A conservative billionaire, heir to one of the country’s great fortunes. His wealthy children, with whom he had sometimes–strained relationships. And the newspapers he loved.
All have roles in a court case now playing out in Pittsburgh, which pits the grown children of Richard Mellon Scaife against the trustees who worked with Scaife as he poured money into the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review and other publications for years before his death in July at age 82. The legal proceedings offer a window into disputes within the spectacularly rich, often reclusive family—and also a look at the scale of support Scaife provided to the Tribune-Review.
At issue in the case is a particular trust established by Scaife’s mother, Sarah Mellon Scaife, in 1935, which at one point had $210 million in it. Lawyers for David Scaife, Richard’s son, claim in court papers that in 2008, David was promised that at least $90 million would remain in the trust at the time of Richard’s death.
But by the time Richard died, the fund was empty. Millions of dollars from the trust were used to support the Tribune-Review and its affiliated papers—“a waste of trust assets,” according to David Scaife’s court filing. He and his sister, Jennie Scaife, are now asking the court to order trustees of the fund to provide an accounting of the spending. A court conference in the case will be held Wednesday in Orphans’ Court in Allegheny County.
One of those trustees is H. Yale Gutnick, a longtime attorney and confidante of Richard Mellon Scaife and now the chairman of the Tribune-Review. In his court filings, Gutnick contends that there was no agreement to keep $90 million in the trust, and that allowing Richard to direct the money to the newspaper was consistent with Sarah Mellon Scaife’s intentions.
Gutnick also says that David and Jennie have claims on a separate family trust worth $560 million. “He knew, and the kids knew, contrary to what they say, that they are extremely wealthy people, not needing any more money from him,” Gutnick said in an interview, referring to Richard Scaife. It’s not surprising, then, that Richard did not leave any of his own assets to his children, either.
What’s not in dispute is that Scaife, who supported a range of conservative and libertarian causes and was a key player in what Hillary Clinton once dubbed the “vast right-wing conspiracy”—and who could have unpleasant interactions with outside journalists, including a CJR reporter who profiled him in the early 1980s—devoted vast sums to the Tribune-Review. Launched in 1992, the paper soon became widely known for its scandal-mongering coverage of President Bill Clinton—though the two men later became friendly, and Clinton even delivered a eulogy for Scaife this summer.
In her petition, Jennie Scaife says that the Tribune-Review lost $244 million from 1992 to 2007. That number, first reported by the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette in 2007, was not disputed in Gutnick’s reply.
Jennie Scaife’s lawyers also state that Richard Scaife subsidized the Tribune-Review to the tune of $130 million between 2000 and 2004. Much of that came from the 1935 Trust, according to the court papers.
But, says Gutnick, not all of the funds directed to the paper were to cover losses. Richard Scaife used some of the money for capital improvements at the paper, he said, specifically citing a new $34 million printing plant. Scaife also used some of his money to buy other newspapers, he said.
The Pittsburgh Tribune-Review is the flagship of a group of daily and weekly exurban and rural newspapers in western Pennsylvania, collectively called Trib Total Media. The group includes five other dailies, all considered by the company to be editions of the Tribune-Review. That’s how the paper claims a Sunday circulation of nearly 331,000, which would make it bigger than the rival Post-Gazette. “We are now the number one paper in Pittsburgh,” Gutnick said.
But the Pennsylvania News Media Association, which counts each title separately, puts the Tribune-Review Sunday circulation at about 130,000—well below the Post-Gazette.
“We believe the Post-Gazette is the predominant paper in Pittsburgh,” said David Shribman, the paper’s executive editor. He added: “We’ll be here for a very long time.”
Can the same be said for the Tribune-Review, whose coverage of local hospitals drew praise from CJR earlier this year, now that its benefactor has died? While Richard Scaife left much of his fortune to charitable foundations, “the Tribune-Review is absolutely accounted for by Mr. Scaife for the future,” Gutnick said.
As Richard Scaife entered his last weeks of life, he gave Gutnick and Scaife cousin Jim Walton his outline for the future.
“He said he loved his newspapers. He loved the media. He loved the First Amendment,” Gutnick recalled.
“He basically told both of us that he wanted his newspapers to survive forever.”
Did Scaife also tell Gutnick and Walton to hew to the editorial line that had been Scaife’s hallmark?
“He wanted a second voice,” Gutnick remembered. “He never told me a conservative voice. He never told Jim a conservative voice.”
Still, Gutnick said, Scaife believed the editorial policy of the rival Post-Gazette “was extremely liberal in every facet of what they did.”
Dave Warner is a Philadelphia-area freelance journalist who has extensive experience in newspapers, a wire service, and a website. He has been both a reporter and an editor during his career.