Hedged: How Private Investment Funds Helped Destroy American Newspapers and Undermine Democracy (The History of Media and Communication)

By: Margot Susca

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Synopsis: The untold history of an American catastrophe The ultrawealthy largely own and guide the newspaper system in the United States. Through entities like hedge funds and private equity firms, this investor class continues to dismantle the one institution meant to give voice to average citizens in a democracy. Margot Susca reveals the little-known history of how private investment took over the newspaper industry. Drawing on a political economy of media, Susca’s analysis uses in-depth interviews and documentary evidence to examine issues surrounding ownership and power. Susca also traces the scorched-earth policies of layoffs, debt, cash-outs, and wholesale newspaper closings left behind by private investors and the effects of the devastation on the future of news and information. Throughout, Susca reveals an industry rocked less by external forces like lost ad revenue and more by ownership and management obsessed with profit and beholden to private fund interests that feel no responsibility toward journalism or the public it is meant to serve.

Book Quality:: Publisher Quality
Book Size:: 232 Pages
ISBN-13:: 9780252087561
Related ISBNs:: 9780252045462
Publisher:: University of Illinois Press
Date of Addition:: 01/23/24
Copyrighted By:: the Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois
Adult content:: No
Language:: English
Has Image Descriptions:: No
Categories:: Nonfiction, Computers and Internet, Business and Finance, Social Studies, Communication, Politics and Government
Submitted By:: Bookshare Staff
Usage Restrictions:: This is a copyrighted book.