Toll Road Giant Buys Newspapers to Silence Critics

theNewspaper.com ^ | January 26, 2007 | theNewspaper.com

[stevie_d_64]

I hear everyday how much of a pill it is to do anything but burn gas at 0-5 mph on I-35...

But handing over what we have now to alieviate that problem in this manner, is still a band-aid for a major wound...And does nothing about the infection...(Sorry, I love to throw analogies into this)

The entities in charge of dealing with the overall problem with I-35 have failed miserably, they know it, and lots of other understand this as well...And pojnting fingers does nothing to solve it, nor casting off a obvious domestic solution does either...

This is the lazy way to deal with it...

And in this day and age of the people demanding instant gratification (however unrealistic) to a problem, and expecting government to come in and save the day...I just don't see this going in a direction that is going to help in anyway shape or form, unless you are one of the ones inside working things to your personal benefit...Thats what it smells like...

But heck, politics and economic development seem to be the "new" thing these days...

Tell me something though, just for my personal edification...I-35 is a pretty long stretch of highway...

So, is the problem of congestion and high-traffic usage right in the Austin area??? Because I can't imagine it being up and down the entire length of that road...

Just to let you know I do run over that way from time to time, my Grandmother lives on my side of Austin from Houston in Rockdale...

And yes, I do see a ton of traffic down the middle of Austin most of the time...

I just don't see this TTC doing anything but opening another endless and bottomless money pit of worms for this entire country, much less just the state of Texas...

[Kenny500c]

My solution for that is to come down hard on employers who hire illegals, and start confiscating company assets like they do for drug dealers.

Also we need to end the folly of granting citizenship to people just because their mother gave birth on U.S. soil.

And of course, no taxpayer funded benefits for illegals.

As for the low paying jobs, if nobody wanted them wages would have to rise in response.

[conservatism_IS_compassion]

I don't know where you're from, but I have seen newspapers across the board censor conservative views in their editorial sections, and refuse to allow conservatives to purchase space to publish conservative views.

I have no reason at all to doubt it. That's what the First Amendment says - that you have no business in court trying to make a paper print, for a fee or gratis, anything the owner of that paper doesn't want to print.

Don't buy the idiocy that foreign ownership of our media is not a problem.

Of course ownership of media is an issue. It is an issue because journalism is politics. It was politics when Ben Franklin had a media empire in the colonies before and during the revolution, it was politics when Hamilton and Jefferson sponsored competing newspapers in which to wage their partisan battles, it was politics when the sections of the country were breaking apart, it was politics when Hearst was getting us into war with Spain.

Journalism has never stopped being politics. Journalism especially became hyper-political when it started making the most political claim of all - the claim of being objective, which as far as I can discern is indistinguishable from a claim of wisdom. That matters because since Socrates we have understood that claiming to be wise is a power play. If you claim to be wise, you shut off debate. If you claim to be wise, you are engaged in sophistry. If you can get away with claiming to be wise, you can get away with saying that "it depends on the meaning of 'is'."

And of course, FCC licensing of broadcasters is predicated on the idea that broadcast journalism can mimic The New York Times and other hyperpolitical print journals - and that doing so proves that they are broadcasting in the public interest! A perfectly absurd rationale.

Why Broadcast Journalism is
Unnecessary and Illegitimate

[E.G.C.]

BTTT

[Tolerance Sucks Rocks]

You're welcome.

[Tolerance Sucks Rocks]

bump.

[JSDude1]

I agree; I just didn't understand your point..

[unixfox]

How about the jobs created?

So what, the IRS has jobs too, but I aint gonna side with em that's fer sure.

[biff]

Just drop it ok? You apparently are the only one that does not get it.

[hedgetrimmer]

Its a bit odd that you crossed out the word foreign, as in 'foreign ownership'.

[Colorado Doug]

You mean the jobs created in order to build new roads or the few low paying service type jobs at the hotels and fast food restaurants along the way where none exist today?

Maybe the people who lose their existing jobs along the old roadways will be able to get new jobs along the new one. The small businesses will just be out of luck.

[Colorado Doug]

This road shouldn't even be on the table. Is there a shortage of tar and feathers in Texas these days?

[wku man]

And if they keep it up, the Second.

Scouts out! Cavalry Ho!

[conservatism_IS_compassion]

Its a bit odd that you crossed out the word foreign, as in 'foreign ownership'.

. . . or is it odd that you see the need to insert "foreign" in that sentence?

My point is that ownership/management of a news organization doesn't have to be foreign to be an issue. Time was, when papers openly espoused political perspectives - not just in a ghetto called the "editorial page" but generally. And since

Half the truth is often a great lie. - Benjamin Franklin

that is actually the only honest position for a journalist to take. That is being honest about the fact that you nor anyone else can print only part of the truth (and no one can print the utter, entire whole truth) and still be sure that he has been objective in what he left out. It follows from that that Rush Limbaugh, who openly projects a conservative perspective, is a fairer journalist than Katie Couric - or anyone else who claims to be objective - is.

When papers started separate editorial pages, that was the start of the arrogant conceit that opinion was segregated to a ghetto, and the whole remainder of the paper was "objective." It is not; in general objectivity would require wisdom - and the business of short-deadline writing of bad news is not the obvious place to find a font of wisdom.

When foreigners are advocating a policy in Texas which you think unwise for Texas, it certainly is fair to point out that those foreigners will no bear the ill effects of the policy they advocate. My point was that you don't have to be a foreigner to advocate bad policy. American journalists and American liberals do it every day.

[hedgetrimmer]

The word 'foreign' was inserted into the sentence because it has bearing on this article. You are trying to deflect criticism of foreign ownership of the media, by blaming Americans. A typical globalist response to the issue of foreign ownership of our vital industries.

[stevie_d_64]

Yes...

But there is a good supply of "hair products" that is making our govenor a very handsome man to the women-folk and the girly-men...