterway. – 1825

The International Association of Bridge, Structural, Ornamental and Reinforcing Iron Workers formed at a meeting in Pittsburgh with 16 delegates from local unions. Today, the union represents 120,000 ironworkers in North America. – 1896

Wobbly and Labor leader Big Bill Haywood was born, Rosa Park was born, 27,000 maritime workers on strike, and more.CLICK TO TWEET

Labor leader and Industrial Workers of the World co-founder William D. “Big Bill” Haywood was born on this date. Haywood started mining at age nine. He became secretary-treasurer of the Western Federation of Miners in 1900 and co-founded the IWW in 1905. Charged in the bombing murder of former Idaho Governor Frank Steunenberg in 1907, he was acquitted with the counsel of Clarence Darrow. His radicalism led to his dismissal from the WFM in 1918. That same year, a victim of the Red Scare, he was convicted of violating alien and sedition acts and was sentenced to 20 years in prison. However, he jumped bail and fled to the Soviet Union, where he died in 1928. – 1869

Rosa Parks, whose refusal to give up her bus seat to a white man launched the 1955 Montgomery, Alabama bus boycott and the birth of the civil rights movement, was born on this date in Tuskegee, Alabama. – 1913

Unemployment demonstrations took place in major U.S. cities. – 1932

37,000 maritime workers on the West Coast struck for wage increases. – 1937

President Barack Obama imposed $500,000 caps on senior executive pay for the most distressed financial institutions receiving federal bailout money, saying Americans are upset with “executives being rewarded for failure”. – 2009

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Tribune Publishing offers buyouts

Tribune Publishing is offering voluntary buyouts to all staff employed for eight or more years, the Chicago Tribune reported.

The move is aimed at avoiding “turning to company-wide reductions of the workforce as a last resort,” Tribune Publishing CEO Tim Knight said in an email to employees.

New York hedge fund Alden Global Capital became the biggest shareholder in Tribune Publishing in November. Tribune Publishing then added two Alden representatives to the newspaper company’s board, making it eight members. Alden is barred from boosting its stake in the company to more than 33 percent until the end of June.

Tribune Publishing had some 4,100 full-time employees at the end of last year, according to the company.

Tribune Publishing owns the Chicago Tribune, Baltimore Sun, Hartford Courant, Orlando Sentinel, South Florida Sun Sentinel, New York Daily News and other papers.

News and Tech

Monday Morning in the Blogosphere

Another consequence of buyouts: New assignments - Orlando Sentinel

Woodburn Graphics closed, property up for sale - Terre Haute Tribune Star

Shrinking news staffs mean Aspies like me have fewer places to work - Poynter

NY Times’ pioneering Visual Investigations: behind the scenes - Editors Weblog

Humans Disrupting Digital? Expect More Regulation, Fact-Checking and Curation - EP

David Haugh’s exit from Chicago Tribune tops most-read posts in January - Robert Feder

This Simple Maneuver Will Help Warren Buffett Make $1.3 Billion in Dying Newspapers - CNN

The State of Print Collateral: Where Are We Headed in 2020 and Beyond? - Printing Impressions

Lee Enterprises: The Perfect Fit For The Legacy Of Warren Buffett (Newspapers) - Seeking Alpha

Dean Baquet demonstrates why bothsidesism is alive and well at his New York Times - Press Watch

Sen. Wyden urges FTC to probe ad-blocking industry

Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR) wants the Federal Trade Commission to investigate the ad-blocking software industry.

“Hundreds of millions of consumers around the world have downloaded and installed software tools that purport to block online ads. In turn, the largest ad companies — including Google, Amazon, Microsoft and Verizon Media — have quietly paid millions of dollars to some of the largest ad blocking software companies in order to be able to continue to track and target consumers with ads,” Wyden says in a letter to FTC Chairman Joseph Simons.

“In 2011, Adblock Plus, one of the most popular free ad blocking tools, stopped blocking all ads by default and instead started to display ads in return for substantial payments from the largest ad companies,” the letter said. Adblock Plus is made by Eyeo, a German company.

The FTC said it had gotten the letter, the Verge reported.

News and Tech

Today in Labor History February 3rd

Mary Harris "Mother" Jones

The US Supreme Court ruled the United Hatters Union violated the Sherman Antitrust Act by organizing a nationwide boycott of Danbury Hatters of Connecticut. – 1908

Mother Jones addresses striking Milwaukee brewery workers, 32,000 textile mill workers involved in Bread and Roses' strike, 29 die in explosion at the Thiokol chemical plant in Georgia and more.CLICK TO TWEET

Mary Harris “Mother” Jones addressed Milwaukee brewery workers during a two-month stint working alongside women bottle-washers while on leave from the United Mine Workers: ”Condemned to slave daily in the washroom in wet shoes and wet clothes, surrounded with foul-mouthed, brutal foremen . . . the poor girls work in the vile smell of sour beer, lifting cases of empty and full bottles weighing from 100 to 150 pounds, in their wet shoes and rags, for they cannot buy clothes on the pittance doled out to them. . . . Rheumatism is one of the chronic ailments and is closely followed by consumption . . . An illustration of what these girls must submit to, one about to become a mother told me with tears in her eyes that every other day a depraved specimen of mankind took delight in measuring her girth and passing comments.” – 1910

32,000 textile mill workers were actively involved in the “Bread & Roses” strike in Lawrence, Massachusetts. The strike began last month and continued for over nine weeks. Several strikers were killed by cops and goons. Annie Welzenbach and her two teenage sisters were dragged from their beds in the middle of the night. 200 police attacked striking women with their clubs. – 1912

The Supreme Court of the United States ruled unanimously in United States v. Darby to uphold the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938, which banned certain types of child labor, established a minimum wage, and set a maximum workweek at 44 hours. – 1941

An explosion at the Thiokol chemical plant in Woodbine, Georgia, killed 29 workers and severely injured many more. Investigations found that mislabeled chemicals, inadequate storage procedures, and insufficient fire protection all contributed to the explosion. – 1971

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Orange County Weekly closes

The free OC Weekly, a paper covering Orange County and Long Beach, has ceased production.

“Today, the day before Thanksgiving, our owner Duncan McIntosh Company has decided to shut us down,” said a Nov. 27 tweet on the paper’s Twitter account. “For the last quarter century, we’ve tried to bring good stories to Orange County. It’s been fun, but now we’re done.”

The paper had a 19-person staff as shown on its masthead, according to The Wrap.

The paper goes back to 1995. It had a circulation of 45,000 and reached more than 503,000 active readers, the Wrap reported. California-based Duncan McIntosh Company bought the paper in 2016 from the Village Voice’s owner.

DMC owns Sea Magazine, Boating World and other properties.

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Legacy.com buys iPublish Media

Legacy.com, provider of online obituary solutions in the U.S., has acquired iPublish Media Solutions, a self-serve platform for placement of obituaries and other announcements in U.S. newspapers.

Legacy.com has been in memorial publishing for two decades, providing technologies and social engagement products to local news organizations.

The acquisition will simplify the process of placing newspaper obituaries and significantly expand access to self-serve publishing tools for funeral homes and consumers, said Legacy.com in a news release.

“Legacy is an open platform that integrates with any and all self-serve solutions deployed by publishers, and we will enthusiastically continue to do so,” says Stopher Bartol, CEO of Legacy.com. “Yet our view is that the iPublish team and technology are the absolute best-in-class.”

IPublish will be run independently by its current leadership and the two companies’ customers will benefit from tighter alignment of their respective platforms, the release said.

News and Tech

Saturday Morning in the Blogosphere

Back to work this Monday, doing what I do

The power of the self-imposed deadline - Poynter

The Conservatives Trying to Ditch Fake News - The Atlantic

This is Murdoch's vision for saving the news industry - News Corp

Far from the mainland, a French newspaper faces liquidation - CJR

Tribune, Outlook to Combine Forces in Weekly Newspaper - Constant Contact

Anne Cox Chambers, wealthy newspaper heiress, dies at 100 - Minneapolis Star Tribune

Swedish Media in Solidarity Against Chinese Attacks on Press Freedom - Editors Weblog

Tribune exec: Staffers should be singing ‘Glory Hallelujah’ about buyout packages - NY Post

Johnson Publishing office artwork fetches nearly $3 million in bankruptcy auction - Chicago Tribune

After Layoffs at The Brooklyn Eagle, Former Staffers Accuse Owner of Mismanagement - Gothamist

Restoration NewsMedia managing papers

Restoration NewsMedia has made a deal to manage two papers in Illinois, the Wake Weekly reported.

Kathleen Lewis, publisher of the Robinson Daily News and the Daily Record of Lawrenceville, inked a management deal with Restoration NewsMedia in late 2019, Wake Weekly reported.  

Restoration NewsMedia was formed in 2019 by The Wilson Times and The Daily Record, two family newspapers (both in North Carolina). The company was created to allow family-owned newspapers to benefit from the efficiencies of bigger chains, including a consolidated printing center and design hubs, the Johnstonian News (Kenly, North Carolina) said.

Restoration NewsMedia is part of the UNC Knight-Lenfest Table Stakes Newsroom Initiative’s third cohort at the University of North Carolina’s Hussman School of Journalism.

“Our newspapers have each been covering their communities for more than 100 years, and we want to make sure they remain strong for 100 more,” Lewis said. “This partnership will help us put the Daily News and Daily Record in the best possible position for the future of local news,” Lewis said.

News and Tech

Today in Labor History February 1st

San Diego Free Speech Fight

The Collar Laundry Union formed in Troy, New York. Led by Kate Mullaney, a National Labor Union activist, the union increased wages for laundresses from $2 to $14 per week. – 1864

Gold-Bricking? Bricklayers started working 8-hour days on this date. – 1867

The IWW free speech fight is in full swing in San Diego, 25,000 Peterson NJ silk workers strike for an 8 hour day, the Federal minimum wage increased to $1.60 per hour and more.CLICK TO TWEET

The IWW free speech fight was in full swing in San Diego, California.  On January 8, a city ordinance was passed preventing public speaking in and around “soapbox row”. It was designed to squelch labor and radical organizing. In addition to the Wobblies, anarchists, socialists and liberals joined the months-long struggle, deliberately violating the ordinance by speaking in the restricted zone so that the jails would be overflowing with civil disobeyers. At one point in the struggle, Emma Goldman was forcibly deported from San Diego, and her companion Ben Reitman was tarred, feathered and raped with a broom by vigilantes. – 1912

From the July 11, 1912 edition of the IWW’s Little Red Songbook, the first stanza of “We’re Bound For San Diego”:

In that town called San Diego when the workers try to talk,The cops will smash them with a sap and tell them “take a walk”,They throw them in a bull pen and they feed them rotten beans,And they call that “law and order” in that city, so it seems.

25,000 Paterson, NJ silk workers struck for an eight-hour work day and improved working conditions. 1,800 were arrested over the course of the six-month walkout led by the Wobblies. They returned to work on their employer’s terms. – 1913

Timber workers went on strike over an increased workweek from 44 hours to 48. – 1929

The federal minimum wage increased to $1.60 per hour. – 1968

The International Brotherhood of Firemen & Oilers merged with the Service Employees International Union. – 1995

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Bills to address California freelance law

California State Sen. Scott Wilk has said that he is coauthoring two bills to help newspapers and freelance journalists continue to operate in California by exempting them from the state’s new anti-independent contracting law, Assembly Bill 5.

Assembly Bill 5 took effect at the beginning of 2020. It caps freelancers at a max of 35 stories per year to maintain independent status.

Senator Wilk, R-Antelope Valley, has joined Senator Patricia Bates, R-Laguna Niguel, in authoring Senate Bills 867 and 868 to address separately the concerns of newspapers and freelance journalists. Both bills are pending referral to Senate policy committees.

“I am committed to finding a way for Californians to continue working in the way that works for them,” said a statement from Wilk’s office. “Last year the governor and majority party left many industries and professions scrambling to survive when Assembly Bill 5 was passed and signed into law — including newspapers and freelance journalists,” said Wilk. “Today we are taking a first step in fixing the new law’s many flaws by helping California’s newspapers and journalists continue in their traditional way of doing business.”

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