Hedged

November 13, 2023
This damning debut from American University communications professor Susca examines how “overharvesting profits, the debt born of mergers and acquisitions, and the greed of private investment funds” has hollowed out newspapers across the country over the past 20 years. She explains that private equity firms and hedge funds’ practice of purchasing companies by taking on exorbitant debt has disastrous consequences for employees; for instance, private equity billionaire Sam Zell’s 2007 purchase the Tribune Company, publisher of the Chicago Tribune, saddled the business with $13 billion in debt that it dealt with by laying off 5% of its publishing employees. Affecting stories detail how such deals harm journalists; for instance, Susca tells how Kristen Doerschner, former managing editor of Pennsylvania’s Beaver County Times, was so stressed “her hair began falling out” after Fortress Investment Group’s 2017 purchase of the paper forced her to reduce staff and coverage. Susca also makes a persuasive case that communities are worse off after the corporatization of local news, arguing that the 2020 case of Daniel Prude’s death at the hands of Rochester, N.Y., police “is one that a well-staffed newspaper... should have caught” before the Prude family’s legal campaign for accountability garnered national attention (Rochester’s Democrat and Chronicle had been severely winnowed by news conglomerate Gannett). Readers will be outraged.

October 15, 2023
A professor of journalism examines the ways in which private money co-opted American journalism in the name of profit. At the end of 2017, the Federal Communications Commission voted to deregulate the newspaper and TV news system. Susca argues that this action, upheld by the Supreme Court in 2021, allowed for a small group of private equity firms and hedge funds to increase the rate at which they bought newspapers and consolidated them. The author pinpoints 2003 as the year when private investment firm involvement in the newspaper industry began in earnest, citing the 40% stake Blackstone Group and Providence Equity Partners bought in Freedom Communications, Inc., a then-publicly held news corporation. During the next two decades, more such investments followed, all driven by the desire to "squeeze out more profits" for shareholders by "cutting staff, consolidating beats...closing bureaus and selling off landmark buildings" in communities all over the U.S. The result--especially in small towns--has been the creation of print and digital newspapers that ignore the stories most important to readers, such as those focusing on "children's schools, crime, local commissions and elected boards." This, in turn, has led to what Susca sees as a diminishing of the informative, watchdogging role media has been entrusted to play in democracy. Another disturbing byproduct of the "quality crisis" in journalism has been lessening of audience engagement with the news process itself. "When newspaper companies treat [readers] as consumers only," writes the author, "their function as citizens is limited." Media scholars will appreciate Susca's careful analysis of evidence derived from such sources as court documents, congressional reports, corporate records, and in-depth personal interviews. As timely and incisive as her conclusions are, however, general readers may find the book to be too academic. A well-researched study that will have limited appeal outside of the communications field.

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