Local Billionaire Proposes Turning Chronicle Into a Non-Profit
Warren Hellman, chairman of local private equity investment firm Hellman & Friedman, amateur banjo player and major sponsor of the Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival, has come up with some crackpot scheme to turn the San Francisco Chronicle into a non-profit pit into which Hearst Corp. would continue to dump its money without seeing any return--sort of like a motorboat, or a fixer-upper, or a child who never amounts to anything.
According to the San Francisco Business Times, Hellman and other "prominent San Francisco Business Leaders" met to discuss leading such a conversion. As the BizTimes also reports, "Details remain sketchy. It’s unclear if the proposal is being seriously considered."
So, we'll just chalk this up to Hellman liking old timey things like banjo music and newsprint ink on his fingers while he eats his Cream of Wheat, and move on with our lives assuming print is dead and that Hearst execs are going to have a good laugh about this before selling the paper up the river.