View this email in your browser

**MARCH 29, 2021**

Kuttner on TAP

Chicago Trib: Another Billionaire to the Rescue?

****

When we left the saga of the

**Chicago Tribune**, Alden Global Capital, the private equity fiends who
own 32 percent of it, was trying to buy the whole company. A Maryland
philanthropist, Stewart Bainum Jr., had a tentative deal to spin off the
long-suffering

**Baltimore Sun** from the Trib corporation, and return it to local
ownership.

However, when Bainum and Alden could not agree on terms, he proposed to
buy the entire Tribune Company by outbidding Alden. Negotiations then
stalled. But now Bainum has a deep-pockets philanthropic partner

committed to the civic mission of newspapers.

That would be Hansjörg Wyss, a Swiss-born entrepreneur and
philanthropist who lives in Wyoming, and quietly supports a range of
progressive and environmental causes. Wyss, who is 85, is worth $8.71
billion . He is also
the money behind the $2.1 billion Wyss Foundation
, which helps fund the Center on
Budget and Policy Priorities and kindred progressive groups.

If Wyss is all in, and other Trib board members don't play the role of
dog in the manger on behalf of Alden (which pillages its media assets),
Wyss and Bainum can outbid Alden. That's how capitalism is supposed to
work.

All this, however, raises deeper questions. Almost anything is better
than rapacious private equity companies taking over what's left of
America's newspapers. But too few billionaire media owners are as
civic-minded as Wyss (viz. Bezos, Jeff).

Very rich people tend to be imperious, impulsive, and capricious, for
they are accustomed to running the show. Rich men who buy media
properties are often quirky, hiring and firing editors, changing formats
and venues (viz.

**Harper's**,

**The Atlantic**, and

**The New Republic**). Having raised money for 32 years to keep the

**Prospect** alive and well, I could tell you some stories.

Until we get a better solution, such as nonprofit ownership and reader
support, the business model of

**The Guardian**, we can be very grateful for benign billionaires who
are at least quirky but not evil. But there will never be enough of
them. That's also how capitalism works.

~ ROBERT KUTTNER

Follow Robert Kuttner on Twitter

Robert Kuttner's latest book is
The Stakes: 2020 and the Survival of American Democracy
.

[link removed]

The Education Department's Slow-Walk on Student Debt

Activists are frustrated by a lack of action, and not just on mass
cancellation. BY DAVID DAYEN

Toward a Conflict-of-Interest-Free West Wing

Incomplete disclosures from Biden's staff raise as many questions
as they answer. BY ELEANOR EAGAN & ELIAS ALSBERGAS

How OSHA Fails to Protect Migrant Food Processing Workers

North Carolina is an extreme case-but far from the only one. BY
PREM THAKKER

First 100: The Things Out of Biden's Control

You try to set up an agenda and a boat gets stuck in the Suez Canal. BY
DAVID DAYEN

To receive this newsletter directly in your inbox, click here to
subscribe. 

[link removed]

 

[link removed]

 

[link removed]

 

[link removed]

 

[link removed]

 

[link removed]

 

[link removed]

YOUR TAX DEDUCTIBLE DONATION SUPPORTS INDEPENDENT JOURNALISM

Copyright (c) 2021 The American Prospect. All rights reserved.
_________________

Sent to [email protected]

Unsubscribe:
[link removed]

The American Prospect, Inc., 1225 I Street NW, Suite 600, Washington, DC xxxxxx, United States