"And who’s moving in right now to pick through the scraps? Hedge funds. They’ve destroyed several papers, and are working their way through some biggies like the Denver Post."

Uh, wat? Am I mistaken, or does that not make sense? Since when are hedge funds involved in corporate plundering? I think he's getting "hedge fund" confused with private equity and venture capital, no?

That being said, is it that the venture capital firms are picking through the scraps or that these web media companies are not grown organically, which is why we're seeing massive layoffs. They operate mostly on venture capital and haven't been making a profit ... at least not directly; who knows what stories have been generated for the sake of some other business dealings elsewhere; a sort of accounting trick where losses are incurred in one area for the sake of profit in another area.

Conspiratorial? Yeah, but not unlikely.

EDIT: To add on to this, lately these brands have been tarnished, so perhaps one could speculate that those wielding the venture capital are downsizing to work on new brands going into the 2020 election season; brands not tainted by a loss of trust.