MGW leaders support California’s Keep News Independent Act
The following letter from Media Guild of the West’s Executive Committee was sent to the California Assembly Committee on Labor and Employment on April 16, 2025, in support of Assemblymember Alex Lee’s AB 611.
To: Honorable Liz Ortega (Chair)
Honorable Heath Flora (Vice Chair)
Honorable Phillip Chen
Honorable Sade Elhawary
Honorable Ash Kalra
Honorable Alex Lee
Honorable Christopher M. Ward
April 16, 2025
To Chair Ortega, Vice Chair Flora and fellow Committee members,
We are Media Guild of the West, The NewsGuild-CWA Local 39213, the premier journalism union of the Greater Southwest, representing news workers in Southern California, Arizona and Texas. We are the people who bring the news to the public and serve our communities at the Los Angeles Times, Southern California News Group, Desert Sun and L.A. Public Press.
We support Assemblymember Alex Lee’s AB 611, the Keep News Independent Act, because nobody knows better than journalists the damage that Wall Street has done to the news industry.
Just look at the San Diego Union-Tribune, which then-Publisher Jeff Light proudly proclaimed was profitable under local ownership in 2022 “and also profitable, I guess I will indulge and say, in the right way,” Light said in a Union-Tribune story. “So there are some newspaper companies that are sort of dissolving the franchise as they go forward and harvesting money out of the business to send profits to their owners. That’s not what’s going on in San Diego.”
In 2023, owner Patrick Soon-Shiong suddenly sold the Union-Tribune to notorious chain owner and former hedge fund Alden Global Capital, the “destroyer of newspapers,” which operates the Southern California News Group subsidiary where many of us work, and which shares content across its many regional titles such as the Orange County Register and L.A. Daily News.
When given notice of a potential sale to such an owner, local journalists like us along with loyal subscribers and civic leaders commonly mobilize to find more responsible and community-rooted stewards for our newsrooms, as the Voice of San Diego noted:
When Alden showed up in other cities in recent years, journalists and their supporters had time to mobilize an opposition. In Chicago, Tribune reporters turned their investigative focus to their new prospective owners in an effort to raise the alarm. In Baltimore, Sun reporters had organized a “Save Our Sun” campaign to try to find an alternative owner. They ultimately failed, but it led to the creation of one of the most well-funded local news nonprofits [the Baltimore Banner].
This time, Alden appeared with no warning, and the consequences for San Diego journalists — and the public that depends on them — were immediate. “Minutes after the main [sale] announcement, [Union-Tribune] employees learned there would be staff cuts,” the Voice of San Diego reported, estimating a quick newsroom reduction of about 30%.
AB 611 seeks to avoid this kind of community disaster by creating a 120-day notice period for sales of legacy newsrooms into hedge fund, private equity or publicly traded chain ownership, which is based on a similar law already on the books for newsroom sales in Illinois, SB 3592. We urge you to follow the model set by Illinois.
Thank you for your support of local journalists and the survival of local news.
Signed,
Media Guild of the West Executive Committee
Alex Wigglesworth, Interim President
Andy Abeyta, Chair, Desert Sun NewsGuild
Sean Emery, Chair, SCNG Guild
Candi Bolden, Chair, Fort Worth News Guild
Matt Hamilton, Interim Chair, Los Angeles Times Guild
Maggie Prosser, Chair, Dallas News Guild