Flipping the deal: Alden hedge fund may be looking to sell Digital First to Gannett

Recently we learned that the worst of the bottom-feeding newspaper chains, Digital First Media, was seeking to acquire Gannett Co., which owns USA Today and about 100 other publications. Now the New York Post is reporting that the deal could flip the other way: Alden Global Capital, the hedge fund that owns Digital First, might sell to Gannett instead.

On a 1-10 scale of whether this is good news or bad news, I’d give it a 5.1. As I argued in a recent column for WGBHNews.org, anything is better than Digital First. No doubt Gannett ownership would be a marginal improvement for Gannett’s three Massachusetts papers — the Boston Herald, The Sun of Lowell and the Sentinel & Enterprise of Fitchburg.

But Gannett virtually invented the business model for chain newspapers of cutting journalism to the bone while driving up profit margins for the benefit of Wall Street. Just last week Gannett tore through another round of cuts at its newsrooms across the country. So let’s not get too excited.

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