Warren Buffett Doesn’t Know How to Revive Newspapers

Warren Buffett loves newspapers. He delivered papers as a teenager and bought a lot of them for his Berkshire Hathaway Inc. conglomerate. But now the billionaire wants an outside company to manage most of them. He’s struck a deal for newspaper chain Lee Enterprises Inc. to help oversee a news empire that stretches from New Jersey to Texas and includes Buffett’s hometown Omaha World-Herald.

Lee will get a $5 million annual fee plus a share of profits above certain benchmarks. That Buffett has gone from avidly buying media properties to seeking a business partner for them may not seem so surprising, given the industry’s troubles. But it’s left some current and former employees puzzled. In recent years, billionaires have snatched up prestigious but ailing papers—see Jeff Bezos and the Washington Post or Patrick Soon-Shiong, new owner of the Los Angeles Times. Why is the world’s third-richest man not willing to pour more money into his papers?