Mar 10
2025
The scoop on the hacking of The Buffalo News
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by Jim Heaney, editor of Investigative Post
The Buffalo News is among some 75 newspapers owned by Lee Enterprises that got hacked a month ago. The News has informed its readers in general terms, but press reports and Lee’s filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission reveal very serious and ongoing problems which have crippled operations.
Lee was attacked Feb. 3 by Russian hackers known as Qilin. They made off with 350 gigabytes of data, encrypted other files and demanded a ransom.
The purloined data includes “investor records, financial arrangements that raise questions, payments to journalists and publishers, funding for tailored news stories, and approaches to obtaining insider information,” according to Security Week.
The hack has challenged The News and other newspapers to produce their printed and web editions and to provide customer service to subscribers. The print edition of The News, for example, is reduced to two thin sections Monday through Saturday, and good luck getting through to customer service. I imagine the hack has been a nightmare for Editor Margaret Kinny Giancola and her staff.
The hackers threatened to begin releasing sensitive information if their demands were not met by last Wednesday, although there are no reports they’ve followed through, aside from posting some samples of the stolen data.
Lee, in a recent SEC filing, said “the threat has been contained” and that it’s working to determine “whether personally identifiable information was taken.”
The filing further stated: “While the full scope of the financial impact is not yet known, the incident is likely to have a material impact on the company’s financial condition and results of operations.”
The hack has already impacted the company financially. Its stock price has fallen from $18.90 a share in early November to $13,30 on the day of the hack to $8.86 last Friday.
Meanwhile, Berkshire Hathaway, which holds a $446 million loan extended to Lee to purchase its papers in 2020, has temporarily waived interest payments on the debt.
Lee newspapers aren’t the only outlets that have been targeted by hackers in recent years. Others include The New York Times, The Philadelphia Inquirer, the Weather Channel and News Corp. A wide range of other businesses are also being targeted.
Donate to support our nonprofit newsroomAdding to all this bad news: print circulation at The News continues its free fall.
A trade journal recently published a list of the 25 newspapers with the largest print circulation in 2024. The Fort Lauderdale-based Sun Sentinel brought up the rear with an average daily circulation of 15,300.
The News did not make the list. That means the paper has lost half of its little remaining print circulation in just the past year or so. Management told the newsroom staff circulation was about 35,000 in the fall of 2023. That number was down from 56,000 the year before, and way down from a peak of over 300,000 back in the 1990s.
Changing reader habits explain the long-term decline in circulation. It’s happening everywhere. Only 5 percent of adults prefer to get their news from print publications.
Recent circulation losses here in Buffalo have been expedited by aggressive price increases and the shifting of printing operations to Cleveland 16 months ago, resulting in the paper consisting mostly of day-old news. Readers aren’t buying it.
Survival for The News and other papers depends on growing a digital subscriber base, which stood at about 42,000 last year. That’s half of the 83,000 subscribers that then-Editor Mike Connelly estimated in 2018 was needed to cover the cost of operating the newsroom.
