Baltimore Sun staff clashes with new owner: 'I don't know how to get along with him'

“I literally didn't read the paper. I've read the paper maybe four times since I started working on trying to buy this place,” Smith said, according to an audio recording of the meeting obtained by The Washington Post.

Regardless, Smith appeared to have strong opinions — negative opinions — about the Sun and the fleet of suburban newspapers he had purchased alongside it, which he laid out in a tense two-and-a-half-hour meeting, leaving many employees confused about the millionaire's intentions toward the city. 186-year-old newspaper.

He suggested The Sun should ignore the stories readers craved about crime and government dysfunction. (“We are a Pulitzer Prize-winning newsroom,” one journalist responded, most recently in 2020, To investigate a fraud case (Forcing the mayor to resign.) He stood by a 2018 interview in which he called print media a “senseless quibble.” When pressed, he said he mostly thinks the same thing about the sun.

“Just look at the data,” he said, citing declining print circulation, even though newspapers across the country have been affected by the same decades-long shift in the public's reading habits.

In recent years, many journalists have waxed nostalgic for the era of family newspaper dynasties, when those with deep local roots and deep emotional investments in local news made executive decisions — rather than far-flung corporations responding to the whims of Wall Street and global economic pressures.

That was certainly the case in Baltimore, where the Sun suffered years of cutbacks after its consolidation into the Tribune newspaper chain, even before it was purchased nearly three years ago by a financial management firm with a reputation for cutting jobs and closing newsrooms. .

But while many Sun reporters had longed to part ways with that company, Alden Global Capital, Monday's unexpected news that their newspaper had been sold to an independent local buyer sparked more worry than joy — especially after meeting with Smith, the CEO. Sinclair Broadcast Company. The group, whose nearly 200 local TV stations have shown a marked conservative lean in recent years.

And in their meeting – some of the details of which I have previously reported Baltimore banner And NPR – Smith declared that he knew little about the newspaper business other than that it was a business. “Your job is to create content, a product that people want,” he said, according to the audio recording.

A former senior editor at the Sun said the drama surrounding Smith's purchase would make this “one of the country's most fascinating local news acquisitions to watch” in the coming months.

“In general, research has shown that local ownership is beneficial to regional news organizations,” leading to increased investment and renewed local coverage, said Tim Franklin, a former executive editor of the Sun who is now senior associate dean at Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism. . “The concern here is whether he will use the sun to advance his ideological agenda.”

Smith declined a request for an interview Tuesday, but his spokesman said the new owner “looks forward to The Baltimore Sun covering important, impactful stories to make a difference in the community” and that he “believes one of the newspaper's primary purposes is to serve the public interest.”

Sinclair has drawn criticism for incorporating conservative and right-wing commentary, often on hot-button national topics, into its local television news coverage — an aberration in an industry that typically aspires to a nonpartisan tone. In 2018, reporters across the country were asked to read text condemning “fake news,” invoking President Donald Trump's derogatory term for the news media.

Smith insisted in his meeting with employees that he was not interested in politics. “I do not trust any politician under any circumstances,” he said. “I do not trust the government under any circumstances.”

His last campaign contribution was in 2018, when he donated to a handful of Democrats along with a mostly Republican slate, records show.

But tax forms show his family foundation contributed generously to conservative and right-wing advocacy groups that have inserted themselves into some of the country's most polarizing debates. The David D. Smith Family Foundation gave $275,000 in 2021 and $261,000 in 2019 to Project Veritas, a right-wing organization known for undercover sting operations against journalists, government officials and political activists. She also contributed $121,000 in 2018 to Moms for America, a conservative activist group that says it “empowers mothers to raise patriots and promote freedom,” and has joined campaigns to remove books it finds controversial from public schools.

The Baltimore Sun Guild, the union that represents Sun employees, said in a statement Wednesday that the editorial trend Smith described “focused on clicks rather than journalistic value,” which is “concerning many of our members.”

“We don’t know how to get along with him,” a Sun employee told The Washington Post after the meeting, speaking on the condition of anonymity to preserve working relationships. “Because he is not familiar with the standards of the print media and the ethics of journalism as a whole.”

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While Smith's plans for The Sun have remained vague, many in Baltimore are also puzzled about Alden's reasons for selling it — especially just two years after rejecting a bid from another Maryland businessman.

In 2021, when the Tribune was in the process of selling its newspaper holdings to Alden, Stuart Bynum Jr. — CEO of Choice Hotels and a former Democratic state senator — tried to buy the Sun for $65 million.

But that deal fell apart due to the multi-million-dollar fees Alden would have required from the separate Sun company to continue providing business and administrative services that had been consolidated under the Tribune chain.

Instead, Bynum launched the Banner, a local news nonprofit that now employs more than 100 people, about 15 percent of whom are from the Sun.

Competition from Banner may have discouraged Alden from many of the usual cost-cutting schemes at Sun, which still employs about 150 people, said Rick Edmonds, a media analyst at the Poynter Institute.

Under Alden, the Sun newspaper closed its printing press and laid off its 100 workers. But the newsroom hasn't been subjected to the same kind of shredding that Alden has experienced at other newspapers, Edmonds said — which may also explain why Alden has hollowed out the Sun.

Alden usually “can lower the quality of the newspaper, and people who still really want a newspaper won't like it — but they can still make some money and get some customers,” he said. However, “all of these numbers get worse when you have an ambitious competitor.”

Smith's price for the Sun and its suburban newspapers — which include the Capital Gazette in Annapolis, the Carroll County Times and several weeklies — has not been made public. He mentioned in passing at Tuesday's staff meeting that he was paid “nine figures.” It was not clear whether that amount included fees he told The Sun he would pay to Alden Media News Group for business services.

In a statement about the sale, Jay Gilmore, chief operating officer of MediaNews Group, said: “We are always open to discussions about local ownership and are pleased that our prominent newspaper operating and technology platform will continue to provide services to The Baltimore Sun.”

Smith repeatedly criticized the sign in his meeting with Sun employees. “It's only a matter of time before they leave,” he added. “They won't survive. In fact, if anyone thinks they will, I'll be happy to give you the odds and take your money.”“

(In a memo to Banner staff on Monday, Bynum said: “We welcome more and better coverage at The Sun, and wish the new local ownership the best of luck” — and assured them that “this does not change our mission, commitment and plans in any way at all.”)

Smith held up one of Sinclair's Baltimore television stations, Fox45, as what he sees as a model of successful local news coverage, “despite the fact that people might say it's a crazy right-wing channel.” [station]”I've been called that by everyone, Democrats and Republicans,” he said.

Franklin, the former executive editor of the Sun, said any changes to the newspaper's editorial pages would indicate the future Smith has in mind for it. He warned that if the paper veered into a “rigid, ideological, conservative direction,” it could hurt the paper's bottom line, given that the Baltimore area is majority Democratic.

Former Baltimore Sun media critic David Zurawick, now a professor at Goucher College, said Fox45's coverage of Baltimore schools and City Hall is aggressive but said it takes on a partisan tone. “It fits into a larger pattern of ‘This is what happens when you let Democrats run your city: It goes to hell.'”

Smith has been personally involved in local politics. He and his family funded a successful effort to impose term limits on the mayor and City Council, as well as a failed effort to allow citizens to subpoena officials — an effort that received widespread coverage on Fox45.

During his newsroom meeting, Smith argued with a writer who suggested that Fox45's coverage of the recall of Baltimore Mayor Brandon Scott (D) — including the station's promotion of what it calls an “unscientific poll” — was biased.

“This guy bought the Sun, and he has enough money to exercise that kind of power,” said another employee, who also spoke on the condition of anonymity to preserve newsroom secrets. “But how easy is it to bend a newsroom?”

One area where they did get a definitive answer was whether Smith was obligated to maintain a print edition.

“No,” he said frankly. Smith added that he is, in fact, “committed to getting… Outside From paper trading. “I'm a right-wing extremist who loves trees,” he said with a chuckle. “Reconcile it for me.”

At the end of the meeting, Smith spoke about his belief that Baltimore police officers are afraid to do their jobs because they are “terrified of what the state government will do to them,” noting that the state's attorney had tried to prosecute six officers. “He ruined these people's lives.”

“I'm sorry, are you talking about the people who killed Freddie Gray?” one employee asked, referring to the 25-year-old Gray's 2015 death while in police custody, a dramatic event that led to widespread protests across the city, some of which turned violent. Three of the officers involved were acquitted, while charges against the others were dropped.

A tense exchange ensued.

“You would think they killed someone,” Smith said. “I'm not here to tell you they did or didn't.”

The Sun was a Pulitzer finalist for its coverage of Gray's death.

Monica Mathur and Sarah Ellison contributed to this report.