Now Owned By Hedge Fund “Butchers”, The San Diego Union-Tribune Faces An Ominous Future

According to an employee, "staff are blindsided."

On July 10, Alex Riggins, a federal courts reporter who has worked The San Diego Union-Tribune for five years, was in the middle of Zoom meeting with his direct editor when they both found out that the trajectory of their newspaper would change. Due to a technical error, his editor’s camera wasn’t working. During the time it took his editor to fix the technical error, they both had checked their email and saw a memo from Chris Argentieri, the COO of the Los Angeles Times, announcing that Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiong, a billionaire who bought the newspaper and the Los Angeles Times in 2018 for $500 million, had sold it to MediaNews Group, a publisher owned by Alden Global Capital. The sale figure hasn’t been revealed. 

The email, which has been obtained by Study Hall, contained a statement from Soon-Shiong:

“Our intention now is to focus on the ongoing work of transforming the L.A. Times into a self-sustaining institution. Our hometown of Los Angeles and the state of California – really, the West Coast – needs a strong, independent news organization. We believe in the L.A. Times and are committed to its future.”

Immediately after reading the email, Riggins started researching MediaNews Group and got ominous results.

Riggins hadn’t realized MediaNews Group was owned by Alden Global Capital, which he described as “butchers” with a reputation of gutting newspapers. In 2021, for $633 million, the hedge fund acquired Tribune Publishing, a newspaper chain which owned New York Daily News,  Chicago Tribune, and The Baltimore Sun. 

“This is devastating news for California journalism. We would have been happy to assist in efforts to find any other buyer or ownership structure than throwing yet another newsroom to this ultra-extractive hedge fund,” Matt Pearce, a reporter at Los Angeles Times and president of the Media Guild of the West, said in a tweet. 

MediaNews Group hasn’t responded to Study Hall’s request for comment. 

Now owned by Alden Global Capital, The San Diego Union-Tribune, which employs 220 people and isn’t unionized, will face reductions. Thirty minutes after the announcement email, the staff got a memo from Sharon Ryan, the Executive Vice President of MediaNews Group’s Western Region. The memo, which was obtained by Study Hall, told staff that “reductions will be necessary to offset the slowdown in revenues as economic headwinds continue to impact the media industry.” Additionally, the email stated that buyouts would be offered as “an effort for staff reductions to be voluntary.” Following that email, staff were notified via another email that if not enough employees signed up for a Voluntary Separation Plan, the company would have to undergo layoffs. The period to sign up ends on July 17.  Riggins told Study Hall that it’s not yet clear how many employees would have to apply for the VSP to prevent layoffs. 

Later in the day, at 4 PM, Jeff Light, the editor in chief, hosted an emergency Zoom meeting for staff which according to Riggins and another characterization on Twitter, didn’t provide that much clarity about the newspaper’s future. Light told staff that he didn’t learn about the sale until earlier that day.

“We all had a lot of questions and he did not have a lot of answers,” Riggins said.

Light told staff that he might “get the ax as well,” according to Riggins.

“I grew up reading the paper. I wanted to work here my whole life,” the reporter said.  “Having Patrick [Soon-Shiong] seemed like a good deal, but it always seems a little bit precarious because we all knew that he only cared about the LA Times. This for me just kind of proves what I’ve always known, that he never cared about us at all.” 

Riggins noted that it’s unclear whether Soon-Shiong tried to sell the newspaper to local organizations, but to him, it seems like he hadn’t. According to Bloomberg, Soon-Shiong is worth $9.05 billion dollars. As Study Hall has previously reported, the Los Angeles Times, the billionaire’s crown jewel, just underwent layoffs and internal tumult. 

“It kind of feels like he fed us to the sharks here,” Riggins told Study Hall. 

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