This week the Los Angeles Times ownership instituted layoffs of over 100 staffers. This sweeping purge involved the Washington D.C. Bureau, as well as spoke sports beat writers and other reporters. This follows months of contentious in-house conflicts, diminishing traffic and revenues, and even a one-day strike staged by staffers on Friday, January 19.
The Times’ issues are being seen across the news spectrum. The Washington Post has experienced another recent staff cut with buyouts of workers. Sports Illustrated recently announced most of its staff will be out of work. Print and broadcast outlets have been cutting payrolls, to the tune of thousands of jobs lost the past year. To say journalism is in a precarious position these days is a given, but it is also something many in journalism approach with harsh denial. Note how so many reporters keep insisting that our economy is doing great, all while their own industry is being rocked on a weekly basis.
With this reality being faced one would think the story of a billionaire taking over the reins of a foundering newspaper would be looked at as a positive step. The Baltimore Sun is a local paper that has been enduring all of the same pressures seen across the news industry, and recently it was acquired by David D. Smith, for a tidy fortune. Smith is a media mogul centered in Baltimore, so the story should be looked at as a local businessman interested in keeping the doors open and the staff employed at a neighboring news source.
Should be – but it is not. There have been no shortage of gripes at the fact that it is Smith who is looking to turn the paper around. The reason for this consternation is that he is the man behind the Sinclair Media Group, the company that owns an array of television stations across the country and is regarded as that nefarious entity in journalism – a conservative. The belief is that Smith will want to overhaul The Baltimore Sun and make it into a reviled voice of the right.
That is to say, there are people upset he wants to possibly steer away from the formula and format that nearly shuttered the 186 year old paper.
Following his purchase Smith met with the staff of the paper and it was not well received by the employees. One report goes on to state that it is possible Smith could become a worse owner than Alden Capital, the investment firm known for media purchases and then gutting the outlets it acquires. Seemingly insignificant is that Smith has managed to build for himself a media empire, as Sinclair operates over 200 stations. The man dropped a nine-figure sum to buy the paper and restore its success, but people - especially the staff that keeps its jobs - appear disgruntled at this enterprise.
The staffers groused about the fact that the Sinclair stations have a notably right-leaning approach. Said one veteran of the Sun:
“I think it will mean disaster,” John E. McIntyre, an editor at The Sun for 34 years, said of Mr. Smith’s ownership. Mr. McIntyre took a buyout in 2021 and now does occasional freelance work for the new crosstown rival, The Baltimore Banner.
Another personality invoking The Banner was David Simon. He is the creator of the famed HBO series “The Wire”, and he too is a former Baltimore Sun staffer. Simon lashed out at the purchase by Smith, and he strove to drive people to its competitor.
Everyone who is in within the sound of an honest Bawlamer accent needs to subscribe to the @BaltimoreBanner right fucking now. If you do not you are simply complicit. https://t.co/cX129doCr3
— David Simon (@AoDespair) January 16, 2024
It is quite revealing how so many covering the sale of the paper, and the subsequent meeting with the staffers, brought up the Baltimore Banner, and yet not a complaint is to be seen about the owner of that outlet. Stewart Bainum is the mirror image of David Smith; he runs a conglomerate (Choice Hotels International), is a billionaire investor, and is a local to the area. He is, however a staunch Democrat. He served in the state legislature and is a heavy party donor.
Yet his ownership of a local news outlet is curiously not seen as a problem. Absent is any complaint that Bainum is seeking to make a left-wing nerws organ, and this is because the journalism industry is in perfect alignment with liberal/Democratic causes and policies. A recent study from the Syracuse University School of Communications finds that in journalism the representation of Republicans is miniscule - just 3.4%. Democrats, meanwhile, are growing in ranks, to 34%, with the balance claiming to be independent.
Considering that avowed political affiliations in news rooms are at a 10/1 imbalance, the gnashing of teeth over a conservative buying one newspaper in this country is rather amusing. The very idea that a competitive ideology might dare to have a voice is a sophomoric response, yet this is where we are today. It is almost regarded as the better option for a paper to go under and reporters lose work, rather than to have a right-leaning owner keeping the lights on and the paychecks flowing.
It is not a mystery at all why we see the news complex in this nation dissolving on the regular. When they choose insolvency over diversity of thought, you end up with the eroding fortunes we are seeing taking place almost weekly.
Join the conversation as a VIP Member