Posted on 04/26/2013 10:11:54 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
The Koch brothers have become the nation’s leading cheerleaders for free markets where consumers, employees, entrepreneurs and investors are free to pursue their own selfish interests without interference from government or unions or anyone else for that matter.
Now comes word that the billionaire brothers want to buy up Los Angeles Times, one of the nation’s last remaining quality newspapers, or its parent, the Tribune Co., which has only recently emerged from bankruptcy reorganization following the disastrous takeover by real estate mogul Sam Zell.
All this has come to a head because the bottom-fishing hedge funds that grabbed control of Tribune during a thoroughly mismanaged bankruptcy process are determined to sell the company to the highest bidder. The money men at Oaktree Capital Management and Angelo, Gordon & Co. don’t care one whit about the impact of a sale on the Tribune’s employees or journalism, or the communities it serves, or the role its newspapers play in the democratic life of the nation.
They are busy gussying up the balance sheet before the investment bankers at J.P. Morgan and Evercore Partners begin shopping the company around to deep-pocketed billionaires. Reportedly high on the list are the Kochs, Rupert Murdoch and Los Angeles billionaires Eli Broad, Ron Burkle and David Geffen.
The newspaper employees of Tribune — those who haven’t lost their job or driven away in disgust — have had their pensions robbed, their pay and benefits cut, their professional dignity assaulted and their enthusiasm sapped by the financial types who have serially raped these once-great newspapers over the past six years. As it turns out, they now have a golden opportunity to turn the tables on their tormenters and exact some revenge.
At its heart, any news organization is only as good as the journalists who put it out.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
Also, this is of interest to Freepers, the Kock Brothers are actively hiring journalists for their non-profits, been a good number of feelers sent out this month.
There are a good few hundred ‘citizen-journalists’ on FR who could easily transition over to full time Koch Brothers employed journalists.
Koch Bros ping
Without all those urinalists who would pee on the truth?
Why remove “selfish”? Markets are fueled by people persuing their own selfish interests. That’s why Capitalism works.
Good. We need more of that.
If you embrace “free markets” the 1st Amendment be damned.
This article sounds like something that a bitter drunk would spout off about at the bar after he got laid off from his job. Nasty, self-pitying, filled with revenge fantasies, and exhibiting a martyr complex. In other words, its a great read for a conservative. I hope the Koch Brothers threaten to buy other papers so we get more articles like this.
hopefully no one
“All it would take would be a letter to Tribune’s owners and investment bankers declaring that if the newspapers were sold to an owner who would not invest in quality, politically independent journalism, they will take their talent and experience elsewhere. A one-day strike or sick-out on the day the company is put up for sale would help to reinforce the threat.”
Oh be still my heart! I would pay money to see this happen! The “signatories” would be out on their collective asses as fast as the Koch bros. could arrange it!
After all these rags are loosing money because of their “journalists” rather than in spite of them. The Koch brothers could contribute to returning the country to some semblance of sanity just by buying these papers and shutting them down!
“I find it great how “the Koch Brothers” have got the Communist DemocRATS scared to death of them. Go Bros!”
THey finance Grover Norquist and AMNESTY. They support Gay Marriage and every lopsided trade deal like NAFTA. If that’s what everyone wants then the Kochs will be great.
Why do the communist libs hate them so much?
“Why do the communist libs hate them so much?”
On the ‘economy’ they are not liberal. They contribute heavily to what the left considers conservative. They’re just too wrapped up with Karl Rove and Norquist. I’m not an expert on the Kochs, but I don’t trust anyone financing those two.
Karl Rove, Koch brothers lead charge to control Republican data 4/22/13
ATR get it’s big millions of $$ funding from two sources. The Kochs and Rove’s Crossroads pac.
They lost me right there.......Los Angeles Times, one of the nation’s last remaining quality newspapers
All newspapers should try to be objective. However, there is a catch - if you claim you actually are objective, that is proof that you actually are not even trying to be objective. Because, if you are sure that you are objective you do not believe that there actually is more than one side (your side) of any story. Thus, if you try to tell the other side of the story you will merely set up a straw man instead of giving the other side its best telling.It is impossible to know that you yourself, or anyone who agrees with you, are objective in reality.
“Selfish” is your hot button. Why?
This is rich. “Washington Post employee urges LA Times employees to Go Galt!”
I have no problem with “selfish.” Just noting the writer apparently HAD to add that to appeal to his leftist base.
Do you know who this “someone” is?
The assumption by this writer is, of course, that a free-market conservative owner would adversely affect "the democratic life of the nation."
It would be my earnest hope that if the Koch's succeed, they would indeed adversely affect the "Democrat life" of the nation.
My question is why they do not take a page from the Democrat/commie playbook and drape this attempted purchase in layers of middlemen, keeping themselves out of the spotlight.
Excellent question, especially since they have spent most of their lives being ‘behind the scenes.’ I think in the past few years they have emerged as libs’ enemy #1 and if they tried to conceal their interest, and it was exposed, that would be worse for them? Or they just don’t give a you-know-what?
Did you see in another threat that Soros has purchased a major stake in JC Penney? That should work. I have less problem with DeGeneres as it spokesperson than Soros as its owner.
What in the world does he want JC Penney for? Turn it into a multi-national burkamart?
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