4 July 31 - August 6, 2025 dallasobserver.com DALLAS OBSERVER Classified | MusiC | dish | Culture | unfair Park | Contents Circling Vulture Another bidder steps up for the Morning News. This is not good news. BY PATRICK WILLIAMS I n a way, I suppose it might be considered good news that not one but two compa- nies see enough value in The Dallas Morning News to make offers to buy it. Yay! There’s a glimmer of hope for daily, local journalism and ... wait, what? The second, higher bidder, as reported by the News itself last week, is NewsMNG Enterprises Inc., part of Alden Global Capital. Oh shit. To those of you who don’t follow the ins and outs of newspaper ownership — i.e., virtually all of you — how best do I de- scribe what it means for the reporters, editors and photographers to learn that Alden, a privately held hedge fund, is the current high bidder to acquire the News? Try this: Imagine you’re taking a shower. You wash the soap out of your eyes to see Tony Perkins standing at the curtain, wearing a wig and dress. Yeah, like that. There’s a reason why so many news stories about Alden’s media en- terprises include the word “vulture.” Just three weeks ago, things were looking somewhat, maybe, more positive for the News as word broke that Hearst, the media company with a giant footprint in Texas as owner of the Austin American-Statesman, Houston Chronicle, San Antonio Express- News and Beaumont Enterprise, among oth- ers, was offering $14 per share for DallasNews Corp. (Full disclosure: I worked for the San Antonio paper many, many years ago, and my wife is a former copy editor for the Morning News.) The Morning News wrote that Hearst’s offer “was 319% more than the July 9 closing price of $4.39. That puts the value of the company, Texas’ oldest continually operat- ing company, at $74.9 million.” Then word broke last week that Alden, owner of The Chicago Tribune, Boston Her- ald and San Jose Mercury News, among many others, was offering $16.50 per share, or “roughly $88 million,” according to The New York Times. We spoke with Joshua Benton, founder and former director of the Nieman Journal- ism Lab at Harvard and a former News re- porter, about the competition and who we should root for. It wasn’t even close. Global Capital’s “entire business model is wrecking newspapers and just sucking the blood out of them till they die,” he said. Whoa, don’t hold back, Josh. “I mean if you look at what they did to the Denver Post and what they did to the San Jose Mercury News, those are probably the closest analogs. Those are the papers that Alden has run the longest that are metro newspapers that aren’t, you know, small town or county seat newspapers, and they just wrecked them, you know, completely ... beyond far decimated the newsrooms, and that’s what they do.” In other words, with Alden at the helm, there likely would be even more layoffs, right down to the bone and into the marrow. Benton noted that Hearst is family- owned and a diversified media company with a large footprint in Texas and a history of practicing journalism, not cannibalism (our word, not his). It also derives most of its profits from other parts of its portfolio, so it might be less hungry to slash its newspaper operations. The News’ story about Alden’s offer said that the board of DallasNews Corp. was weighing Alden’s offer but still endorsed the agreement with Hearst, which was supposed to close sometime this fall. Rob- ert Decherd, DallasNews’ controlling shareholder and great-grandson of the newspaper’s co-founder, also supported the Hearst deal. “Hearst is a nearly unique legacy newspaper company in an era where many, if not most, of the principles that have created great journalism in local newspapers are being ignored in the finan- cial consolidation of the industry,” Decherd said, according to the News’ report. “The negative effect on American communities is very real.” Indeed, this week, DallasnEws Corp for- mally rejected Alden’s offer while Hearst upped its bid to $15 per share. We’ll see what happens next. For all the many shots the Observer has taken at the News over the years, I must say that the News does a pretty bang-up job cov- ering local news, considering all the con- straints facing news media. While continued local, family ownership would be ideal for the community, that might not be profitable, so let’s root for the next, less-worse thing — Hearst. Of course, that’s not to say Hearst doesn’t have its detractors, as well. I spoke with Jon Schoeuss, president of the NewsGuild- CWA, the union affiliated with the guild at the Morning News. “We’re going to fight for the journalists and the media workers at the Dallas Morn- ing News no matter the owners,” he said. “... Both show a complete disregard for journal- ists and do not represent the readers.” Hearst does have a history of trying to stick knives in unions. For example, when I was in San Antonio, Hearst owned the San Antonio Light, a guild paper, and com- peted with the Express-News, owned by Rupert Murdoch and therefore definitely not a guild paper. When Hearst bought the Express-News, it shuttered its own paper, kept us and sent its guild members pack- ing. So while it might not be “actively mur- dering” a newspaper like Alden (Schoeuss’ words), the immediate future for the News’ unionized staff is fraught unless, say, some community-minded, less profit-hungry group of Texas rich people step forward ready to invest in supporting a valuable local community watchdog. Yeah ... laughing through the tears there. ▼ POLITICS LOCO FOR TALARICO FRESH OFF JOE ROGAN, TOP DEM BRINGS BUZZ TO NORTH TEXAS. BY EMMA RUBY T he bar ran out of wine glasses 40 minutes before James Talarico was set to speak. “I can pour it into a beer glass?” suggested a bartender in a sparkly tank top. Behind her, a printer hums as it spits out ticket after ticket, until the trail grazes the sticky floor. When the Collin County Democratic Party and Blue Texas — the just-launched Democratic strategy initiative that vows the next election will be the one where Demo- crats win big in the Lone Star State — se- lected Bottle Rockets Bar in Plano to host the state representative from Round Rock, they didn’t know 1,400 people would regis- ter to attend. Just over 40% of Collin County voted for Kamala Harris in the 2024 elec- tion, and the area is home to some of Texas’ most conservative, like Attorney General Ken Paxton. But Ruth Price, a 74-year-old McKinney resident, believes people are “fed up” with the way Republicans are running the state. Tuesday afternoon’s rally was a first foray into Democratic organizing for Ruth and her husband, Marlin. (“Like the fish,” they both say.) “We feel like it’s our duty,” Ruth told the Observer. “We have five grandkids, and they have to live here longer than us.” A retired Dallas police officer, Marlin said he first learned about Talarico while scroll- ing through Instagram reels posted to Face- book. The representative, a former middle school teacher, gained notice during the leg- islative session after arguing against a law that would require the Ten Commandments to be hung in classrooms. A clip posted to TikTok, where Talarico grills the bill’s House sponsor on her knowledge of the ac- tual commandments, was viewed more than three million times. One of those videos intrigued Austin podcaster Joe Rogan, whose podcast, The Joe Rogan Experience, has long been one of Spotify’s most listened to. It’s a long show — generally two and a half hours of unscripted interview as Rogan converses with the guest of the week. Rogan asked Talarico to come onto the show, and Talarico said yes, even though Democrats seemed leery of jumping fully into the podcast sphere during the last election. Since being posted two weeks ago, the podcast video has garnered nearly 1 million views on YouTube alone. There’s no saying how many times it’s been listened to on Spo- tify. On Instagram reels, a clip of Talarico telling Rogan about how his Christianity in- tersects with his pro-choice beliefs has been viewed two million times. “He’s a Christian,” Marlin says, when prais- ing Talarico. “I know he’s wanting to be a pas- tor, but we need more like him in politics.” The Buzz By the time Talarico enters Bottle Rockets Bar, the place is standing room only and sweltering. A gap forms in the crowd as he walks to the center of the room while waving to on- lookers who are peering down from a sec- ond-floor deck. He stands on a small step stool, and for 12 minutes, it is like every per- son in the room is transmitting their hopes for Texas, for the country, onto this man. In return, he assures the crowd, “We can do this, together.” “The culture wars are a smokescreen. So many of the divisions in this state | UNFAIR PARK | >> p6 J.A./Adobe Stock When you see one of these eyeballing you, that’s generally a bad sign.
