The California Aggie acquires The New York Times
The NFT to NYT pipeline of greed
By ABHINAYA KASAGANI — akasagani@ucdavis.edu
In a shocking move on Wednesday, The California Aggie announced its purchase of The New York Times (NYT), marking the first (and possibly only) time a student-run newspaper has acquired a mass media corporation. The deal reportedly closed following an end-of-quarter meeting held at the Memorial Union, after a few staff members brought up the present-day market value of The New York Times.
“We discovered that they’re worth A LOT,” reported one columnist. “Though, with our capability as an organization, it’s not shocking that we were able to get them to agree.”
Others noted their surprise at The California Aggie having more leverage in the negotiation than they realized.
“Every media conglomerate is waiting to be bought,” claimed one opinionated desk editor (notably not from the Opinion Desk). “It’s why they build them to begin with.”
The sell was easy: We’re like you guys, but better.
“Although we are receiving little-to-no money for this acquisition, the students promised us premium access to their highly coveted bike lanes,” chuckled The New York Times’ Lead Business Acquisition Manager.
This merger was not met with unanimous approval. Some reporters expressed disinterest in their new assignment — to cover the success of UC Davis dining halls and campus housing services. Other concerns they had were that their multinational news outlets’ focus was becoming insular: How was a nonresident of Davis supposed to understand “spot where you would cry after a midterm” or “average number of bike accidents during the first week of classes?”
Still, the representatives who had relocated from the New York office rambled on about how the weekly Editorial Board meetings were held in what resembled a glorified elevator. They watched in disbelief as student writers trickled in throughout what they called “Collaborative Hour,” claiming they hadn’t gotten around to eating breakfast, lunch or anything, really.
Some members of The California Aggie were not all too slap-happy about this change, either. They complained about the lingering smell of what was never just the coffee but exclusively of coffee breath. They didn’t quite appreciate having to deal with the mass disagreement that came with shifting the newer members away from Microsoft Teams to a more manageable communication platform; old school as they were, they vehemently denied the use of anything with the word”‘Slack” in it.
Despite an initial difference of opinion, other members of The New York Times noted how they much preferred an improperly ventilated newsroom reliant largely on terribly watered-down iced coffee, feeling reminded of why they had gotten into journalism to begin with.
Things, however, are looking up for The California Aggie.
“We can buy anything nowadays; this is Rupert Murdoch’s America,” one columnist said, when asked about the potential regulation of media.
He also admitted that when he’d brought up its market value at the end-of-quarter meeting, he had been referring to non-fungible tokens (NFTs), when the rest of the staff decided to look further into acquiring NYT.
“It worked out. Maybe we buy The Atlantic next,” was all he had to say on the subject.
Written by: Abhinaya Kasagani— akasagani@ucdavis.edu
Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed by individual columnists belong to the columnists alone and do not necessarily indicate the views and opinions held by The California Aggie.