Posted on 04/02/2013 1:59:50 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
Tribune Company’s moves to sell its newspapers—a string that includes the Los Angeles Times and the Chicago Tribune—has reportedly sparked the interest of a number of heavyweight financiers. These include familiar media moguls like Warren Buffett and Rupert Murdoch. But heads turned when another pair of possible bidders emerged early in March: the billionaire industrialists Charles and David Koch.
The Koch brothers, of course, are best known for funding conservative causes and conservative politicians. Unlike Buffett, who has purchased 63 newspapers in the last 15 months, and Murdoch, whose News Corp. owns The Wall Street Journal and the New York Post among many others in Britain and Australia, the brothers don’t have much of a track record of media ownership.
As news of their interest in the Tribune newspapers spread, Koch Companies spokeswoman Missy Cohlmia declined as a matter of policy to confirm or deny a bid. At the same time, though, she sought to dispel concerns that the Koch brothers would seek to transform Tribune newspapers into an arm of the broad network of conservative opinion and policy shops whose activities they underwrite. “We respect the independence of the journalistic institutions referenced in today’s news stories,” Cohlmia said in a brief statement to CJR.
That didn’t stop some observers from worrying out loud, particularly on the left, about the political orientation of those papers, particularly their editorial pages. “You thought Rupert Murdoch was bad? Just wait till you meet the Kochtopus,” wrote J. Gibson on Daily Kos. In fact, there are no apples-to-apples comparisons to help predict whether the Koch brothers would insist on editorial pages at Tribune papers that match their views. Mainstream media outlets tend to have their own news cultures, and can be slow to change their spots. Anyway, the Koch brothers don’t own any....
(Excerpt) Read more at cjr.org ...
Meanwhile the Left is not suspicious of Al Jazeera’s ties or motives.
i wonder why the liberal media isn’t up in arms about the billionaire warren buffet buying up 63 papers in the last 15 months.
I worry out loud about the death-grip the far left has on the MSM and pretty much every other institution in this land, and nobody gives a tinker's damn. The Columbia Journalism Review certainly hasn't contacted me about my concerns.
The Koch brothers do whatever it is that benefits the Koch brothers. They helped start the Democratic Leadership Council (which in turn gave Billy-boy his start).
Nor the the Democrat pol’s purchase of the Philly Inquirer.
http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2012/04/nj_democratic_boss_norcross_ta.html
N.J. Democratic boss Norcross agrees to buy Philadelphia newspapers
The left-wing pantywaists have/had their views FOISTED on the rest of America for 50+ years and NOW they want to complain about possible bias in the media. God knows it isn’t enough that they get to brainwash children in schools, students in colleges and on PBS, NPR, ABC, NBC, CBS, MSNBC, CNN....
GEES I’d LOVE it if they’d go to KICKSTART It’d be great to sit back and watch real Americans buy in by the ton....
I hope the Koch’s fire every one of the leftists. I don’t care if they replace them with conservatives — just as long as they hire people that aren’t cheerleaders for the left.
I think the ultimate damage by the Koch Brothers...is if they start forcing their own papers to really cover the local town and state politics. Some folks might be shocked that they actually have corruption in Chicago, California or LA. This is the one thing that none of the networks will go after....corrupted political figures.
Uh, the left hates the DLC almost as much as they hate the Koch brothers.
DISCLAIMER: I work for Charles Koch.
-
I certainly don’t claim to know everything that he knows,
but I struggle to understand how owning a chain of newspapers
creates any long term value.
Yep. 86 billion, and I see no proof that they are helping us. Not impressed.
Maybe by operating part of a system (the media) that helps tell the rest of the world what is actually taking place, and reporting those facts, this purchase might the best investment they’ve ever made.
If Free Enterprise dies, everything else they own goes to zero. And the death of that system is the goal of those in power right now.
Including the MSM.
The networks are part of it. Ever check how much advertising government buys in the media?
This is good enough reason for me.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_G._Koch
Charles Koch looks upon the Tea Party movement favorably. “The way it’s grown, the passion, and the intensity, was beyond what I had anticipated,” he told an interviewer.[19] He’s funded groups opposed to the Barack Obama’s administration.[33]
So do I. But, if I were one of the Koch brothers, I'd still take a hatchet to those who have cozied up to socialists and shown absolutely no interest in being independent in the past.
Fire the socialists and replace them with conservatives.
Sweet REVENGE.
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