A new documentary investigates how Alden Global stripped local and national newspapers – in Montco and all around the country – for parts.
By Justin Heinze,
“First was the notion that profits were to be made by ‘wrecking’ journalism, rather than practicing it,” Goldsmith said. “Why? Second was the revelation that money could be made from an industry seemingly in collapse. How? Third — and this is what hooked me — was that newspapermen and women in Colorado were in apparent open revolt against their own publisher. Now that’s news!”
Filmmakers pointed to Montgomery County’s own Mercury as emblematic of the harm done by Alden Global around the country. Like all 76 daily papers and 300 weekly newspapers owned by Alden, the Mercury saw its budget slashed and staff reduced to a tiny fraction of its former workforce and its paper filled with AP wire stories.
Locally, Alden also owns the Daily Local News in West Chester, The Reporter in Lansdale, The Reading Eagle, The Times Herald in Norristown, The Morning Call in Allentown, and The Delaware County Times.
Read the full article here.
STRIPPED FOR PARTS 