There’s another takeaway, besides sadness, from the layoffs across the McClatchy newspaper chain in late September.
It may be a sign that the private equity firm that owns McClatchy is preparing to sell or dismantle the company.
I can’t think of another explanation for why it would fire nearly a third of its remaining journalists, including reporters covering essential beats like The Miami Herald’s city hall reporter and The (Tacoma) News Tribune reporter covering Tacoma and Pierce County.
More than 90 staffers were laid off across 17 McClatchy publications, including already threadbare newspapers in Tacoma, Olympia, Bellingham and Tri-Cities. Other cities with McClatchy papers include Boise; Kansas City, Mo.; Charlotte, N.C.; Raleigh, N.C.; and Sacramento, Calif., where it was founded during the Gold Rush era.
McClatchy is enthused about AI but that can’t replace the work of journalists, at least not with material justifying the cost of a subscription.
McClatchy declined to make its CEO or another spokesperson available to confirm my theory. They’ve said almost nothing publicly about why they’re further gutting newsrooms.
But I would urge communities where McClatchy operates not to wait for answers. They should start discussing now what they can do to save and restore these formerly great newspapers.
Or they can wait to see if McClatchy sells to another chain or runs the papers into the ground.
Likely buyers may not be much of an improvement. One is Alden Global Capital, a Wall Street firm known for severe cost-cutting that owns around 160 papers. Another is Lee Enterprises, an Iowa-based chain controlled by Florida billionaire David Hoffmann.
Hoffmann told me last year that he wants to become the nation’s largest newspaper publisher. He says good things about wanting to save local news and avoid layoffs, and he invested $50 million into Lee. But then Lee, which already had sparsely staffed newsrooms, laid off editors and copy editors around the country in late August and September.
McClatchy could be broken up and sold for parts. In that case, there may be opportunities for local investors and communities to acquire and restore their newspapers.
Those communities could work with organizations working to save local journalism by purchasing and stabilizing newspaper groups.
A good example happened in Georgia in July. Two former McClatchy dailies, The Macon Telegraph and Columbus Ledger-Enquirer, were acquired by the Georgia Trust for Local News.
The trust, a subsidiary of the Colorado-based National Trust for Local News nonprofit, worked with local foundations and residents who funded the acquisitions and investments in the publications.
“The Macon Telegraph serves as a vital community asset for people in Middle Georgia that should not only be preserved, but reinvigorated and strengthened,” Cynthia DuBose, executive director of the Georgia trust, told the Telegraph. “We are committed to building a modern media organization focused on enhanced community engagement that provides quality local news and information for years to come.”
The trust operates in some ways like for-profit publishers. It centralizes administration across clusters of newspapers, to reduce costs, and aims to have its papers become financially sustainable.
But unlike chains owned by Wall Street types, the trust deploys “patient capital” provided by philanthropy and doesn’t have to generate returns that investment funds demand, according to Tom Wiley, its national CEO.
Wiley told me the trust may be interested in acquiring additional McClatchy papers.
“We are very interested in where there is opportunity to take the model that we’ve seen working, the hub-and-spoke model that’s working now in Maine and is getting traction in Georgia with the Columbus and Macon acquisitions,” he said. “We’re very interested in deploying that model, around our mission to grow journalism, reach and impact. We’ll see.”
Newspapers can still be a decent business and aren’t necessarily a permanent charity, Wiley said. The “magic sauce” is local talent and good operations, which then needs “patient capital that understands that these assets are civic institutions that have civic value.”
“This is not just about an informed electorate,” he said. “It’s about quality of life, it’s about common information and threads, whether it’s the arts or whether it’s the environment or whether it’s high school sports.”
That was recognized by foundations in Georgia, Wiley said, which led to their investment in those former McClatchy papers.
McClatchy grew into a respected national chain, culminating with its 2006 acquisition of the Knight Ridder chain just before the industry entered a steep downturn.
The Sacramento-based company declared bankruptcy and was purchased in 2020 by Chatham Asset Management, a private equity firm that also owned The National Enquirer and magazines including US Weekly and Women’s World.
McClatchy was a minority owner of The Seattle Times until 2024, when the Blethen family that owns The Times reacquired shares it sold to Knight Ridder in 1928.
While the McClatchy name is associated with newspapers, the company merged two years ago with other Chatham ventures. It now describes itself as “an omni-commerce sales, distribution and logistics, marketing and media company.”
Its journalists have continued to do important work despite ever shrinking newsrooms and ownership prioritizing omni-commerce over public service journalism.
Brown McClatchy Maloney, a descendant of the founder and former Seattle Times board member who now owns a Port Angeles radio station, said news of the layoffs “pains me in a big way.”
The McClatchy family now has zero involvement in the newspaper business it ran for five generations, he said.
“I have no idea what plans Chatham has going forward,” Maloney said, “but if somehow a transition of these McClatchy institutions to a form of local community ownership happens, that could very well be the ultimate form of community service.”
Indeed. It’s time to start preparing in case that opportunity arises.
Brier Dudley on Twitter: @BrierDudley is editor of The Seattle Times Save the Free Press Initiative. Its weekly newsletter: https://st.news/FreePressNewsletter. Reach him at bdudley@seattletimes.com.
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