USA Today publisher targeted for buyout

Source: Associated Press

DENVER (AP) — The publisher of USA Today has received a $1.36 billion buyout bid from a media group with a history of taking over struggling newspapers and slashing jobs.

MNG Enterprises, better known as Digital First Media, said in a letter to Gannett Co. Monday that its leadership team has failed to show that it can run the company effectively.

The newspaper industry has shrunk and consolidated as readers ditch print papers and go online. Estimated U.S. daily newspaper circulation, print and digital combined, fell 11 percent to 31 million in 2017, according to the Pew Research Center. As recently as 2000, weekday subscriptions totaled 55.8 million.

In just the last three years, employment in newsrooms has fallen 15 percent.

The Wall Street Journal was first to report that the hedge-fund backed MNG has built up a 7.5 percent stake in Gannett, and that it has been rebuffed repeatedly by the company about a sale.

Gannett said Monday that it has received the offer and it’s under review.

Read more: https://apnews.com/037f74f32f1346978593b80e5bbedae2

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In April, The Post published the editorial headlined “As vultures circle, The Denver Post must be saved,” calling on Alden Global Capital to sell the newspaper after it cut 30 more positions in the newsroom, leaving it at a fraction of its size just a few years ago.
Then in May , three top figures at the Denver Post, including its former owner, resigned amid budget and staff cuts.

But jobs are being slashed all over at newspapers.

In July media company Tronc Inc. cut half of the New York Daily News’ newsroom staff, including the paper’s editor in chief.