Gannett finalizes deal to become nation's largest newspaper publisher
Source: Washington Post
Shareholders of Gannett and GateHouse Media approved a deal to combine the companies Thursday, after management promised to find $300 million in annual savings some critics warned would further squeeze already shrunken newsrooms but that some investors warned may not go far enough. In the deal, GateHouse parent New Media Investment Group will purchase Gannett for $12.06 in cash and stock, creating a conglomerate that will own more than 250 daily newspapers including daily publications including USA Today, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel and the Indianapolis Star, plus hundreds of weekly and community papers.
The new company -- run by GateHouse’s management under Gannett’s name -- will be under pressure to find $300 million in annual savings within the first two years of the deal, as GateHouse management pledged when it announced the deal in August. Despite the approval, the deal has come under fire for proposing cuts some view as too drastic and others view as not aggressive enough, a signal of the tightrope publishers of local news have been forced to walk as the industry continues to decline.
Journalism experts and the country’s leading newspaper union have warned that the deal will enrich GateHouse’s private equity backers while further eroding the number of reporters, editors and photographers covering local communities. Last week the NewsGuild-CWA, which represents more than 20,000 journalists, issued an analysis of the deal warning that the merger “will hurt the communities these media organizations serve.”
But some of GateHouse’s top shareholders have criticized the deal for their own reasons, and the stock price of its parent company, New Media, fell by 29 percent during the past week, to an all-time low of $6.68 when markets closed Wednesday. As a result the deal, originally valued at $1.4 billion, is now closer to $1.2 billion. “Neither company has digital chops that have you jumping out of your seat," said media analyst Doug Arthur of Huber Research. Gannett has been pushing to bring in digital advertising and subscription revenue, but Arthur said both firms missed his most recent revenue targets. “At the end of the day there’s got to be some revenue magic somewhere,” he said. The new company has a nine-member board that includes no current or former journalists.
Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2019/11/14/gannett-finalizes-deal-become-nations-largest-newspaper-publisher-setting-stage-million-cuts/
Full headline: Gannett finalizes deal to become nation’s largest newspaper publisher, setting stage for $300 million in cuts
= new reply since forum marked as read
this transaction also includes "bundles" of small town/community newspapers - i.e., they were "local", and they eventually got gobbled up by and are getting churned through the private equity meat grinder (and some had even been operating online in addition to print). 
that one of my sisters is part of, is an email list composed of just that - "local people" (neighbors) communicating about things locally - and in some cases, some pretty cool things to boot! They will "advertise" things like local repair services or tutors for school kids, or post notices about yard sales or warnings about rabid raccoons or foxes roaming the area, etc. So I suppose people can sometimes find a way.
That reminds me about a Doonesbury someone recently posted on DU that covered this very subject!
https://www.democraticunderground.com/100212670929 
