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Kochs Confirm Interest In Acquiring Tribune Company (Dinosaur Media DeathWatch™)
Breitbart's Big Journalism ^ | June 6, 2013 | John Nolte

Posted on 06/08/2013 4:20:24 AM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet

Well, this news should launch a thousand more goofy Beverly Hills Occupy protests:

WICHITA, Kan.—Billionaire Charles Koch confirmed that his company, Koch Industries Inc., is looking into the possibility of acquiring newspapers, but insisted he is looking for a profitable business, rather than a forum to advance his politics.

"There is a need for focus on real news, not news with an agenda or news that is really editorializing," Mr. Koch said in an interview.

Mr. Koch added in a follow-up statement to The Wall Street Journal that the editorial page of any newspaper his company acquired "would be a marketplace of ideas where all sorts of approaches to public-policy issues are vetted and contrasted, and there could be ongoing debate." That, he predicted, "would ultimately improve newspapers as a business proposition."

The Tribune Company includes the Los Angeles Times and the Chicago Tribune. The left, and yes, that includes the media, are currently apoplectic over the idea of a few major newspapers being owned by someone who doesn't worship The State.

The left believes in all kinds of diversity, except the diversity of ideas. This is why, although Fox News exists in an ocean of left-wing media, the left still despises Fox News.

And now we have the Tribune Company on the edge of blinking out of existence -- and who knows how many people losing their jobs -- but I'm guessing the left would prefer it go down than be saved by the dreaded Kochs....

(Excerpt) Read more at breitbart.com ...


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Constitution/Conservatism; Culture/Society; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: kochbrothers; liberalmedia; liberalwackjobs; libtinfoilhats; media; moonbats; msm; newspapers; rentfree
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They can always get jobs at the IRS, NSA, DOJ, NASA and EPA.
1 posted on 06/08/2013 4:20:24 AM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

The liberal conspiracy theorists that fear the Koch Brothers as much as they fear “right-wing terrorists” are certainly going to have a field day if the Kochs actually succeed.


2 posted on 06/08/2013 4:22:55 AM PDT by Olog-hai
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To: Olog-hai

I gotta wonder if the Kochs are just saying this to mess with the moonbats’ heads. (I refrain from calling the mush between their ears “brains”.) They’re living in the moonbats’ heads rent free.


3 posted on 06/08/2013 4:29:58 AM PDT by Lonesome in Massachussets (Doing the same thing and expecting different results is called software engineering.)
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To: Olog-hai

If newspapers went back to reporting local happenings and stuff at the state capital....most would find new and happy readers. Their aim to twist papers into some national political apparatus just won’t work.


4 posted on 06/08/2013 4:30:35 AM PDT by pepsionice
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To: 2ndDivisionVet; All

You have to be a real Liberal DoucheCrat to fear the Koch’s....they support Illegal Alien Amnesty, Homosexual rights, Globalism, and other leftist ideas.

All Koch is...is “Soros” in German. Not much difference between them


5 posted on 06/08/2013 4:31:34 AM PDT by SeminoleCounty (GOP - Greenlighting Obama's Programs)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet
looking into the possibility of acquiring newspapers, but insisted he is looking for a profitable business....."There is a need for focus on real news, not news with an agenda or news that is really editorializing,".

Koch will make it profitable and put another newspapers out of business. Wish they would give the sagging TNYT an offer they can't refuse.

6 posted on 06/08/2013 4:32:29 AM PDT by presently no screen name
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To: presently no screen name

The New York Times, like Newsweek, will be sold for a dollar. Do not doubt me.


7 posted on 06/08/2013 4:34:08 AM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet (I'll raise $2million for Sarah Palin's next run. What'll you do?)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

Will they deteriorate to near-nonexistence as quickly as Newsweak did?

(Looks like Newsweak should’ve taken Newsmax’s offer, in retrospect. The whole Koch thing here seems like such a parallel.)


8 posted on 06/08/2013 4:37:27 AM PDT by Olog-hai
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

The Koch brothers have the right idea.

This country will continue to drift left as long as the left controls the media. That is because a majority of people who decide close elections still get their “news” from the MSM. Another reason is that the leaders of the opposition party, that is, the GOP, fear the media much more than they do the conservative grass roots.

Talk radio and the internet are good for side, but it accomplishes little more than preaching to the choir.

Only when the current media stranglehold is broken will we have a chance to veer back toward our founding Constitutional principles.


9 posted on 06/08/2013 4:38:00 AM PDT by Dan in Wichita
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

What are the odds of this happening and when will it happen? :) My local paper is the Orlando Slantinel and I would LOVE for it to be taken over by an entity that actually appreciates truth.


10 posted on 06/08/2013 4:55:55 AM PDT by spacejunkie2001
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

The Koch brothers could lead a media renaissance. People are starving for good, unbiased reporting. I recall learning in one of my early ‘60’s classes that a journalist must present both sides in a fair and non-judgmental way. The journalist was supposed to report the facts without editorializing or inflammatory wording. This was in the days of Edward R. Murrow. None of the mainstream journalists then came to the profession from college, but found their way to it from real life. Their writing was clear and seemed fair and balanced. The Koch brothers would have a difficult time finding such reporters today and they’d have to fire everybody who came to the profession through the swamp of the education system.


11 posted on 06/08/2013 5:01:21 AM PDT by Gen.Blather
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

I have a dollar, do you want to run TNYT? You first task will be to knock the union out. Then advertising rates will fall dramatically. CEO needs to go to Sarah and Todd can pick his position. Smelly old NY vs. Alaska is our only problem in getting them on board. But it’s in the interest of our country so we have that going for us. OK? Think of the fun of slamming the anti Big Slurp No Salt control freak.


12 posted on 06/08/2013 5:02:23 AM PDT by presently no screen name
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To: SeminoleCounty

Agree the Koch really are just another brand of crony, really not much into actual individual freedoms.


13 posted on 06/08/2013 5:28:56 AM PDT by iopscusa (El Vaquero. (SC Lowcountry Cowboy))
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To: Olog-hai

The Koch Brothers are moderate Republicans the media and the left describe as “conservative.”

They would be glad with that “conservative solution” to immigration that’s being promoted on the radio.


14 posted on 06/08/2013 5:42:08 AM PDT by Nextrush (A BALANCED BUDGET NOW AND PRESIDENT SARAH PALIN ARE AT THE TOP OF MY LIST)
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To: Dan in Wichita

This is fairly old news that some how surfaced again.

I have come to believe that as good businessmen, the brothers might be looking for dilution. That is, they might be constructing a syndicate of conservative investors to share the risk and share the input of change necessary for success.

America was built by just such syndicates.


15 posted on 06/08/2013 5:43:35 AM PDT by bert ((K.E. N.P. N.C. +12 .....Lerner must be tried and executed..... crime against the Republic)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet
The Kochs are, above all else, brilliant businessmen. Therefore, on the surface, this makes no sense whatsoever. I can't see any possible business model where they can make any $$ with this purchase, unless they can buy it for a pittance..which won't happen.

My own personal tin foil hat theory..they are fueling these rumors to encourage liberal billionaires, like Burkle, Broad, to jump in and toss billions down the crapper..

16 posted on 06/08/2013 5:46:48 AM PDT by ken5050 (Due to all the WH scandals, MSNBC is changing its slogan from "Lean Forward" to "BOHICA")
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To: pepsionice
If newspapers went back to reporting local happenings and stuff at the state capital....most would find new and happy readers. Their
The "aim to twist papers into some national political apparatus” is the natural effect of the Associated Press - and it has worked (for them) just fine for over a century and a half.
"There is a need for focus on real news, not news with an agenda or news that is really editorializing," Mr. Koch said in an interview.
To the contrary journalism is, was, and always will be politics. It is of course possible, and laudable, to try to be objective. It is even OK to claim that you are trying to be objective. But there is no more political statement you can make than to claim that you actually are objective.

If you claim that you are objective, you claim that no one else is objective except yourself (and everyone else, to exactly the extent that they agree with you). There is no functional difference between claiming to be objective, and claiming to be wise. But journalists are circumspect about openly claiming to be wise. Claiming wisdom was the defining characteristic of the ancient Greek Sophists - and the Philosophers successfully brought the Sophists into such disgrace that “sophistry” survives as a word of opprobrium.

The Philosophers agreed that people should try for wisdom and/or objectivity - but they insisted on never arguing from the assumption of having attained either. Openness to facts and logic is the proper goal, and claiming that “the science is settled” is the negation of openness to facts and logic.


17 posted on 06/08/2013 6:43:03 AM PDT by conservatism_IS_compassion (“Liberalism” is a conspiracy against the public by wire-service journalism.)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

If the Koch’s want to buy the Hartford Courant (a.k.a. The Hardly Current) just make sure they don’t pay more than the $.75 newsstand price. At that its overpriced.


18 posted on 06/08/2013 6:55:50 AM PDT by muir_redwoods (Don't fire until you see the blue of their helmets)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

The Kochs are going to have to create their own journalism school, just so they can have competent staff. Currently journalism schools only crank out incompetent leftists.

The Koch school should offer the equivalent of three degrees. The “Bachelors” should be for objective reporters. The “Masters” should be for opinion writers, reviewers and junior editors. And the “PhD” should be for editors and the newspaper publisher.


19 posted on 06/08/2013 8:05:16 AM PDT by yefragetuwrabrumuy (Best WoT news at rantburg.com)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

It’s sad how these old billionaires from the last century waste hundreds of billions on dying print media that have only one way to go: total annihilation.

Newspapers in particular used to be profitable only because they existed in an environment in which they had a total monopoly in their local market for advertising due to inordinate costs of setting up a printing plant and delivery routes, along with no effective alternative media. With such a monopoly, there was no were else for most advertisers to go and the newspapers could pretty much charge however much they wanted to. News was just the hook to get subscribers to PAY for privilege of having the advertisements delivered to their doorstep.

Of course, that’s all gone now with the advent of the Internet, which destroyed the local monopolies for advertising, as well as providing massive benefits when compared to print advertising.

Our local rag, which used to be a vibrant propaganda platform for the local owners (and which has now been swallowed up by one of the giant conglomerates) is on the verge of becoming nothing more than a delivery vehicle for the weekly advertising inserts.

Discounting legals and obits, there’s now less than two pages of classifieds, and a quarter of that is the Service Directory. I counted a single large display ad in the rest of the paper, along with three tiny ones. That was it for advertising. There was ONE locally-written news article and ONE locally-written sports article, and the rest were wire service articles or articles replicated from nearby “sister” papers. That was it for “local” news.

In other words, our local paper is near-moribund. Additionally, since being taken over, the daily editorials have become so stupidly, insanely and ridiculously liberal, it looks like Obama himself (or at least one of his less-educated flunkies) wrote them.

We and the Koch’s would be so much better off if they were to use their money to buy a marginal satellite channel and convert it to true hard-hitting, yellow journalism and conservative-oriented news and entertainment.

Such a channel would start by hiring James O’Keefe, and put him in charge of training another 100 of himself and send them out on the streets with hidden cams and disguises. I’d have a conservative Candid Camera Show. A program called “Liberals Say the Darnedest Things” and a Conservative Saturday Night Live, this latter disproving the lie that conservatives don’t have senses of humor. I’d do a show geared towards nothing but outrageous youtube videos, including some of the Hitler ones. In fact, I’d have a weekly segment called, “What Would Hitler Say?”. I’d have numerous other shows that fed off of various activities on the Internet. A “Facebook Show”. A “Twitter Show”. I’d have a “Crackpot Show”, with fools like Kevmo debating ecat. A “Conspiracy Theory” show. An “Urban Legend Show”. A “Worst Internet Dates Show”. A show about common Internet frauds and how to avoid them. And my personal favorite, “The Freeper Show”. Oh and for “balance”, “The Democratic Underground Show”. Quite frankly, the possibilities for this kind of entertainment are virtually unlimited.

While these might seem redundant with the Internet itself, they would represent a slick, packaged version of the most outrageous stuff with a bit of background research and commentary, and this would all work because people are tired when they come home from work, lazy, and really just want to be passively entertained without having to work at it. You know, plop down on the couch in front of the tube, kickback with a beer, click on the “Outrageous Channel”, and absorb the chaos.


20 posted on 06/08/2013 8:46:49 AM PDT by catnipman (Cat Nipman: Vote Republican in 2012 and only be called racist one more time!)
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