Skip to main content

A loud and clear message

We all know that newspapers are in big trouble.    Falling circulation and cutting back on staff leading to poorer newspapers all round.      Almost all papers are hemorrhaging financially.

The infamous über-wealthy Koch brothers are on the look out to buy the Chicago Tribune and Los Angeles Times - with the obvious intention of getting their slanted view of the world out there.

No way say readers of the newspapers!

"As reports mount that the infamous Charles and David Koch brothers are scheming to purchase the Tribune Company, and hence the Los Angeles Times and Chicago Tribune, readers are standing up and saying they will not subscribe to "Koch hate."

A new petition, launched by Roots Action along with Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR), has collected the signatures of nearly 19,000 people who want to tell the Tribune Company, "Don't sell out journalism by selling your papers to the Koch brothers."

Signers vowed to cancel subscriptions if the sale goes through.


“I will cancel my subscription and so will family members," wrote one. "We have no need for propaganda dictated by far right-wing spoiled billionaires with an anti-citizenry, pro 1% agenda. This will be the death of your struggling paper in a town that once had a proud history of journalism. It’s a disgrace.”

“What an ignoble end to two fine papers known for excellence it would be if the Koch Bros. became the new owner," wrote another. "Forget about fairness and accuracy; the papers would simply become the latest bullhorn from which Charles and David would spew their propaganda. Has it come to this? Please don’t sell.”

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Robert Fisk's predictions for the Middle East in 2013

There is no gain-saying that Robert Fisk, fiercely independent and feisty to boot, is the veteran journalist and author covering the Middle East. Who doesn't he know or hasn't he met over the years in reporting from Beirut - where he lives?  In his latest op-ed piece for The Independent he lays out his predictions for the Middle East for 2013. Read the piece in full, here - well worthwhile - but an extract... "Never make predictions in the Middle East. My crystal ball broke long ago. But predicting the region has an honourable pedigree. “An Arab movement, newly-risen, is looming in the distance,” a French traveller to the Gulf and Baghdad wrote in 1883, “and a race hitherto downtrodden will presently claim its due place in the destinies of Islam.” A year earlier, a British diplomat in Jeddah confided that “it is within my knowledge... that the idea of freedom does at present agitate some minds even in Mecca...” So let’s say this for 2013: the “Arab Awakening” (the t...

The NPT (Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty) goes on hold.....because of one non-Treaty member (Israel)

Isn't there something radically wrong here?    Israel, a non-signatory to the NPT has, evidently, been the cause for those countries that are Treaty members, notably Canada, the US and the UK, after 4 weeks of negotiation, effectively blocking off any meaningful progress in ensuring the non-proliferation of nuclear weapons.    IPS reports ..... "After nearly four weeks of negotiations, the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) Review Conference ended in a predictable outcome: a text overwhelmingly reflecting the views and interests of the nuclear-armed states and some of their nuclear-dependent allies. “The process to develop the draft Review Conference outcome document was anti-democratic and nontransparent,” Ray Acheson, director, Reaching Critical Will, Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF), told IPS. “This Review Conference has demonstrated beyond any doubt that continuing to rely on the nuclear-armed states or their nuclear-de...

#1 Prize for a bizarre story.....and lying!

No comment called for in this piece from CommonDreams: Another young black man: The strange sad case of 21-year-old Chavis Carter. Police in Jonesboro, Arkansas  stopped  him and two friends, found some marijuana, searched put Carter, then put him handcuffed  behind his back  into their patrol car, where they say he  shot himself  in the head with a gun they failed to find. The FBI is investigating. Police Chief Michael Yates, who stands behind his officers' story,  says in an interview  that the death is "definitely bizarre and defies logic at first glance." You think?