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?
_______
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.
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?
_______
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?
--------------------------------
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.