Michael Hiltzik: How Warren Buffett, who says the news business is 'toast,' tried to kill my first paper
It's not easy to get a fix on Warren Buffett's feelings about the newspaper industry.
He often has expressed a visceral love for newspapers, especially regional publications, and has acquired not a few over the years. When he bought his hometown Omaha World-Herald in 2011, saving it from a financial crisis, he said he was "delighted ... that the editorial independence that Nebraskans and Iowans have come to expect from the World-Herald will continue."
Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway holding company owns 31 dailies in 10 states, as well as 47 weeklies. But he's skeptical about their traditional business model: In April, at the time of Berkshire's annual meeting, he told Yahoo News that newspapers are "toast," except perhaps for the New York Times, Washington Post and Wall Street Journal.
Last year, he outsourced management of the Omaha paper and a few others to Lee Enterprises, a newspaper conglomerate with a record of cutting staff; the deal pays Lee $5 million a year plus a 33% share of operating earnings over $34 million, rising to a 50% share in 2020.
"That's insane incentive for them to cut our newspaper in terms of both people and
