On the this edition of Your Call's Media Roundtable, we discuss Stripped for Parts: American Journalism on the Brink, a documentary that tells the story of Alden Global Capitol, a secretive hedge fund that is plundering what is left of US newspapers, and the journalists who are fighting back.
In 2011, Alden began buying up newspapers across the country. In 2015, reporter Julie Reynolds began investigating Alden, which bought her small-town daily, the Monterey County Herald, along with more than 100 other newspapers nationwide.
She exposed how these self-described "vulture capitalists" would strip newspapers of their real estate, gut their newsrooms, and run away with the profits. Her reporting sparked a movement of journalists who took to the streets to tell vulture capitalists to "get the hell out of the news business."
What is lost when billionaires take over our news organizations? What can we do about it?
Guests:
Rick Goldsmith, veteran documentary filmmaker and director of Stripped for Parts: American Journalism on the Brink
Julie Reynolds, freelance investigative reporter, co-founder of Voices of Monterey Bay, and former investigative reporter with the Monterey County Herald
Resources:
Screenings:
- March 13, 6pm at the Roxie, SF (benefit for the SF Public Press)
- March 13, 7pm at the Berkeley Hillside Club
- March 20 , 7pm at the Rafael, San Rafael.
-March 27, 6:45pm at the Orinda Theatre, Orinda
- March 29, 2pm at the Pleasanton Library with the Embarcadero Media Foundation
Nationwide free virtual screening:
- March 29, 8:00 PM EDT, sponsored by Media and Democracy Project (a Call to Action)
