These days it's not much of a news story when a newspaper is sold.
Same goes for places to eat, bank or shop. Even the corner store is likely part of a huge operation, only reachable by calling some far off area code.
And why not? Newspapers are a business. Large corporations, mostly publicly-traded on the stock market, buy and sell newspapers routinely, keeping in mind their national strategy based on the percentage of profits a media company can expect.
Telecommunications, Inc., the Denver company owning the Salt Lake City company selling the Moscow-Pullman Daily News, the Lewiston Morning Tribune, the Colfax (wash.) Gazette and the Daily Sparks (Nev.) Tribune, said in its Dec. 31 news release that it was continuing its strategy of disposing non-strategic assets to focus on core business.
There's nothing like being a non-core, non-strategic asset when Wall Street demands profits for the investors. It's no wonder TCI is selling us as a non-strategic asset; newspapers make a fair profit, while most cable TV companies just borrow gobs of money (TCI is famous for leveraging every single dollar that flows through its veins, the company is even rated by financial analysts on its cash flow instead of traditional profit and loss statements).
But all that high finance makes this sale different.
It also makes for a good yarn: We were sold to one guy, a local newspaper publisher. He didn't buy the four papers because he expects to make lots of money. He could have done a lot of other things with his money, but he is motivated by legacy, journalism and community.
The Lewiston Morning Tribune was founded a little more than a century ago by two Texas brothers, E.L. Alford and Albert H. Alford, the grandfather and great-uncle of the Trib's current publisher -- and soon-to-be owner -- A.L. "Butch" Alford Jr. The Tribune has owned at least part of the Daily News since 1967.
Alford formally started working for the Tribune at age 11, but was a newsroom observer beginning at an earlier age. "I hung around the Trib newsroom since (before) the time I can remember," Alford said Friday over a cup of coffee. "Today some kids have boys and girls clubs or arcades -- I had the Trib newsroom.
"They were my buddies and they took care of a kid who liked to sit and talk and watch them. It made reporting and editing ... a regular part of life," he said.
If you grow up this close to the news process, Alford said, you either gain great respect for journalism or figure on a career as a banker, lawyer or anything else. Alford chose the former. "These role models taught me about the sense of mission, integrity and
a chance to meet a colorful breed of persons running the gamut from A to Z."
Alford's purchase of the Daily News and Tribune, however, is more than a romantic recapture of a family jewel. This act is about community.
"A newspaper is community, if you talk about Lewiston, Moscow, Pullman, Los Angeles or Chicago, it's still community," Alford said. Local ownership usually means that people care about the community and the result is a better newspaper. "There are some exceptions and when local is not better -- it's an absolute indictment."
Alford said buying the newspapers was absolutely the right thing to do.
Almost 20 years ago, the three families that inherited the Lewiston Morning Tribune placed that newspaper on the market because some members of the family wanted out. "I understood that, I favored that, newspapers shouldn't be owned by people who don't want them," Alford said. The Tribune invited bids during the summer of 1981. "At a board meeting, I asked for a favor from shareholders," Alford said. "I asked if I could replace the successful bidder with a private one for the same amount of money."
If the Tribune had been sold to a chain back then there would not have ever been the opportunity to get it back. "I tried to arrange financing, but the prime rate was around 22 percent and that precluded any sort of financing without drawing it from the newspapers -- much the same as a chain would have done it."
So Alford picked Kearns-Tribune, a family owned company that published The Salt Lake Tribune, and waited for the right opportunity. That came at about 5 Wednesday morning after three days of tough negotiation with TCI.
Perhaps a new trend will start here. Individuals living and working in their own communities could start to buy back banks, shops and even newspapers.
uBy Mark N. Trahant Editor and Publisher
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