Report: Stewart Bainum Jr. Plans To Launch ‘The Baltimore Banner,’ An All-Digital News Outlet

3 years ago 342

BALTIMORE (WJZ) — Stewart W. Bainum Jr., the edifice magnate who launched a failed bid to get The Sun and the remainder of the newspapers owned by Tribune Publishing, plans to unfastened a caller nonprofit, all-digital work called The Baltimore Banner, according to a caller study successful The Atlantic.

Bainum, president of Choice Hotels International, told the mag the enactment volition commencement with an yearly operating fund of $15 cardinal and a unit of 50 journalists.

In mentation for the launch, Bainum met with section quality start-ups astir the state to larn champion practices and came distant reasoning each of them needed much backing to bulk up operations.

“You request existent superior to determination the needle,” helium told the magazine.

If his program to commencement a caller outlet successful Baltimore proves successful, helium hopes it tin beryllium replicated successful different markets wherever section newspapers person suffered years of unit cuts.

“There’s nary manufacture that I tin deliberation of much integral to a moving ideology than the local-news business,” helium said.

Faced with the imaginable of being acquired by Alden Global Capital, a hedge money dubbed “the grim reaper of American newspapers” by Vanity Fair, a radical of Baltimore Sun journalists successful 2020 launched the Save Our Sun run and lobbied for section ownership to crook the paper into a nonprofit. Other Tribune papers soon followed suit.

Bainum came guardant arsenic an funny purchaser of The Sun, and reportedly reached a deal to acquisition the paper for $65 cardinal erstwhile Alden Global Capital acquired Tribune Publishing.

But Alden added a licensing woody that would person added millions to the price, according to the Atlantic article, truthful Bainum tried to enactment up different backers to enactment successful a bid for Tribune Publishing arsenic a whole.

Tribune shareholders approved Alden Global Capital’s bid past May, not agelong aft Swiss billionaire Hansjörg Wyss reportedly dropped his enactment for the rival bid.

Bainum reached retired to 1 of Alden Global Capital’s co-founders, Heath Freeman, aft the acquisition was completed to inquire astir buying The Sun separately but ne'er got a response, according to the Atlantic article.

In the story, Freeman defended Alden’s cost-cutting practices.

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“Prior to the acquisition of the Tribune Company, we purchased substantially each of our newspapers retired of bankruptcy oregon adjacent to liquidation,” helium told the magazine. “These papers were successful galore cases near for dormant by section families not consenting to marque the pugnacious but due decisions to get these quality organizations to sustainability. These papers would person been liquidated if not for america stepping up.”