# Alden Global Capital The hedge fund that became the largest newspaper owner in the United States through a strategy critics call "strip-mining" — acquiring struggling local newspapers, slashing staff and editorial budgets to the bone, extracting cash flow, and selling off real estate assets. Through its subsidiary MediaNews Group and Tribune Publishing (acquired 2021), Alden controls hundreds of newspapers including the Chicago Tribune, New York Daily News, Baltimore Sun, and dozens of regional papers. The vault's deal page on [[Alden Global Capital Newspaper Strip-Mining]] documents the mechanics. Alden's model matters to the [[Media Ecosystem]] because the destruction of local journalism creates information deserts — communities without professional reporting on local government, courts, schools, and police. Research consistently shows that the loss of local news correlates with increased political polarization, lower civic participation, and higher municipal borrowing costs. The hollowing-out of local newspapers is one of the preconditions for the nationalized, partisan media environment the rest of the vault documents. ## See Also - [[Alden Global Capital Newspaper Strip-Mining]] — the deal mechanics - [[Media Ecosystem]] — the broader media landscape Alden is reshaping