Wow, it’s been a busy week for news about newspaper journalism. We’ll get to all of it, but first, meet the Florida billionaire who already owns more than 5% of the stock of Lee Enterprises, the owner of the Gazette-Times and the Democrat-Herald, The billionaire, David Hoffman, says he’d like to buy a controlling share of Lee. Hoffman recently bought another Lee paper, the Napa Valley Register, and talks a good game about the importance of local newspapers — or at least he does in this story from The New York Times.
(Lee newspapers, by the way, appear to be going through another wave of layoffs, including at the G-T and D-H and back at my old paper, the Missoulian in Montana.)
Meanwhile, across the nation, it’s become trendy for billionaires to own newspapers. Sometimes, this is a good thing. But sometimes there’s heartburn, because — well — a billionaire owns your newspaper.
(There was a fascinating new development in this story Saturday morning, when Nika Soon-Shiong, the daughter of billionaire owner Patrick Soon-Shiong, said the decision to pull the Harris editorial was based on the candidate’s support for Israel in the war in Gaza.)
And The Washington Post, owned by billionaire Jeff Bezos, announced Friday that it would stop endorsing presidential candidates beginning this year (although, to be fair, the paper has endorsed presidential candidates only since 1976). Post insiders said the decision not to endorse this year was Bezos’ call.
Actually, the longer I worked at newspapers, the more I came to think that editorials endorsing candidates were becoming less valuable, especially as the nation became more polarized. After all, most people have made up their minds about who they’ll support well before an endorsement editorial appears. But I thought editorials on ballot issues were important, if only to offer relatively thorough explanations of what those measures — many of them more important than any of the candidate races — would do. And I still stand by advice I gave years ago in an editorial: If you’re in doubt about any particular measure, a “no” vote usually isn’t a bad default position.
A media company you’ve likely never heard of is now the largest single owner of newspapers in Oregon, with the news this week that the EO Media Group — for decades, owned by an Oregon family — is selling its operations to the Carpenter Media Group. (Full disclosure: As many of you know, I work for the EO Media Group.) To be honest, I had never heard of the Carpenter Media Group either until earlier this year, when the Mississippi-based company bought the Pamplin newspapers in the Portland area. With the new purchases, Carpenter will own more than three dozen newspapers in Oregon and Washington state, mostly in smaller rural communities (although the EO titles include the Bend Bulletin). Carpenter, which now has more than 200 publications, says it’s devoted to small-town journalism. The company’s chairman, Todd Carpenter, says on the company’s website: “Our reason for being is simply this: Communities with effective journalists, newspapers, and digital news organizations tend to be strong communities. We recognize our role and responsibility in protecting and leading these local news organizations, some of which are now more than 160 years old, vital to every person and institution that makes up the community served.”
The Nieman Lab at Harvard has an interview with a University of Minnesota assistant professor who’s studied “news avoiders” — those folks who say, for various reasons, that they don’t follow the news at all. If you’re wondering why the Harris and Trump campaigns have spent so much time talking to podcasters or reaching out via social media, this is part of the answer. How news avoiders might affect the presidential election is another question altogether.
As if we’re not already all worked up about the election, the news continues to be troubling — hey! maybe this is why people avoid the news! Some nimrod (and I use the term here without hesitation) tossed a rock through the window of the Linn County Democrats’ office in Albany — as if it wasn’t hard enough already being a Democrat in Linn County. The good news here is that the Linn County Republican operation not only condemned the vandalism, it helped raise most of the money to replace the window. This probably is a good time to repeat something I’ve said every two years or so: Please, nimrods, do not steal or vandalize your neighbors’ election yard signs.
And speaking of election anxiety, you’ve doubtless read articles this season about how to ease the affliction. But now, a word from the other side: Shayla Love argues in The Atlantic that the stakes are high enough in this election that it’s normal to get worked up about it — although not to the point of tossing rocks through windows or swiping campaign signs, all right?
Here’s one of those stories that turns out to be way more interesting than you might have expected: In 1974, the first winner of California’s Half Moon Bay Safeway World Championship Pumpkin Weigh-Off weighed 132 pounds, and you’re probably thinking, wow, that’s a big pumpkin. But you’re thinking too small: In 2023, a pumpkin named Michael Jordan claimed the world record at 2,749 pounds. (Of course that pumpkin is named Michael Jordan.) Now, according to The Atlantic, pumpkin experts think the 3,000-pound pumpkin is within reach. And if you find yourself wondering, what would be the point of that, well, the only possible answer is: This is America.
Finally this week: The Shari’s Cafe & Pie’s restaurant in Corvallis — along with every other Shari’s in Oregon — has closed, likely for good. (Fun fact: The chain’s very first restaurant was in Hermiston.) The Oregonian/Oregon Live’s Lizzy Acker grew up in Corvallis, and wrote this charming tribute (of sorts) to what Shari’s has meant for generations of teenagers looking for a place to hang out after dark.
That’s it for this weekend. Since Shari’s has closed, we’ll just have to content ourselves with meeting back here next weekend. In the meantime, put down that rock.
“Meanwhile, across the nation, it’s become trendy for billionaires to own newspapers. Sometimes, this is a good thing.”
How is this a good thing (genuinely asking here)? Too much power resides with them as can be seen with WaPo and LA times!
Here’s how I would answer: A billionaire owner who decides that they’re going to hire good journalists and generally let them do their jobs — and until recently, this was generally true of Jeff Bezos’s run as The Washington Post owner — is a better option than letting the newspaper fall into the clutches of a hedge fund, such as Alden Global Capital, which will immediately set about gutting the newsroom. But not all billionaires feel that way; many assume that the newspaper is essentially their sandbox, and that it’s their right to play in it. (Of course, this also is true of many privately owned papers as well.)