Maryland’s largest daily newspaper, the Baltimore Sun, has been acquired by David D. Smith, the executive chairman of Sinclair Broadcast Group, a family-controlled TV station company headquartered outside Baltimore, for an undisclosed sum.
The purchase returns the paper to local ownership for the first time in decades. It was previously owned by Alden Global Capital, an investment company with a reputation for cost-cutting and slashing staff at local newspapers.
Smith told the Sun that he bought it because of its focus on local news.
End of carousel“I’m in the news business because I believe … we have an absolute responsibility to serve the public interest,” Smith said. “I think the paper can be hugely profitable and successful and serve a greater public interest over time.”
Smith’s purchase has left Sun staffers wondering how involved he plans to be in editorial decision-making — especially considering his well-known support of conservative causes. On Tuesday, Smith met for more than two hours with Sun reporters, who pressed him on questions involving journalism ethics and how he plans to increase revenue. He told the staff that he paid a nine-figure sum to purchase the Sun and its affiliated papers, including the Annapolis Capital Gazette and the Carroll County Times.
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Union representatives and staff expressed surprise at the sale. Some said they learned of the deal only shortly before it was publicly announced.
“While this news came as a surprise, we are eager to learn more in the days to come,” Christine Condon, a unit chair of the Baltimore Sun Guild, said in a direct message on social media. “The Sun has a proud history of journalism that holds the powerful accountable, and we would expect any new owner to help us preserve those values.”
The local newspaper industry has been gutted by decades of cost-cutting and was further diminished by the advertising fallout during the coronavirus pandemic.
In 2021, a tentative deal to return the Baltimore Sun to local ownership by business executive Stewart Bainum Jr. fizzled out, and the health-care and hotel magnate instead bankrolled a nonprofit digital start-up, the Baltimore Banner, which has hired some former Sun reporters.
Guy Gilmore, chief operating officer of Alden’s MediaNews Group, said in an email that the firm is “always open to discussions about local ownership and pleased that our preeminent newspaper operating and technology platform will continue to provide services for The Baltimore Sun.”
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Sinclair has repeatedly defended the independence and objectivity of its local TV news reporting, which has a distinctive conservative flavor.
In an emailed statement, Sinclair said that Smith acquired the paper with his “personal assets” and that the company has “no involvement with the transaction.”
The Baltimore Banner reported that Smith has been a major donor to conservative and local causes through his David D. Smith Family Foundation, citing tax forms dating to 2015. The Washington Post previously reported about the uniformity of Sinclair’s coverage and its pandemic reporting that adhered to President Donald Trump’s views on the coronavirus.
Smith said in his interview with the Sun that Armstrong Williams, a conservative commentator, is a partner in the new venture. He did not disclose Williams’s ownership share. Smith also criticized the “mainstream media” for not covering certain issues in the area. (The Sun won a Pulitzer in 2020 for its coverage of a mayoral scandal.)
A representative for Smith said he would not give more interviews this week.
Laura Wagner and Elahe Izadi contributed to this report.
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