He Said Print Media Is ‘Meaningless Dribble.’ Now He Owns the Baltimore Sun.

Conservative media mogul David Smith owns a local-TV behemoth and has a long-held distrust of print media, which he once said serves “no real purpose.” Then last week, Smith agreed to buy his hometown paper, the Baltimore Sun. During a meeting with Sun staffers, Smith told the crowd he had paid “a nine-figure number,” which would be at least $100 million, for the publication he said he read only rarely, according to attendees.