Just a few years in the past, determined to keep away from being acquired by a hedge fund, workers members of The Baltimore Solar made public pleas for an area entrepreneur to purchase their publication.

That request was lately realized: A Maryland businessman, David D. Smith, purchased the storied newspaper, returning the 186-year-old newspaper to native fingers for the primary time in practically 40 years.

However Mr. Smith might not be fairly what The Solar’s journalists had been hoping for. In keeping with interviews with present and former workers on the newspaper, Mr. Smith’s buy has already raised alarm amongst many inside and out of doors the newsroom, who worry he’ll impose his political pursuits on the group as a ultimate coda to a as soon as proud newspaper that has been dealing with a protracted decline.

Mr. Smith is the manager chairman of the conservative Sinclair Broadcast Group, one of many nation’s largest native tv station operators with practically 200 stations, together with Fox45 in Baltimore. Sinclair has been a dependable ally for former President Donald J. Trump; Mr. Smith reportedly told Mr. Trump in 2016, “We’re right here to ship your message.” In 2018, the corporate required its stations to film promos echoing a few of Mr. Trump’s assaults on the information media.

Mr. Smith has commonly supported conservative causes. In keeping with tax data, his household basis has given greater than $500,000 lately to Venture Veritas, a right-wing group that has tried to covertly file political opponents and journalists.

The Solar’s new proprietor did little to assuage the inner issues throughout a three-hour assembly with workers members on Tuesday. In keeping with two folks within the assembly, Mr. Smith advised the newsroom that he had learn the paper only some instances in current months and hadn’t learn it in any respect within the earlier 40 years, urged them to extend earnings and mentioned he wished the publication to emulate the native Sinclair station, Fox45. He additionally mentioned on the assembly that he wished the paper to cowl corruption. (The Solar gained a Pulitzer Prize in 2020 for doing just that.)

“I feel it should imply catastrophe,” John E. McIntyre, an editor at The Solar for 34 years, mentioned of Mr. Smith’s possession. Mr. McIntyre took a buyout in 2021 and now does occasional freelance work for the brand new crosstown rival, The Baltimore Banner.

“What I count on is that he’ll make good on what he mentioned, to show The Baltimore Solar into the identical factor that his Fox45 TV station is: a megaphone for right-wing disinformation and contempt for town of Baltimore,” Mr. McIntyre added.

The Solar, the biggest paper in Maryland, has struggled lately with declining promoting revenues and print circulation, the identical headwinds affecting practically all newspapers. The paper as soon as had about 500 journalists and quite a few overseas bureaus. Now, The Solar and its sister newspapers make use of about 150 folks, together with these on the enterprise aspect.

In 2021, Alden International Capital, an funding agency that has a playbook of shopping for native newspapers earlier than slashing prices, purchased The Solar. The paper’s workers and others in the neighborhood tried to keep off Alden’s buy. In February 2021, Stewart Bainum Jr., a Maryland lodge magnate and a lifelong Democrat, reached a deal to purchase The Solar and two of its sister papers for $65 million, with a plan to run them by a nonprofit group.

However that deal fell aside, and Mr. Bainum ended up beginning the native rival information group, The Baltimore Banner, which employed a few of The Solar’s finest reporters and has virtually doubled its newsroom to 70 in lower than two years, virtually the identical dimension as The Solar. The Banner reported earlier this week concerning the workers assembly with Mr. Smith.

Mr. Smith bought The Solar and a number of other different newspapers from Alden on Jan. 12 with a associate, Armstrong Williams, a conservative commentator. The brand new house owners mentioned they’d used private funds unbiased of Sinclair. The worth of the deal was not disclosed, however Mr. Smith advised the newsroom within the assembly that the deal was within the “9 figures,” or at the very least $100 million.

Man Gilmore, chief working officer of Alden’s MediaNews Group, mentioned in an announcement: “We’re at all times open to discussions about native possession and happy that our pre-eminent newspaper working and expertise platform will proceed to supply providers for The Baltimore Solar.”

Mr. Smith declined to remark for this text by a consultant. He advised The Solar in an interview on Monday that he had bought the paper as a result of “now we have an absolute accountability to serve the general public curiosity” and that he thought the paper could possibly be “vastly worthwhile.”

Mr. Williams, his enterprise associate, mentioned in a telephone interview on Friday that workers had misinterpreted Mr. Smith’s feedback within the workers assembly.

“What issues is what we do — that’s what we’ll be judged by — not what somebody says within the first assembly, however what we do day-to-day in that newsroom,” Mr. Williams mentioned.

He added: “Why would we lay our a fortune to purchase this to destroy it? That doesn’t make sense.”

Mr. Williams owns a media firm affiliated with Sinclair, and he has had a protracted profession as a radio and tv present host and columnist. In 2005, Mr. Williams admitted that he had been paid $240,000 by George W. Bush’s administration to advertise the federal government’s “No Little one Left Behind” legislation in his columns and elsewhere.

Mr. Williams mentioned that non-public politics would “completely not” have an effect on The Solar’s journalism, and that he wished rigorous and factual reporting. “Greater than something, we’d like steadiness in information protection,” he mentioned.

Trif Alatzas, the writer and editor in chief of The Solar, would proceed in these roles, Mr. Williams mentioned.

The Baltimore Solar Guild, which represents journalists on the paper, mentioned in a statement after the workers assembly: “The editorial course that he described — targeted on clicks moderately than journalistic worth — involved a lot of our members, as did his perspective towards weak communities within the metropolis that we love.”

The Solar journalists haven’t heard from or seen Mr. Smith because the assembly, mentioned two workers who spoke on the situation of anonymity. Nothing has instantly modified of their day-to-day work, the folks mentioned.

The Solar has continued to cowl its new proprietor. An article published on Wednesday reported that Mr. Smith contributed $100,000 to a PAC supporting Sheila Dixon, a Democrat and former mayor of Baltimore who’s difficult town’s present mayor. On Thursday, the paper published an article on Mr. Smith’s involvement in financing a poll query petition asking for Baltimore’s Metropolis Council to be halved.

Mr. Bainum mentioned in an interview on Friday that The Baltimore Banner had seen a giant enhance in new subscriptions because the announcement of The Solar’s sale.

“We launched the Banner 19 months in the past to carry extra top quality journalism to Baltimore and Maryland,” he mentioned. “If this sale of The Solar achieves much more of that, it’s going to be a lift to the area for certain. The extra native information, the higher.”

Exterior critics have been pessimistic about The Solar’s new possession. The Guardian’s media columnist, Margaret Sullivan, wrote: “One typically hears the want for extra native possession as a result of nationwide vulture-capital chains have achieved a lot injury. However as Baltimore’s scenario reveals, native possession will be simply as unhealthy.”

David Simon, the creator of the TV present “The Wire” and a former Solar reporter, mentioned in a thread on the social media platform X that Mr. Smith “delivered a information product that begins with a tough ideological premise after which tailors all protection and editorializing to suit.”

Josh Tyrangiel, a media government and filmmaker who’s on the board of The Baltimore Banner, mentioned of Mr. Smith in an interview: “He’s the Grim Reaper. And since he clearly is aware of nothing about journalism, he’ll be a careless Grim Reaper.”

“The Solar is in for a depressing, undignified loss of life,” he added.