Publisher, Stewart Sallo Associate Publisher, Fran Zankowski Director of Operations/Controller, Benecia Beyer Circulation Manager, Cal Winn EDITORIAL Editor, Joel Dyer Managing Editor, Matt Cortina Senior Editor, Angela K. Evans Arts and Culture Editor, Caitlin Rockett Special Editions Editor, Emma Murray Editorial interns, Giselle Cesin, Lenah Reda Contributing Writers, Peter Alexander, Dave Anderson, Will Brendza, Rob Brezsny, Michael J. Casey, Paul Danish, Sarah Haas, Jim Hightower, Dave Kirby, John Lehndorff, Rico Moore, Amanda Moutinho, Leland Rucker, Dan Savage, Josh Schlossberg, Alan Sculley, Ryan Syrek, Mariah Taylor, Christi Turner, Betsy Welch, Sidni West, Tom Winter, Gary Zeidner SALES AND MARKETING Retail Sales Manager, Allen Carmichael Account Executives, Julian Bourke, Matthew Fischer Market Development Manager, Kellie Robinson Advertising Assistant, Jennifer Elkins Marketing Coordinator, Lara Henry Mrs. Boulder Weekly, Mari Nevar PRODUCTION Art Director, Susan France Senior Graphic Designer, Mark Goodman Graphic Designer, Daisy Bauer CIRCULATION TEAM Dave Hastie, Dan Hill, George LaRoe, Jeffrey Lohrius, Elizabeth Ouslie, Rick Slama Cover, “Pablo,” by Don Coen April 11, 2019 Volume XXVI, Number 35 As Boulder County's only independently owned newspaper, Boulder Weekly is dedicated to illuminating truth, advancing justice and protecting the First Amendment through ethical, no-holds-barred journalism and thought-provoking opinion writing. Free every Thursday since 1993, the Weekly also offers the county's most comprehensive arts and entertainment coverage. Read the print version, or visit www.boulderweekly.com. Boulder Weekly does not accept unsolicited editorial submissions. If you're interested in writing for the paper, please send queries to: editorial@ boulderweekly.com. Any materials sent to Boulder Weekly become the property of the newspaper.
690 South Lashley Lane, Boulder, CO, 80305 p 303.494.5511 f 303.494.2585 editorial@boulderweekly.com www.boulderweekly.com Boulder Weekly is published every Thursday. No portion may be reproduced in any form without written permission from the publisher. © 2019 Boulder Weekly, Inc., all rights reserved.
Boulder Weekly
welcomes your correspondence via email (letters@ boulderweekly.com) or the comments section of our website at www.boulderweekly.com. Preference will be given to short letters (under 300 words) that deal with recent stories or local issues, and letters may be edited for style, length and libel. Letters should include your name, address and telephone number for verification. We do not publish anonymous letters or those signed with pseudonyms. Letters become the property of Boulder Weekly and will be published on our website.
BOULDER COUNTY’S INDEPENDENT VOICE
FOR MORE INFORMATION on Jim Hightower’s work — and to subscribe to his award-winning monthly newsletter, The Hightower Lowdown — visit www.jimhightower.com.
Who are the serial killers of America’s newspapers? by Jim Hightower
I
n a recent two-panel cartoon, a character holds a sign saying: “First they came for the reporters.” In the next panel, his sign says: “We don’t know what happened after that.” It was, of course, a retort to Donald Trump’s ignorant campaign to demonize the news media as “the enemy of the people.” But the worst enemy of America’s local and regional newspapers is not our ranting president, but a new breed of fastbuck hucksters who’ve scooped up hundreds of America’s newspapers from the bargain bins of media sell-offs. The buyers are hedge-fund scavengers with nondescript names like I
Digital First and GateHouse. They know nothing about journalism and care less, for they’re Wall Street profiteers out to grab big bucks fast by slashing the journalistic staffs of each paper, voiding all employee benefits, shriveling the paper’s size and news content, selling the presses and other assets, tripling the price of their inferior product — then declaring bankruptcy, shutting down the paper and auctioning off the bones before moving on to plunder another town’s paper. America’s two largest newspaper chains today are not venerable publishers with a basic commitment to civic APRIL 11, 2019
responsibility, but GateHouse and Digital First, whose managers believe that good journalism is measured by the personal profit they can squeeze from it. As revealed last year in an American Prospect article, GateHouse executives had demanded that its papers cut $27 million from their operating expenses, eliminating jobs and slashing paychecks. Meanwhile, one employee — the hedge fund’s CEO — extracted $54 million in personal pay from the conglomerate, including an $11 million bonus. To these absentee owners, newspapers are no more than pipelines — a means of hauling enormous financial wealth and social well-being out of our communities. This opinion column does not necessarily reflect the views of Boulder Weekly. I
5