Angry Daily News Reporters Walk Out in Dispute with Cost Slashing Hedgie Owner

Reporters at the embattled NY Daily News walked off the job on Jan. 25 after management effectively cancelled overtime pay for reporters and editors at the paper owned by cost slashing hedge fund Alden Global Capital.

The News Guild of New York said that clicking on Daily News stories during the job action “is the equivalent of crossing a picket line.”

Protestors carried signs, many of which said, “Alden to Daily News/Drop Dead.” It recalled of the most famous Daily News headlines directed at then President Gerald Ford when he initially refused to come to the city’s rescue during the 1970s fiscal crisis. Other signs read: “Defend the News. What Are You Going to Do, Read the Post.”

Alden, which is notorious for deep cuts to the many newspapers it has acquired in recent years, is headed by president Heath Freeman and managing director Randall D. Smith, who at one time helped bankroll his brother’s alternative weekly New York Press. They took over the Daily News and other papers from Tribune Publishing Co. in a deal that was finalized in May 2021.

“Alden wants to act as if we are not being chiseled,” said union steward Michael Gartland, a political reporter. “We’re not going to engage in that intellectual dishonesty. In reality, we’re being crushed for cash. As a result, staff is diminished, which means our ability to cover the city is diminished. We believe this is bad for New York.”

Since the spring of 2022, 27 people have left and the Guild-represented staff now totals 54 people.

Alden told employees that any overtime going forward would have to be pre-approved by management.

“We’re so shorthanded that without overtime, we won’t be able to put out the paper,” said Chris Sommerfeldt, a city hall reporter who was walking the picket line outside 1412 Broadway on Jan. 25.

The previous owners had eliminated the Daily News newsroom shortly after COVID hit in 2020 but in recent months Alden had established a small satellite office at 39th St. and Broadway which was the site of the Jan. 25 picket line.

“It’s not a newsroom,” said Kerry Burke, the veteran police reporter with over two decades at the News who was walking the picket line.

He said he had received no pay hikes since the Alden takeover nearly three years ago.

The walkout is a one day strike. “Hopefully, it sends a message,” said Burke.

But the one day walkout appears unlikely to change the corporate strategy of Alden, which is the second largest publisher of newspapers in the United States after USA Today publisher Gannett.

Margaret Sullivan, who is now at the Guardian but earlier in her career was the media columnist for The Washington Post, once called Alden “one of the most ruthless of the corporate strip-miners seemingly intent on destroying local journalism” Vanity Fair dubbed Alden the “grim reaper of American newspapers.”

Daily News journalists voted to rejoin the union now known, as the News Guild of New York, as Alden’s takeover of Tribune was unfolding in early 2021.

Daily News editor in chief Andrew Julien and Alden Global Capital president Heath Freeman did not return emails seeking comment. A call to the news phone number on Jan. 25 yielded the recorded message: “sorry we can’t record a voice mail message right now. Call back later.”

The paper was founded in 1919 and in its hey day was the biggest circulation in the country. The paper with daily circulation of over 2 million a day and a Sunday circulation of over 5 million, was deemed so influential in the post-World War II era that President Dwight Eisenhower had it delivered to the White House daily.

In recent years it has struggled first under owner Mort Zuckerman who took it over after the “bouncing Czech” Robert Maxwell forced it into bankruptcy in the early 90s. Zuckerman ultimately sold it to Tribune Publishing for $1.

And publicly traded Tribune ultimately sold the Daily News in a deal that was completed in May 2021. The deal was valued at $630 million, but since Alden already owned about 25 percent, the cash outlay at the time was estimated to be $487.5 million. Alden has more than $10 billion under management and recently sold the Baltimore Sun to a conservative-leaning tv executive in that city.

All newspapers have seen print circulation tumble dramatically as the internet and then COVID hurt the ability to sell print newspapers but the News has tumbled faster than most. The one-time biggest circulating paper in America now has print circulation of only 45,730 copies a day in 2023, according to the Alliance for Audited Media, making the Daily News only the 21st largest daily by print circulation. The #2 circulating paper in the country, the New York Times, had daily print circulation of 296,330 while the News’ tabloid rival, the New York Post sold 135,980 print copies per day.