The Olympian newspaper sounds like it is headquartered here. The newspaper started as The Washington Standard, transforming into The Daily Olympian in February 1889 and then The Olympian in 1982.
If you ask online, “Who owns The Olympian newspaper?,” the first answer is the McClatchy Company. But, further searches uncover the fact that The Olympian was bought by Chatham Asset Management, a multibillion dollar hedge fund headquartered in New Jersey. Chatham acquired 30 McClatchy newspapers in one deal, and now owns the major dailies in Charlotte, Fort Worth, Kansas City, Lexington, Miami and Sacramento, as well as 49% of the Seattle Times.
When McClatchy was sold for $312 million, it was through a bankruptcy court decision in July, 2020. As reported in the JOLT, McClatchy’s financial troubles resulted from the Great Recession of 2008 and the loss of print advertising and classified to the internet, as well as to the shift in readership from print to digital. Many were concerned about what would happen to The Olympian and to local news in the aftermath of the buyout. As Dick Pust, longtime local broadcaster said at the time, “Local news coverage of Olympia seems to have gone to a bare minimum.” In December, 2020, there were fewer than 40 newsroom staff for all of Washington State eligible to vote to unionize, even as the population had grown and the need for coverage of local issues increased. Now journalists from The Olympian, Tacoma’s News Tribune, The Bellingham Herald and the Tri-City Herald belong to the Pacific Northwest Newspaper Guild. An organizer and reporter from The Bellingham Herald was quoted saying “This effort is for the survival of our papers.”
Chatham Asset Management was founded in 2000 by Anthony Melchiorre, who was charged by the Securities and Exchange Commission for improper trading of bonds, and fined more than $19.3 million in 2023. He then turned around and, in what is considered an “unusual” lawsuit, sued his consultants for $100 million for failing to prevent those trading practices. Chatham is known for its close ties to the Republican Party.
The purpose of hedge funds is to squeeze out as much profit as they can for their global investors. Local news gathering and community interest are sacrificed to the almighty dollar. That’s why The Olympian, the once daily paper, has now become a hollowed out version of its former self, with only a few reporters covering the local news and printed now only 3 times a week. This transformation is explained in the textbook, Media/Society Industries, Images and Audiences, Fourth Edition (2012, authors Croteau ,Hoynes, Milan).
Who Owns the Media is Who Tells the Story
“One of the clearest trends in media ownership is its increasing concentration in fewer and fewer hands. In his widely cited book The New Media Monopoly, Ben Bagdikian (2004) argues that ownership of media has become so concentrated, that by the mid- 2000’s only five global firms dominate the mass media industry in the United States, operating like a Cartel. The five companies are Time Warner, The Walt Disney Company, Viacom, News Corporation, and Bertelsmann AG…”“…They are multimedia entertainment conglomerates that produce and distribute newspapers, magazines, radio, television, books and movies. According to Bagdikian ‘ This gives each of the five corporations and their leaders more communication power than was exercised by any despot or dictatorship in history’ “ (Media/Society p.32)
“ Four of the five broadcast networks are owned by media conglomerates with major film studios: ABC (Disney), NBC (Universal), Fox (Twentieth Century Fox) and CW (Warner Brothers). In addition, these major movie studios are also the leading producers of prime time programming for network television, accounting for about 90% of the series on the major networks (Kunz 2009). This makes it very difficult for independent producers to ever get their programs on broadcast television. “ (Media/Society p.33)
“At the same time, news organizations try to increase revenues by maximizing their audience and advertiser bases. The most straightforward approach for audience maximization is to increase a light, entertainment-oriented news product that makes watching or reading the news fun.” (Media/Society p. 59)
The book details how the pressure to make a profit influences the content of news media. Looking at what’s happened to The Olympian, we can see it first-hand.
-Decrease the number of journalists
-Cut back on long term investigative reporting that produces a small number of stories
-Use a larger percentage of wire services reports
-Rely on a small number of elites (who are easy and inexpensive to cover) instead of less routine happenings
Focus coverage on a limited number of institutions in a handful of big cities (Media/Society p. 58)
Within that context, The Olympian does have a good credibility rating according to the online Mediabias Fact Check, and rating “High” on their Factual Scale and only a bit Left of Center on their Liberal to Conservative Scale.
Esther Kronenberg wrote this article based on information compiled by WIP staff
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