If this is the effect of it all, I am all in!
I am with Allahpundit on this. If the eeeeevvvvviiiiilllll Koch brothers are that bad, then quit. If you think in a contracting job market for print journalists you will be able to get another job in just as good a newspaper for as equal a salary, good luck.
The irony is that the Newspaper Guild local really, really believes that the Times is an objective third party and just providing the facts ma'am. No really! Here is the Guild's statement:
Recently you’ve seen many petitions asking that the Koch brothers not be allowed to buy the Tribune Company’s newspapers. We understand why the Kochs breed this distrust. They are active political proponents of harsh right-wing positions. We’re also not certain that Tribune will listen to anything but money when the final decision is made.
What we do know is that great papers publish credible, trusted journalism online and on the printed page. Whoever comes to own these mastheads needs to understand that protecting newsrooms from ideological taint is no small thing. The future of American journalism depends on the ability to print truth, not opinion.
We call on Tribune to make a pledge that they’ll only sell to a buyer that will protect the objectivity of the news product by making a public commitment to doing so. The Newspaper Guild-CWA and the Communications Workers of America seek your support in this goal.
Get that next to last graph?! That they are objective?! All I can write is that I am glad I am not eating as I write this for my food would be all over the keyboard and screen. Are they fricking kidding?! Who is the Newspaper Guild to tell the company that they work for who they can sell the company to? What if the buyer, as Allahpundit notes here is George Soros? Would these douchebrains be down with that? And when did the Times become this paragon of objectivity? Was this when one-time publisher Otis Chandler decided to expose the John Birch Society and officially ending their ties to the Republican party? What?! You mean the Times used to be. . .a. . .right-wing rag?! Why yes indeed it was. So now a couple of wealthy bros can't buy a newspaper because they may damage so-called newsroom and editorial "independence".
Before Otis Chandler took over the Times in the early 1960s, the Times was pretty much an organ of the Republican party. Hard to believe I know. But when Otis took over, he wanted to change the Times' image of being in the hip pocket of the GOP. And he sure did by taking a 360 of the newspaper and it slowly but surely went far the other way. The evolution was complete after Otis ended up selling the Times-Mirror company to the Chicago Tribune. In fact and indeed, the Tribune company made it an official left-wing rag.
This recent post of mine kind of explains the Times at the national level. But it pretty much caters to the Hollyweird and West Los Angeles liberal elites. The rest of the city? Uh, not so much. And regional coverage? Abysmal.
Now, why are the Koch bros so bad?
Because they are open about their politics? As if people like the aforementioned Mr. Soros is not?
Does that mean that the Koch bros would simply make their potential publications and other media holdings just a mouthpiece for their causes?
Well, the Koch bros, David and Charles, do not strike me as two dudes that would just throw their money away. They would not buy the Times and the other Tribune holdings just because. They may want to leave their stamp on the media empire, but they want to make money at the same time.
I think what you would find is that the Times would not be in the hip pocket of the downtown Los Angeles, West Los Angeles, Hollyweird elites as they are now. There would be a balance of stories dealing with government corruption. And yes, even private corruption. The editorial page would probably show restraint rather than left or right wing bias at least for a while. After all the Koch bros would want to have their point of view out there. But again, I look for more hands off than a rebirth of Col. McCormick and his hold on, yes the Chicago Tribune. In fact, I think that the editorial page would be more libertarian than anything. It may be more like the Orange County Register in that respect.
But the thought that if the Koch bros were to buy the Los Angeles Times and a slew of staff were to leave, it would be totally awesome. A chance for many up and coming actual journalists to start at the top. What an opportunity.
It is why I support the Koch bros buying the Los Angeles Times. Because it is about time to clean house!
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