Veteran reporter Chris Rickert must be thought of as a thorn in the side of both the Madison school board and the police department. His loss alone would be a huge blow to journalism in Madison. His beat these days is mostly city budget and land development issues, but those can be extremely complex, and Dean understands them better than any other reporter. His tenure goes back to before I started serving as mayor in 2003. Dean Mosiman is, well, the dean of city hall reporters. But let me make a case for fighting off Alden because of the value of the State Journal to the community.Įven in its reduced state, the State Journal does a good job of covering state government and the city of Madison. That’s probably the best argument for shareholders who are mostly just concerned about getting the most out of their investment. Lee is fighting off the takeover attempt, arguing in a letter to shareholders that Alden’s offer substantially undervalues the company. Alden would take the cuts to a new level. But we’re lucky it still exists at all and it has more or less stabilized recently. It’s true that the news room has suffered hits similar to what virtually all newspapers have gone through over the last couple of decades, due mostly to the migration of advertising to online platforms. Some of you are going to be quick to remind us that the State Journal has already been reduced from what it was once. Alden has a reputation for buying papers and then wringing out every last dollar of profit by cutting costs to the bone and laying off reporters and editors. That’s how Madisonians might feel if they wake up one morning and discover that their morning daily newspaper has been bought up and hollowed out by a “vulture capital” group.Īlden Global Capital is making a hostile takeover attempt to acquire a controlling interest in Lee Enterprises, which owns the Wisconsin State Journal as well as other dailies and weeklies in more than 70 other markets. You don’t know what you’ve got ‘til it’s gone.
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