Strib doesn't pay a really, really big bill...

The Minneapolis Star-Tribune skipped a $9 million quarterly debt payment.

Star Tribune Skips $9M Debt Payment

I don't care how they try to spin it, this doesn't sound good.

 

I'm sure the creditors will understand.

 

And it's already blown off the "junior lenders." Let's borrow money, we're not going to pay you back and renegotiate... what kind of fucktards run this business anyway

 

What I don't get, is back an owner or two ago, McClatchy maybe? the Strib was supposed to be in such good shape, a very healthy paper. There were rumblings that the Strib would wind up putting the Pioneer Press out of business.

Just what the hell happened?! Or was that all a lie back then?

 

It was Knight-Ridder, wasn't it?

 

Knight-Ridder owned the Pioneer Press.

 

Prediction: The Strib will become the first big-city paper to make a major change to avoid shutting down. Assuming they aren't able to sell the property the new owners were counting on to fund the buy.
It might be a co-op with the PiPress. It might mean the end of 7-day a week publication. It might mean something else entirely.
Hard to fathom that it could get to this point, but it is probably worse than anyone knows.

 

You're right. My bad.

 

Bad as Dean Singleton (owner of St. Paul paper) is, he is Joseph Fucking Pultzer compared to the private equity firm that owns the Minneapolis paper. I would expect him to buy out the competition for 50 cents on the dollar, or less, of what they paid. Then Singleton will merge the two operations for one Twin Cities newspaper. He can then shed 25-50 percent of the journalists and others working there, citing redundancies.

You know why the Mpls paper's owners thumb their nose at their lenders? Because they can, without having the bankers take the newspaper away from them. You or I try that with our home mortgage, the bank will take our house and sell it for what it can reap. But who the hell is going to take a dying newspaper if the bankers foreclose on that? So the big business boys get to behave like snakes, doing things that would put you or me out on the street.

 

God Bless America.

 

I've said this before and it bears repeating, before the end of this decade a major newspaper will fold its tent. I don't think its going to be the Star-Ledger or the Strib. Good candidates in no particular order are the New York Post, New York Daily News and the Philadelphia Daily News. The Akron Beacon Journal and Boston Herald aren't exactly out of the running for the first to close award.