PRIVATE EQUITY OWNED
The Denver Post
Includes Denver Post
media · Denver, CO
- PE Firm
- Alden Global Capital →
- Acquirer
- Alden Global Capital (via MediaNews Group)
- Year Acquired
- 2010
Alden Global cut Denver's newspaper from 184 journalists to under 40. And the staff published editorials attacking their own owners.
What They Did
- Alden Global Capital took control of The Denver Post through its acquisition of MediaNews Group in 2010, adding it to the second-largest newspaper chain in America
- Newsroom staff was slashed from 184 journalists in 2012 to roughly 39, a reduction of nearly 80% that decimated local reporting
- Alden cuts newsrooms at twice the industry average rate, according to a University of North Carolina study. The Post was no exception.
- Alden owns 68 daily papers and more than 300 weeklies, applying the same cut-and-extract approach everywhere — it shuttered 10 Minnesota papers in 2024 alone
Since the Acquisition
- Denver lost the investigative journalism that once held local government, police, and corporations accountable. Fewer reporters means fewer stories that matter.
- In 2018, the Post's own journalists published editorials denouncing their owners as 'vulture capitalists,' an almost unprecedented act of journalistic desperation
- Readers noticed thinner papers, less local coverage, more wire stories, and the disappearance of beats like education, transportation, and suburban news
- When a city loses its newspaper's capacity, corruption goes unchecked, public meetings go uncovered, and communities lose the shared information that holds them together
Sources
- How this 'vulture' hedge fund's gutting of local newsrooms could hurt Americans — PBS NewsHour(2021-05-15)
- The most feared owner in American journalism — Columbia Journalism Review(2021-02-15)
- Denver Post Calls Out Its 'Vulture' Hedge Fund Owners in Searing Editorials — NPR(2018-04-09)
- Littwin: Denver Post to City: Drop Dead — The Colorado Sun(2026-03-15)
- Baron v Alden Global Capital, Randall Smith, and Heath Freeman — Dembot(2025-01-24)
- Boulder judge tosses consumer protection suit against Denver Post owner — Courthouse News(2025-06-20)
- 'Vulture' hedge fund accused of hollowing out local journalism is funding a Duke Athletics field — The Duke Chronicle(2025-10-23)
- Alden Global Capital Unit Acquires 'The Santa Rosa Press Democrat,' Other Titles — MediaPost(2025-05-05)
- Ten Minnesota newspapers owned by Alden Global Capital to cease publication — BringMeTheNews(2024-04-05)
- Alden Global Capital makes push to buy Daily Herald in Chicago suburbs — Northwestern Local News Initiative(2026-02-09)