Hedged: How Private Investment Funds Helped Destroy American Newspapers and Undermine Democracy

by Margot Susca

The untold history of an American catastrophe The ultrawealthy largely own and guide the newspaper system in the United States. Through entities like hedge funds and private equity firms, this investor class continues to dismantle the one institution meant to give voice to average citizens in a democracy. Margot Susca reveals the little-known history of how private investment took over the newspaper industry. Drawing on a political economy of media, Susca’s analysis uses in-depth interviews and documentary evidence to examine issues surrounding ownership and power. Susca also traces the scorched-earth policies of layoffs, debt, cash-outs, and wholesale newspaper closings left behind by private investors and the effects of the devastation on the future of news and information. Throughout, Susca reveals an industry rocked less by external forces like lost ad revenue and more by ownership and management obsessed with profit and beholden to private fund interests that feel no responsibility toward journalism or the public it is meant to serve.

Genres: Politics

232 pages, Hardcover

Published January 23, 2024

Reviews

[Jeff Platsky · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an important research effort. The work blows up the canard that the Internet is killing local newspapers. Indeed, as Ms. Susca proves, through her Herculean efforts, a large portion of the blame for the demise of local newsrooms lies with the financial vultures who populate America’s hedge funds and private equity establishments. What they have done is nothing short of criminal. With far fewer local journalists the doors to public corruption have swung wide open. Dedicated journalists have been tossed out the door while the financial engineers work with each other to dismantle the local news infrastructure. Piling up mountains of debt doomed the local newspaper legacy. Meanwhile, the new operators grab millions in advisory fees that further limit the resources devoted to news gathering. Ms. Susca lays out a powerful case. Want to know why your local newspaper is a shell of its former self? Read this book!

[Kurt Greenbaum · Rating 5 out of 5]

Compelling and depressing, Susca documents the period of journalism that I lived through, a period in which hedge funds and private investment firms used the First Amendment as an ATM, never acknowledging why that freedom is enshrined in the Constitution in the first place. Though she is very technical and academic in her writing, Susca brings to life individual stories to illustrate how these financiers hollowed out newsrooms and undermined the imperative of accountability journalism across the country. Disclosure: I am interviewed in the book as one of her sources.

[Hillary Copsey · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is dense but incredibly important research. Worth your time and effort, even if you don't think you care about newspapers because private investment funds are using the same tactics in any industry they're in.