Lucas asks McClatchy bankruptcy judge to choose ‘a steward’ as new owner of The Star
Kansas City Mayor Quinton Lucas wrote to a federal judge overseeing bankruptcy proceedings for The Kansas City Star’s parent company, saying the outcome will have a “profound effect on cities large and small across the country.”
McClatchy, which owns 30 U.S. news organizations including The Star, The Miami Herald and The Sacramento Bee, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in February.
Michael E. Wiles, a U.S. bankruptcy judge in the Southern District of New York, is set to finalize a new ownership agreement later this month following a Friday auction between two hedge funds seeking control of the company.
In his July 1 letter to Wiles, Lucas said Star reporters were motivated “to tell the story of America, with all of our progress and imperfections.”
“Despite the challenges that come with this global pandemic, the reporters at The Kansas City Star have been working tirelessly to keep up with COVID-19 numbers, protests, and violent crime in our city,” the mayor wrote. “We cannot stress enough how essential their reporting is to our community.”
Lucas joins other mayors in cities served by McClatchy newsrooms. In Miami, Mayor Francis Suarez urged the judge to consider “locally rooted” buyers and Sacramento Mayor Darrell Steinberg called for consideration of local funding and donations to support the Sacramento Bee and other news organizations.
The potential buyers are Alden Global Capital, a New York-based hedge fund, and Chatham Asset Management, a New Jersey-based hedge fund that is McClatchy’s largest creditor.
Kansas City’s mayor didn’t stake a position on local ownership, but said new owners would be aided by the rise of journalism-focused philanthropy. He pointed to The Star’s partnership with the national service program Report for America, which has allowed the news organization to hire three full-time reporters to cover gun violence in Missouri.
Lucas described the fate of a bankrupt chain as “about so much more than creditors and shareholders.”
“It’s about readers,” he wrote. “As the mayor of a McClatchy city, I would urge you to choose a steward for this company that would build on the journalistic traditions of two of the most storied names in the business — McClatchy and Knight-Ridder — rather than degrade them.”
Founded in 1880 by William Rockhill Nelson and Samuel Morss, The Star was previously owned by the Walt Disney Co. and Knight Ridder Inc. before its 2006 acquisition by the McClatchy Co.
