This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2016, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
[Updated: 5:05 p.m.]
Remember a few weeks ago I was on about newspapers not just changing hands, but changing to new models of ownership that may or may not be a good idea.
— Disturbances in the newspaper galaxy — George Pyle | The Salt Lake Tribune
" ... The Fairbanks News-Miner was also sold recently, by Dean Singleton, former owner/publisher of newspapers that included The Salt Lake Tribune, to a newly formed nonprofit and not-at-all secret community foundation created by the family that owned the newspaper before Singleton.
"The nonprofit model of newspaper ownership, also found at Florida's Poynter Institute and Tampa Bay Times, can be another dream of we ink-stained wretches. No need to make a profit, less pressure to do things that put money ahead of good journalism.
"Except that, in order for the public contributions to a newspaper-owning nonprofit to be tax-exempt, the newspaper cannot advocate for political candidates. That means no editorial endorsements. ..."
Well, today's news is that company that owns The Philadelphia Inquirer (Serious), Philadelphia Daily News (Silly) and Philly.com (Dotcom) has been donated to a new nonprofit foundation. It's called a "public benefit corporation." The newspapers and website will still aim to operate in the black, but being owned by a foundation will provide tax advantages and, in theory, make journalism, rather than profits, the primary function of the whole enterprise.
I don't see any specific reference to the question of editorial endorsements, but it sounds like a similar arrangement.
— Lenfest donates newspapers, website to new media institute — Jeff Gammage | The Philadelphia Inquirer
"The owner of The Inquirer, the Philadelphia Daily News, and Philly.com has donated the news organizations to a newly created media institute, the core of a complicated transaction designed to ensure that quality journalism endures in Philadelphia for generations.
"The move places the region's dominant news-gatherers under the auspices of the nonprofit Philadelphia Foundation.
" 'Of all the things I've done, this is the most important,' said H.F. 'Gerry' Lenfest, sole owner of Philadelphia Media Network, which runs the newspapers and website. 'Because of the journalism.'
"The new alignment — while unique and untested — sets out mechanisms by which public-interest reporting can be preserved and enhanced while new electronic distribution methods are developed. ...
" ... The Lenfest gift agreement stipulates: 'The editorial function and news coverage of PMN shall at all times remain independent of the institute, and the institute shall not attempt to influence or interfere with the editorial policies or decisions of PMN.' ..."
— How Philadelphia Media Network's new structure will work — The Philadelphia Inquirer
" ... As a PBC, Philadelphia Media Network still must pay its own bills. But its directors can consider additional goals, with a main offered "benefit" being the value to society of an active news organization in the Philadelphia region..."
— New nonprofit to run Philly papers — By James Warren | Poynter Institute (Also a nonprofit foundation that owns a newspaper)
" ... San Francisco-based newspaper analyst Alan Mutter said it's "an honest and public-spirited effort to try to ensure a future for one of the nation's wobbliest metro papers." Lenfest will donate an initial $20 million to the foundation, though he apparently doesn't get tax advantages from that due to large and pending carryover deductions. ... The institute's board will include Sarah Bartlett, dean of the graduate School of Journalism at the City University of New York; David Boardman, dean of the School of Media and Communication at Temple University; and Steve Coll, dean of the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. Their job will be to help spur journalism innovation and fund individual projects, not run the news operations. ..."
— Non-profit ownership is a match for Philadelphia papers — but not for everyone — Rick Edmonds | Poynter Institute
" ... Lenfest agreed with my sense that this model could work other places — but only with private ownership, typically by one individual or family. Taking the New York Times to non-profit status, as a few outsiders looking in have occasionally proposed, would be a tangle of complex financial and legal difficulties in compensating both Sulzberger family and public shareholders fairly. ..."
— A look at owner who turned newspapers over to nonprofit — AP / The Washington Post
" ... 'Money is a responsibility when you have that kind of wealth,' [Lenfest] said Tuesday of his fortune. 'I've tried to do right by it.'..."
And elsewhere on the Media Properties Bought By Zillionaires front:
— The New Republic is up for sale, but what is its next owner buying? — Ezra Klein | Vox
" ... The New Republic was bought by Facebook-founder Chris Hughes only to become a cautionary tale when Hughes ineptly fired its editor Frank Foer — a move that caused massive staff resignations and a devastating backlash from the TNR-veterans laced throughout the rest of the media.
"Now Hughes is putting the magazine back up for sale.
" 'I will be the first to admit that when I took on this challenge nearly four years ago, I underestimated the difficulty of transitioning an old and traditional institution into a digital media company in today's quickly evolving climate,' Hughes wrote in an article that, oddly, was published on Medium rather than the New Republic's web site. ..."
— What Chris Hughes never understood about the Ideas Industry — Daniel W. Drezner | For The Washington Post
"... today's class of benefactors is far more interested in return-on-investment than the traditional money-for-cachet exchange that TNR and its ilk affords. And we are now in an Ideas Industry where traditional contributors to TNR can find new and exciting ways to have impact. So any new TNR will have to cope with a world in which the suppliers of capital will be more demanding and the suppliers of words have a lot more options."
And, while folks are still nervous about casino mogul and Republican money man Sheldon Adelson buying The Las Vegas Review-Journal, that newspaper is one of the few that is hiring.