Up until about 35 years ago, running a newspaper ensured local owners and their employees of a comfortable living while providing a valuable public service, but their success also made these community communicators a target of mega-corporations because of their profitability.

I worked for a 50,000 circulation daily in Easton when Thomson Newspapers Inc. (now Thomson Reuters) bought the paper in the mid-1980s for an eye-popping $30.2 million from the group of private owners whose families started the paper in 1855. Thomson had a terrible reputation for slashing personnel and costs in order to squeeze out maximum profits.

As editor of the paper, I had to manage a near mutiny from our editorial staff, which feared that our aggressive and community-committed newspaper would go the way of many of the other more than 250 properties in Thomson’s evil empire.

We were pleasantly surprised when not only did this not happen, but the company’s management allowed much more local autonomy than we ever could have possibly hoped for. Three years later, we were named one of the 14 best small-city newspapers in the United States and the best in Pennsylvania by the American Society of Newspaper Editors and The Associated Press.

I fear that this happy story might not be repeated with the planned acquisition of The Morning Call in Allentown, the state’s third-largest paper, by Alden Global Capital.

This notorious hedge fund, which already owns a more than 30% stake in the Tribune Corp. - The Morning Call’s parent company - also wants to acquire other major Tribune properties, including the New York Daily News, Chicago Tribune, Baltimore Sun, Hartford Courant, Orlando Sun-Sentinel and Virginia papers in Norfolk and Newport News. The deal is valued at $650 million, and Tribune shareholders would receive a premium on the stock price - $17.50 a share. The shareholders are scheduled to vote on the proposal on May 21.

Some editors, reporters and other employees of The Morning Call and the other papers affected by this pending acquisition have been casting about for either a local owner or a different group which would commit itself to quality community journalism. Stewart Bainum Jr., chairman of Choice Hotels, has stepped up to make a $680 million counteroffer. Bainum’s plan is to keep the Baltimore Sun and sell off the other properties to owners who would save these properties from the destructive Alden playbook. He said he has buyers lined up for all of the properties with the exception of the Chicago Tribune. He will not disclose who is waiting in the wings to buy The Morning Call if his offer is successful.

For decades, The Morning Call was locally owned by the Miller family, and, despite its acquisition in 1984 by The Times Mirror Co., publisher of The Los Angeles Times, which morphed into the present Tribune Co., it is still one of the most highly respected papers in Pennsylvania.

Although the paper once had four editions, it now has just one, and as has been the case with many newspapers in these challenging times, its digital product is viewed as the key to its survival.

The statement by Alden in announcing the acquisitions last month might sound high-minded. “Our commitment to ensuring the sustainability of robust local journalism is well-established, and this is part of that effort,” the statement said.

“To put an audacious lie like that in front of these communities and these journalists is further evidence of their unsuitability as owners,” said Ann Marie Lipinski, the head of Harvard University’s Nieman Foundation for Journalism and a Pulitzer Prize winning investigative reporter and later chief editor for the Chicago Tribune, the Tribune’s Co.’s flagship paper.

“In its mission to squeeze the last profits out of newspapers, Alden Global Capital has eliminated the jobs of scores of reporters and editors and decimated journalism in cities all over the country: Denver, Boston, San Jose, Trenton, etc.,” said Vanity Fair magazine in a recent scathing expose on Alden. The magazine referred to this hedge fund raider as the “vampire that sucks blood from newspapers” and the “Grim Reaper.”

The draconian formula follows the same playbook: “Buy distressed newspapers on the cheap, cut the (crap) out of them, and reap the profits that can still be made from print advertising,” Vanity Fair said.

The truth is, however, that this hedge fund, through its subsidiary, Media News Group, has drained much of the life from the Pennsylvania daily newspapers it already has acquired in Reading, Pottstown, Lansdale and five other communities.

Being bought by a company like Alden might be the worst possible outcome for a newspaper like The Morning Call whose hallmark has been to serve its communities with hard-hitting local investigative news.

Exacerbated by the impact of a worldwide pandemic, many newspapers are struggling because their lifeblood - print advertising - has declined drastically, and readers have moved online, but these publications are still doing important journalism despite newsroom staffing being less than half of what it was at the turn of the century and trying to operate in greatly reduced or even no physical facilities. These publications still matter as a cornerstone of democracy.

The question is whether readers care and are willing to support this critical effort.

Some journalists, such as those at the Times News and its eight weekly publications in the Lehigh Valley, are fortunate to have owners who are committed to community journalism, even in lean times. From the standpoint of community service, we count these papers among the dwindling number that still rely on enlightened, local owners who understand the value of local journalism and what it means to you, your community and our country.

By Bruce Frassinelli | tneditor@tnonline.com

The foregoing opinions do not necessarily reflect the views of the Editorial Board or Times News LLC.