News-media roundup: Family owners cry foul as Alden firm buys Scranton-area papers; Gulban buys Delphos group

MediaNews Group, owned by Alden Global Capital, has bought four newspapers in and around Scranton, Pennsylvania, and the family owners of the paper, minority stockholders, don't like it. Times-Shamrock Communications is selling the Scranton Times-Tribune, The Citizens' Voice in Wilkes-Barre, The Republican Herald in Pottsville, The Standard-Speaker in Hazleton, and several less-than-daily papers and pressrooms. The sale does not include the firm's radio or billboard operations, or its building. "The family that started Times-Shamrock—the Lynetts—have been producing newspapers since 1895 in Scranton," WNEP reports, along with a blistering statement from family members:

". . . Alden does not reflect the business principles we feel are consistent with the stewardship of any newspaper. The sale was driven by a majority of our shareholders. We understand the fears about our ability to remain competitive. We recognize the underlying concerns about the newspaper industry’s revenue and audience declines, and the desire of many of the shareholders to leave the painful decisions to cut costs, coverage and employees in someone else’s hands. We remained confident and hopeful that our current board of directors and management team would have been able to lead us through the industry’s headwinds more effectively and humanely than a hedge fund like Alden. The willingness to sell a company steeped in integrity and family tradition—and staffed by loyal, bright, compassionate employees—to a company with such a devastating reputation in the industry runs against everything we believe in. . . . A newspaper is much more than just a business. It is the only business explicitly protected by the Constitution. It is a local institution and expected to track government spending, keep an eye on politicians, advocate for the voiceless, ask tough questions, cover local sports and businesses, and record the milestones in readers’ lives. Newspapers ... are the only true local watchdog with a large newsroom and resources capable of providing in-depth, verified news and investigative reporting on a large scale in any community. Most family newspaper sale announcements bear some variation of stock language regarding the new owner's ability to ... 'continue to provide strong local reporting' and "maintain the legacy' of the selling family. Sadly, we feel that none of that will be true in our case."

A much more amicable sale: Delphos Herald Inc., one of the older family-owned newspaper chains, has sold its eight papers in Ohio and Indiana and its commercial printing plant to CherryRoad Media. Six of the papers are in northwest Ohio and are based in Delphos: the Delphos Herald, the Van Wert Times Bulletin, the Putnam County Sentinel, the Putnam County Vidette the Paulding Progress and the Ada Herald. Also sold were the Monroe County Beacon, a stand-alone weekly in Woodsfield, Ohio, and the Register of Lawrenceburg, Indiana, in the state's southeast corner. Company President Roberta Cohen said her father, Murray Cohen, who died in December 2021, started the chain in 1962: "I can entrust our long-held newspapers to a company that shares the same vision and values that my sister Jennifer Shneiderman and I have and that my father had." CherryRoad owner Jeremy Gulban said he would keep the printing plant, his second bought in short order: "While the newspaper industry looks to embrace the digital future, we realize there is a need to keep printing newspapers."