Black Press Media announced Monday is is selling all of its properties, which include the Juneau Empire in Alaska’s capital city, the Kenai Peninsula Clarion, and the Homer News.
The company is restructuring and has sought creditor protection during the transition in the British Columbia courts, and will also seek protection from creditors in Delaware courts.
The newspaper company’s announcement did not use the term “bankruptcy.” But filing under the Companies’ Creditors Arrangement Act enables the Company to restructure its financial affairs while holding off creditors in some capacity, the company statement appears to say.
There will be a court-appointed monitor during the sale: “The Initial Order provides for, among other things, a stay of proceedings in favour of the Company, the approval of debtor-in-possession financing (‘DIP Financing’) to be provided by Canso Investment Counsel Ltd (‘Canso’), and the appointment of KSV Restructuring Inc. as monitor of the Company (in such capacity, the ‘Monitor’). The Initial Order also extends the stay of proceedings to certain subsidiaries of the Company that are not petitioners in the CCAA Proceedings.”
The company said it intends to continue operating its publications during the restructuring process.
Carpenter Media Group is the proposed new owner. It operates local newspapers in the South, including Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, Tennessee, Georgia, Virginia and Kentucky.
“This plan will lead to a stronger, more sustainable Black Press that will continue to provide by far the best local Canadian and American news coverage in our markets and the best ways for advertisers to reach their customers,” Glenn Rogers, chief executive officer of Black Press, said in a statement. “Canso, Deans Knight and Carpenter Media have been true partners throughout this process as we’ve built a plan that we believe is the right way forward for Black Press.”
The Juneau Empire, founded in 1912, was owned by Morris Communications starting in 1968, but was sold to Gatehouse Media in 2017. In 2018, Gatehouse sold the Juneau Empire, Homer News and Peninsula Clarion to Sound Publishing. Sound Publishing’s parent company is Black Press.
The Juneau Empire, once a six-day-a-week newspaper, now prints only two editions a week now, and those papers are printed in Washington State. The same is true for the Peninsula-Clarion. The newspapers are slowly moving to online only, as the cost of printing physical papers exceeds their sticker price.
Under the terms of the proposed sale, Black Press Media will continue to be Canadian controlled, the company said in a statement. Black Press owns more than 80 community newspapers in Western Canada and the Pacific Northwest, including the Yukon and Alaska, and Hawaii.
At the same time sale of his newspaper empire was announced, Black, now 77 years old, announced his retirement.
The Anchorage Daily News went through a bankruptcy-protection process while former owner Alice Rogoff was in charge. John Binkley created a company that bought the paper during those bankruptcy proceedings in 2017.
Editor’s note: Suzanne Downing was editor of the Juneau Empire in the 1990s.
I’m glad they’re having financial problems, they deserve it. They don’t publish real news because they’re just another propaganda machine for the far left. They’re not even an American company so I hope the whole ship just sinks and is forgotten.
So now we can get a more socialist view in our news from the failing socialism to the south.
They can’t figure it out. They’re so left that’s why they were going poor if they were conservative they would be doing just fine.
College doesn’t teach work ethics. One can’t learn to work sorely from schools even though through it one learned the basics of respecting a supervisor(teacher and staff), respecting co workers (classmates), following a time schedule (course work deadlines, and completing job duties and understanding the expectations (course work and rubics). Everything else comes from talent and gift. Everyone can learn the talent to do any job but if it’s not your gift you’ll stay average in the field cause the imagination, the heart, the spirit for it is missing.
Just put the damn thing out of its misery.
Geese.
What are we supposed to wrap our fish carcasses in this summer
Interesting how these “liberal” and left-leaning // left-ideology type media platforms continue to struggle financially as a business. Maybe(?), if the preeminent focus was on presenting “TRUTH” & “FACTS” then, possibly these organizations would thrive like … The Federalist, American Greatness, Blaze, Brietbart, Joe Rogan, Tucker Carlson, MRAK and other similar themed platforms that focus on facts and truth.
The evolution of the news sources of the past must be abandoned for the public good. Reading the daily over coffee is a thing of the past, like real anything. Disclaimer statements should be mandated like on the fake food.
These 3 liberal Alaskan newspapers alienate half of their potential audience with their left-wing editorial policy. As a result, conservatives don’t buy their papers. It doesn’t seem like a wise business model, but that is what they did. The foolish editors currently in charge of these 3 papers chose partisanship over profits. They deserve what they get, which is being part of a bankruptcy.
If only they put as much energy into actually covering SE.
Journalism isn’t actually that hard. Go to an event. Observe said event. Recap what you saw WITHOUT editorializing.
It’s the last part the Empire sucks at.
After being misquoted several times, and knowing people slandered by them, I could not be more pleased.
Lost us at: “… stronger, more sustainable”
.
Code words for things which should be (mercifully) put out of their misery, no?
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