Major Shakeup in Washington State and Hawaii Journalism
On Jan. 15, the Everett Herald posted an oddly un-local story about a company in Canada called Black Press Ltd. Without explaining why it might be relevant, the story said that privately held Black Press, a newspaper chain, was undergoing an ownership change and had sought creditor protection in the Supreme Court of British Columbia and in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Delaware.
The Herald story, credited to Black Press itself, didn’t merely “bury the lede” as they say in the news business. The lede was completely missing. Arguably, the company’s most prominent holdings are in the U.S. — including the five-day-a-week Everett Herald. Headquartered in Surrey, British Columbia, Black Press is the parent of Everett-based Sound Publishing, which also owns 34 other news outlets in Washington, mostly printed weeklies. Black Press also owns the Honolulu Star-Advertiser in Hawaii, the Juneau Empire in Alaska, and other newspapers in those states. In all, Black Press owns 144 printed or online titles in three U.S. states, two provinces, and two Canadian territories.
For the Herald, one of Washington’s biggest newspapers, the ownership change portends an uncertain future. Thousands of pages of Canadian court filings flesh out much, though not all, of the story. With creditors held at bay for now, family-controlled Black Press intends to sell to two Canadian financial companies and a U.S. newspaper publisher, Carpenter Media Group of Tuscaloosa, Alabama, which owns 28 small papers in Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, Texas, Georgia, Virginia, and Tennessee.
According to court documents, as of a few weeks ago, Black Press had only about $3 million (Canadian) cash on hand, with $61 million of principal and accrued interest outstanding. The court-approved creditor protection in Canada is not called a bankruptcy, but it definitely quacks like a bankruptcy.
https://www.postalley.org/2024/02/03/major-shakeup-in-washington-state-and-hawaii-journalism/