The demise of local, county and city newspapers has reached the tipping point. But this is good news from the Baltimore Sun – “Returning The Baltimore Sun to Maryland hands, the state’s largest newspaper and its affiliates are poised to be acquired by a nonprofit formed by businessman and philanthropist Stewart Bainum Jr. that would operate the media organization for the benefit of the community. The sale would be part of a $630 million deal announced late Tuesday for Alden Global Capital to acquire full control of Tribune Publishing, which also publishes The Chicago Tribune, the New York Daily News and other major newspapers. As part of the acquisition, the nonprofit Sunlight for All Institute would acquire The Baltimore Sun, the Capital Gazette papers in Annapolis, the Carroll County Times and several other Baltimore-area weeklies and magazines, as well as the affiliated online properties. ”This is great news for the future of local media, and ensuring key reporting and transparency into the future,” said Maryland Senate President Bill Ferguson, a Baltimore Democrat. The Alden-Tribune deal is not yet done, needing the approval of Tribune Publishing’s shareholders. In its announcement, Tribune Publishing said Alden signed a “nonbinding term sheet” to sell The Sun to the nonprofit established by Bainum. Those terms were not disclosed. The Sun deal is contingent on the Alden-Tribune deal going forward. Founded in 1837, The Sun was long owned by the Abell family of Baltimore. Local ownership ended in 1986 when the newspaper was acquired by Times Mirror Corp. The Tribune Co. acquired Times Mirror in 2000. Tribune Publishing split off from Tribune in 2014, taking the legacy newspaper operations. Later that year, Baltimore Sun Media purchased Capital Gazette Communications, publisher of The Capital and Maryland Gazette, and Carroll County Times from Landmark Publishing. Despite difficult business conditions that have forced newspapers nationwide to pare back operations amid dwindling advertising, Baltimore Sun Media has won two Pulitzer Prizes in recent years — one last year for local reporting for the staff’s work uncovering the “Healthy Holly” book-publishing scheme that led to the resignation and conviction of Mayor Catherine Pugh and the other in 2019 when the Capital Gazette received a special citation in the wake of the 2018 shooting that killed five members of its staff. Baltimore Sun Media newsrooms and staff also have been Pulitzer finalists six times since 2015...”