Best Really Rich Guy to Suck Up to If You’re a Newspaper

When Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway purchased Media General’s 63 newspapers — including The Richmond Times-Dispatch — for $142 million last year, we newsprint types slept a little easier. After all, Media General was drowning in debt and the future was looking like, well, not much. Included in the deal was a $445 million line of credit that the company used to pare down a massive debt load.

Moreover, Buffett gave the newspaper industry a shot in the arm it desperately needed. Sure, print advertising revenues continue to fall at all major papers, as they have for the last decade and a half, and the only faithful readers of newsprint — old people — are dying off. Kids today, it turns out, don’t know how to read.

We hear the fog is lifting over the newsroom on Franklin Street. So cheers to you, Mr. Buffett. We think you’re tops.

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