Rose Law Group Reporter Gripe of the Week
We talked last week about the journalistic rushes to judgment in coverage of the Boston bombings. This week, we’re going to place judgment on a growing trend in the modern media business: If you can’t beat ‘em, buy ‘em.
The trend-setter in this era (but far after the infamous age of Yellow Journalism) was the late Rev. Sun Myung Moon, the billionaire media mogul who owned the Washington Times, an advocate for politics of the right.
Australian multi-millionaire Rupert Murdoch defends his Fox News against criticism of right-wing bias. On the other end of cable news, MSNBC, formerly partially owned by Bill Gates, is notably a voice for liberalism
Since equally wealthy Ted Turner sold CNN, it has become more of a centrist news source than its liberal beginnings.
Now, comes the report Charles and David Koch — the billionaire oil-baron brothers who’ve poured mega-millions into climate denial and right-wing causes and candidates — are looking to get into the newspaper business.
Koch Industries is exploring a bid to buy the Tribune Company’s eight regional newspapers, including The Los Angeles Times, The Chicago Tribune, The Baltimore Sun, The Orlando Sentinel and The Hartford Courant.
Could such a purchase be considered linked to Republican losses in 2012, where the Kochs dumped millions in campaigns?
“[T}he papers could serve as a broader platform for the Kochs’ laissez-faire ideas,” said The New York Times.
“A deal could include Hoy, the second-largest Spanish-language daily newspaper, which speaks to the pivotal Hispanic demographic.”
As a former newspaperman, I can’t imagine what it must be like to have a political agenda hanging over every story you write. Appropriately, such agendas belong on editorial and op-ed pages, for which they are intended, not under four-column headlines on the front page.
Ethical journalists at the Koch-targeted newspapers have got to be shaking in their boots.
