The Adamses are a billionaire family who got into community newspapers aggressively over the last six years. I talked about four months ago with the retired editor of the Eau Claire, Wis., paper, which Adams bought (IIRC) in 2017. The editor, who had been at the paper for decades, was pretty contented at the time with the way Adams had been running the place.
Since then, Adams has bought up nearly all of the remaining family-owned papers in Wisconsin, including six dailies and a handful of satellite weeklies in 2019 alone. As an interested spectator, I observed some staff shakeups at those acquisitions but no overwhelming changes. They laid out a ****load of money to acquire businesses that were circling the drain.
Now, of course, the bottom has dropped out of the advertising market. I'm holding a copy of one of the smaller dailies Adams acquired about the same they bought the Gazette. In its 12 pages it has less than half a page of display advertising in it. I've read issues in the last few weeks that had literally no display advertising.
Adams wants to make money, but they aren't even breaking even in this environment. They aren't even losing just a little money. The bottom has dropped out of their year-old investment. I can understand why they see a need to retrench.
I joined the staff of the Gazette as regional editor in 1989, shortly after they began publishing on Sundays. I had a lot of fun and worked my ass off. I used to joke with the former editor that he turned my hair gray. In the years since I left, the town lost its biggest employer, a large General Motors plant. A city of 50,000 doesn't just bounce back from that.
Suggesting that Adams is unconcerned about laying off employees is unfair, IMO. Suggesting that they've followed a chainsaw management strategy for years is inaccurate. Again, the family didn't get into the newspaper business until 2014. Here's an article Poynter's Rick Edmonds wrote when the family stepped up their rate of acquisitions in 2017:
Who are the Adams family, and why are they buying newspapers by the dozen? - Poynter
I don't agree with everything Adams has done in the region. I do believe they invested here in good faith and got blindsided by an economic crisis with no clear end to it.
