If you take the profit motive out of a newspaper, would that make covering local news a more sustainable operation? Would it lead to better journalism?

That’s the idea behind a proposed new Baltimore Sun ownership group spearheaded by members of The Sun’s news guilds and made up of the Abell Foundation, the Goldseker Foundation, and other local investors.

The proposal comes at a time when The Baltimore Sun, which was bought by Tribune Publishing in 2000, is enduring furloughs, layoffs, and permanent pay cuts as a result of the coronavirus.

But this is hardly a new phenomenon. Thanks to corporate ownership and an increasing focus on profits, the paper—like many around the country—has been whittling down its staff for years. Last year, seeking a pay scale increase for the first time since 2013, Baltimore Sun reporters and photographers launched a byline strike amid contract negotiations with the Tribune.

“As a nonprofit, any profits The Sun makes could be put back into making sure that it becomes a better newspaper,” says reporter Liz Bowie, co-chair of the local unit of the Washington-Baltimore Press Guild. “We could have more reporters, more photographers, more editors.”

“We want better job security,” adds reporter Scott Dance, The Sun’s unit chair. “And we want to make sure the journalism is sustainable and invested in. As a nonprofit, it would eliminate some of those demands for a huge profit margin.”

The idea of making a newspaper a nonprofit is not without precedent. The Sun proposal is reportedly modeled after a similar deal cut by the Salt Lake Tribune, which went nonprofit last year. Two other legacy print newspapers, the Tampa Bay Times and the Philadelphia Inquirer, are controlled by nonprofit owners.

Abell Foundation president Robert Embry—along with former Baltimore County executive Ted Venetoulis, who also previously owned and published a string of area community newspapers—has led previous efforts to return The Sun to local ownership. The Abell Foundation was created by the family that founded and sold The Sun, first published in 1837.

“If a city loses its professional sports teams, it loses its spirit. If a city loses its newspapers, it loses its soul,” Venetoulis said in a press release formally announcing the current effort. “We fight to keep our ball clubs. It’s time to fight to keep our newspaper.”

Longtime Sun staffers have witnessed and weathered enormous cuts over the past two decades.

“I’ve lived through so much downsizing of the newspaper for so long now,” says Sun columnist Dan Rodricks. “I got sick of eating sheet cake. Every time we said goodbye to someone in the newsroom we got a new sheet cake. It’s depressing to see the paper downsize with this incessant bean counting and cutting of the staff.”

Despite these cutbacks, Rodricks, who fully supports the proposal, has been heartened by the great journalism his colleagues have done in recent years (the most recent example being the paper’s uncovering of the Healthy Holly scandal that took down the mayor and shined a light on government corruption, which just won a Pulitzer Prize for Local Reporting.)

“We have a lot of young, talented, energetic reporters who come up with news every day,” he says. “The Sun is still generating a lot of the news in this community. I’m encouraged by that. But you can’t keep doing it if you’re going to keep downsizing. The community deserves something better.”

Tribune Publishing, which operates several other newspapers including the New York Daily News and the Chicago Tribune, has been under fire for its relationship with notorious vulture-capital firm Alden Global Capital, which purchased a 32 percent stake in the company last fall—a signal of likely takeover intent. Alden has put increasing pressure on the Tribune to cut costs.

“Hedgefund guys think the only way to make profits for newspapers is to cut staff,” says Rodricks.

Tribune Publishing is holding a shareholders meeting on May 21, which is when the guild members hope it will seriously engage with the proposal. (Thus far, the company has not made any public statements about the ownership bid.)

If the proposal has any chance of going through, it will need to demonstrable community support, which is why Guild members have launched the “Save Our Sun” website and publicity campaign, with emphasis on the word “our.”

This campaign will likely include social media posts, strategically placed op-eds by prominent supporters of the deal, and a petition to be signed by Maryland residents.

“I think it’s a great idea,” Rodricks says, “and I hope the Tribune goes for it.”

A Baltimore native and City College High School graduate, Robert Embry decided when he was in graduate school at Harvard that his talents would be best put to work in the city he called home.

After returning to Baltimore and winning a seat on the City Council in 1967 at age 30, Embry was recruited by then-Mayor Thomas J. D’Alesandro III to serve as commissioner of the Baltimore Department of Housing and Community Development. He was instrumental in the development of now-iconic Inner Harbor attractions, including the Maryland Science Center, the National Aquarium, and the convention center. His tenure also oversaw the creation of the subway system and the “Dollar House” program of the 1970s, largely credited with the revitalization of neighborhoods like Otterbein and Ridgely’s Delight.

After a term as president of the Baltimore school board, Embry was tapped as head of the Abell Foundation, which saw its holdings grow exponentially after the sale of the A.S. Abell Co. to the Times Mirror Co. in 1986.

Thirty years into overseeing the largest private foundation serving only Maryland (it has doled out more than $339 million in grants and investments since its founding), Embry’s vision remains the same: to dramatically reduce the income and health disparities that exist in the city.

 

You chose to return to your hometown after graduate school at Harvard. Why are you so passionate about Baltimore?

My view of America is that its most profound challenge is to remedy the ill effects of its history with African-Americans, and Baltimore is a case study of those inequities. Baltimore is the city that I was born in and know the most about, and was one of the cities most challenged by these issues. So it was the place I thought I could have the greatest impact.

What do you see as some of the most pressing challenges facing the city right now?

The most immediate one is the crime rate. And that’s caused by a whole variety of other issues, which, in the long term, are arguably more important. That is, racial discrimination, lack of education, lack of jobs, housing, and so forth. But the most immediate issue, to me, is reducing the crime rate, which is having a dramatic negative impact, primarily on the low-income population of the city.

With all of these issues that need addressing, how does the Abell Foundation determine where to invest its funds?

The foundation’s primary focus is on the poverty issues in the city, so that’s what it devotes most of its money to, as well as education, job training, health programs, and housing.

What sort of progress have you seen since joining the foundation? Do you see things improving?

No. I would say that the city is more challenged today than it was 30 years ago. There are signs of progress. There’s a lot more entrepreneurial activity in the city than there was 30 years ago, there are more foundations and philanthropic dollars than there were. Most of the foundations of any size in Baltimore are focused on the same issues, on reducing poverty in the city. But overall, the city has seen a loss of population, increased percentage of poverty, and increased segregation in the schools—not only racial segregation, but income.

What gives you the most hope right now?

There are more and more programs that are cost-effective that are addressing this problem. There are numerous job-training programs that are successful in placing city residents in jobs. Thread and CollegeBound are making a significant contribution in increasing the number of low-income Baltimore City Public School students who go to four-year colleges and stay in college, and there are a whole host of anti-poverty initiatives that exist today that didn’t when I started at the foundation.

Is there a recent recipient of Abell Foundation funding that stands out to you for the impact it is making in the city?

There are many of them. Joe Jones’ Center for Urban Families; we’ve been helping since their founding almost 30 years ago. They have a tremendous track record in moving primarily inner-city men into employment. But there are many other job-training programs that are very successful.

Where do you hope to see the city in another generation— 20 or so years in the future?

I hope to see the income disparity and the health disparity that exists in the city dramatically reduced.

Where could those resources come from to make that happen?

I think it would have to come from the federal and state government; primarily the federal government.

What message would you send to people who want to get involved in helping their city, but aren’t sure where to start?

For somebody who has the ability to do more than they’re doing, there are numerous volunteer organizations, many of which you’re touching on in the magazine. There’s no one initiative that is going to appeal to everybody. But there are so many options, it’s hard to imagine there isn’t one for everyone who wants to give back.