Matt Levine’s Money Stuff: A Hedge Fund That’s Also a Newspaper

Hunterbrook!

We talked in November about Hunterbrook, a hedge fund that is also a newspaper. These are mostly tough economic times for the news industry, and Hunterbrook hit upon a differentiated media business model:

1. They would start a newsroom (Hunterbrook Media) to publish general news and investigative journalism.

• 2. There’s no paywall and no advertising.

• 3. But before each investigative piece is published, the newsroom would send it to Hunterbrook’s affiliated hedge fund (Hunterbrook Capital), which could trade on the news.

• 4. The hedge fund’s trading profits can — they hope! — pay the journalists’ salaries.

One way to think of this business ...