Capitalist Finance Is Incompatible With a Free Press
With the Chicago Tribune's publishing company on the verge of being swallowed up by the hedge fund industry, capitalism’s ongoing destruction of the free press through downsizing and asset-stripping has become the number one threat to American democracy.
Newspaper giant Tribune Publishing is merging with hedge fund Alden Global Capital. Tribune Publishing owns many newspapers across the country, including the Chicago Tribune, the city’s most-read daily paper and the country’s eighth biggest by circulation.
Anyone who cares about press freedoms and the future of journalism should be sparing with their sighs of relief since Trump was removed from power. This is not just because President Joe Biden has chosen to continue Trump’s project of seeking Julian Assange’s extradition to the United States — though of course, that is easily the greatest threat to the First Amendment under either Trump or almost any modern president before that.
Rather, the sad fact is the Fourth Estate revered in liberal thinking continues to be threatened by something unrelated to whether a Democrat or Republican happens to sit in the White House: Wall Street.
Last Tuesday, the news came down that newspaper giant Tribune Publishing was merging with hedge fund Alden Global Capital. Alden’s 31.6 percent stake already made it the company’s biggest shareholder, but the $630 million deal will see it take full ownership of the struggling firm — if, that is, it gets the go-ahead from regulators and Tribune’s other shareholders, including Patrick Soon-Shiong, the biotech billionaire and LA Times owner who owns 24 percent of Tribune’s stock.
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