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Little-Acorn
02-12-2009, 07:22 PM
For weeks now, conservatives have protested the idea of the Government taking over the running of some banks' functions, such as dictating maximum salaries for their executives etc. And when they have, liberals have smugly replied, "When you take the government's money, you must do what the government says." Some describe it as part of a "contract" between govt and those banks: "Govt is simply saying that IF the banks want the money, they have to do certain things; then they let banks decide if the want the money or not."



The issue of whether the Govt is legally allowed to offer bailout money in the first place, usualy goes unexamined.



But what happens if Govt bails out the media?



Will the media become govt-controlled businesses, as liberals are so happy to let banks become? Who, then will perform the function of watchdogging government - an invaluable part of a free society?
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Of course, this brings up a parallel question of its own:



If government started controlling parts of the mainstream media and dictating how they must operate - possibly including what they write - would anyone notice any difference?



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http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=88508



News bailouts threaten freedom of press
'You can't expect a watchdog to bite the hand that feeds it'



Posted: February 10, 2009
8:39 pm Eastern

by Drew Zahn
© 2009 WorldNetDaily



Floundering media and news conglomerates have expressed interest in accepting government bailout money, leading some to object, arguing that strings attached to federal funds will subvert our nation's freedom of the press.



Brent Bozell, president of the media watchdog organization Media Research Center, contends that if a news company – even a bankrupt one – accepts taxpayer money, it can no longer be trusted to hold government accountable to the people.



"How in the world can [a] paper propose to be a watchdog for the public when it's had conversations about being bankrolled by the government?" Bozell asked in The Philadelpia Bulletin.



"When a media outlet proposes a bailout, it proposes to put itself under the authority of the entity bailing it out," Bozell said. "Therefore, if it's a government, the media entity proposes to become an arm of the government."



Bozell was reacting to news that the publisher of both the Philadelphia Inquirer and Daily News has been in discussions with Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell about a potential government bailout of Philadelphia Media Holdings, the company that owns the newspapers.



"If newspapers are to play the vital role they do in a democracy," said Philadelphia Inquirer publisher Brian Tierney, quoted in his own paper, "then they cannot be put into a special line where they alone stand barred from receiving the economic development dollars that are available to every other business in the state."



Reuters reports a similar situation in Connecticut, where State Rep. Frank Nicastro, D-Bristol, petitioned the state government to step in and help save The Bristol Press and The New Britain Herald after their parent company accumulated hundreds of millions of dollars in debt, though the papers have since been purchased by a new owner.



And as the nation's largest news conglomerates face increasing, startling losses, some worry that these major corporations may turn to the federal government, much as banks and the auto industry have. But at what cost?



In an editorial titled "How About Tossin' a Bailout This Way," Jeff Ackerman, publisher of the Grass Valley, Calif., newspaper The Union joked, "If Congress bails out the newspaper industry, we'd also promise to be a lot nicer than we have been to various politicians."



Yet compromising the free press is exactly what many are worried will happen if government tosses a bailout to the media.



Former reporter and editor Paul Janensch, now a journalism professor at Quinnipiac University in Connecticut, summarized for Reuters the problem with media companies accepting government bailouts:



"You can't expect a watchdog to bite the hand that feeds it," Janensch said.



Digby Solomon, publisher of The Daily Press in Newport News, Va., told Reuters, "The whole idea of the First Amendment and separating media and giving them freedom of control from the government is sacrosanct."



The precedent for blurring the separation of press and state, however, has already been set.



Last fall, according to a Bloomberg report, the U.S. government agreed to insure as much as $139 billion in debt for GE Capital Corp., the lending arm of the giant conglomerate General Electric, which also happens to be the parent company of news provider MSNBC and television company NBC.



Two months later, MSNBC debuted a promotion for election night coverage with the tagline "The Power of Change," prompting Fox News columnist Jim Pinkerton to comment on the motto's similarity to Barack Obama's campaign slogan, "Change We Can Believe In."



"I think it goes right to what MSNBC's up to as a strategy," Pinkerton said on a Fox News broadcast, suggesting MSNBC's tenor had moved to the political left, especially with the prominence of the opinionated MSNBC host Keith Olbermann. "Now, for a $139 billion guarantee, I'd consider, I'd probably go more, I'd probably go all the way over to the Olbermann/Maddow territory."



GE, however, isn't the only media-owning corporation that has faced desperate financial times recently. Under $12 billion of debt, the Tribune Company, which owns the Chicago Tribune, Los Angeles Times and Baltimore Sun, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in December. The news conglomerate McClatchy Co. reported a $21.7 million loss for the fourth quarter of 2008. And over a six-year period this decade, a company deposition revealed, Hearst Newspapers' San Francisco Chronicle lost money at the rate of $1 million per week.



In September, an editorial in Editor and Publisher further warned that a newspaper bailout was gaining credibility with the press: "[Those] talking up a government bailout also include such respected newspaper veterans as Seattle Times Publisher Frank A. Blethen and editor-turned-academic Geneva Overholser," wrote the magazine.

PostmodernProphet
02-12-2009, 08:56 PM
if a news company – even a bankrupt one – accepts taxpayer money, it can no longer be trusted to hold government accountable to the people.

what a novel concept....is there somewhere in the world where media holds government accountable?.....

Little-Acorn
02-13-2009, 01:50 PM
This is something that might very well happen soon.

The govt is bailing out some companies now. Once they do that, ALL other companies can say, "Hey, we employ people too. If you don't bail us out too, there will be severe economic consequences for them. Our employees are regular people too, how can you let them lose their jobs when you're preventing it for that other company over there?"

The camel's nose is WAY under the tent flap now. If the Fed govt DOESN'T bail out every other company like they bailed out this one, the other companies might have an actionalbe case, demanding equal treatement under the law.

And the media has employees too. They have just as much right, they can say, as the rest of the companies.

Now that the Fed has bailed out some companies, can they legally NOT do it for all?

Including the media?

emmett
02-13-2009, 02:40 PM
This thread, and the subject it conveys, explains clearly why there should never have been a single US dollar given to any entity, public or private, to "bail out" their financial status. Once done, it sets a precedent for the type of things mentioned.

Failure should be allowed to happen. It is a natural part of the free market system. Interacting government in a "pick and choose" methodology of who should and who shouldn't disrupts the natural sense of it all. When one fails, another takes it's place. It all maintains a natural level of competition.

For the life of me I can't see how anyone, politician or citizen can see any relevance in government intervention into private industry. Why? Furthermore, why do people think maintaining a government control over finances belonging to private people will benefit anyone. Telling a company what it can pay someone is counterproductive. A board of Directors of a company's stockholders should do that. If they want the most qualified person to oversee the company, they have to spend to get them. These companies that have recieved our dollars to "save their ass" are the ones most in need of the right candidates yet they will be restricted now to looking for lesser qualified people because the ones who make the big money will be working for a successful company that can afford them. One who was not in danger to begin with. How is this going to promote a "level playing field". Are we now going to step into the private sector even further and start setting salary caps for private businesses who compete with companies who have recieved government dollars so as to create a level playing field. I say yes! How can our government allow the people's investments to be wiped away by a more effiecient company?

When the government gave our first tax dollar to a company who had failed, WE FAILED! The politicians who did this, did it to remain popular with voters because of what the voters see on their news programs. Essentially, they needed to remain in power so they caved into voters. Unfortunately, conservative, wiseminded people are outnumbered by liberal, level playing field voters in this day and time so expect much more of it in the future.