Rumour has it that the Koch brothers are looking into buying the Tribune company, six fairly big name papers. Newspapers seem to be a declining market, but they still influence public opinion. Buffet has also been buying newspapers.
Imagine six liberal editorial pages converted? The newsrooms are threatening to quit if they are bought by the Brothers Koch, but I am sure they can find a lot of unemployed journalists to take their place.
Thomas Sowell: There are no solutions, just trade-offs.
L.A. councilmen want city to weigh in on possible Times sale
Three Los Angeles City Council members -- including a candidate for mayor -- asked their colleagues Tuesday to consider pulling city pension money from the investment firms that own the Los Angeles Times if they sell the publication to buyers who do not support “professional and objective journalism.”
“Frankly what I hear about the Koch brothers, if it’s true, it’s the end of journalism,’’ said Rosendahl, a former broadcaster. “I don’t want to see Los Angeles, the second-largest city and the biggest region in the nation, not to have a quality newspaper.”
Rosendahl's motion calls on the council to support a buyer who has demonstrated “the highest terms of professional and objective journalism.” It also calls for a report on how the city can use its pension funds and other investments as leverage to achieve that goal.
“We cannot support the sale of the Times to entities who Times readers would view as a political transaction first and foremost, turning L.A.’s metropolitan daily into an ideological mouthpiece whose commitment to empirical journalism would be unproven at best,” Rosendahl wrote in the motion. “A newspaper isn’t just a business it’s also a civic trust.”
