Thursday, March 09, 2006
Oh oh
The parent company of the Minneapolis Star Tribune is buying the metro's other large news daily, the St. Paul Pioneer Press.
Ideally, I'm for divided government and ideologically mal-aligned newspapers ... what do you think? Ought we prevent a monopoly on ownership of all news dailies in a large urban area?
// posted by Erik @ 3/09/2006 11:06:00 PM
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You two agree on something!?!
Well, good news: According to the Star Tribune,
"Because of potential antitrust issues and McClatchy's need to raise cash to pay for its purchase, the company [McClatch] said that the Pioneer Press will immediately go on the auction block along with 11 other Knight Ridder newspapers" (http://www.startribune.com/535/story/303310.html).
Well, good news: According to the Star Tribune,
"Because of potential antitrust issues and McClatchy's need to raise cash to pay for its purchase, the company [McClatch] said that the Pioneer Press will immediately go on the auction block along with 11 other Knight Ridder newspapers" (http://www.startribune.com/535/story/303310.html).
I have an absolute loathing for consolidated media. It is much akin to the republican attempts to make the courts beholden to congress and congress beholden to the president so that we end up with supreme leaders instead of checks and balances.
When Detroit newspapers consolidated (the major news sources for much of MI before they merged) They both made lipservice to sticking their guns but over time they drifted, not to the right or the left, but just became absolute crap. Half the kids in my highschool journalism class could outwrite anyone at either paper. And they became sickeningly dependent on AP wireservice - even for MI news and on at least one occasion for a story that happened at the Canadian border crossing 11 miles from their offices. Both op-ed pages print the same mix of nationaly syndicated lefties and righties with reader letters wieghted to the left by a smidge.(the local demegraphic) Pre-merge they were pretty ideologicly crosswise - now they're much like USA Today, what we called the "McNewspaper" when I was a debater.
When Detroit newspapers consolidated (the major news sources for much of MI before they merged) They both made lipservice to sticking their guns but over time they drifted, not to the right or the left, but just became absolute crap. Half the kids in my highschool journalism class could outwrite anyone at either paper. And they became sickeningly dependent on AP wireservice - even for MI news and on at least one occasion for a story that happened at the Canadian border crossing 11 miles from their offices. Both op-ed pages print the same mix of nationaly syndicated lefties and righties with reader letters wieghted to the left by a smidge.(the local demegraphic) Pre-merge they were pretty ideologicly crosswise - now they're much like USA Today, what we called the "McNewspaper" when I was a debater.
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