Pssst, come here, wanna buy a newspaper? Feeling patriotic?
Both the Hartford Courant and the Register Citizen papers --
The Middletown Press, New Haven Register, Torrington Register Citizen -- are up
for sale.
The Tribune Company, which owns the Hartford Courant, has
after four contentious years emerged from bankruptcy, a legal proceeding that
allows the owner(s) of a company to stiff its investors and creditors. The
company, already suffering from a flight of advertisers, was purchased several
years ago by real estate tycoon Sam Zell, who promptly loaded it with more debt
and sunk the enterprise permanently – pretty much what President Barack Obama
is doing to USA Inc.
The bankruptcy flushed out the Tribunes toxic assets. The
old owners now have passed the torch to the new owners, a
bunch of Hollywood tycoons who have decided to sell off the deadwood,
mostly newspapers, and refashion the company into a sort of Disneyland for
adults.
No one knows at this point what will happen to the Hartford
Courant. Since all the newspapers in the Tribune chain are to be sold, one
conservative in Connecticut left unmolested by the state’s uber-progressive
media has suggested that the paper should be bought by a group of one percenters
who may be able to make a go of it.
Calls have been made to Linda McMahon. Or at least we may
assume call have been made. Try to imagine Mrs. McMahon as a latter day William
Randolph Hearst, daddy of the Hearst newspaper empire and papa, along with Joseph
Pulitzer, of yellow journalism. The very idea would send shivers of indignation
along the spines of most present day ink stained wretches working the liberal
treadmill within Connecticut’s left of center media conglomerate.
Hearst himself was not above meddling directly in politics:
He was a U.S. Rep. from 1903-1907 and narrowly failed in his bid to become
Mayor of New York City (1905-1909) and Governor of New York (1906). A
registered Democrat, he created the Independence Party while running for governor;
and during his mayoralty bid, he ran on yet another third party he created, the
Municipal Ownership League. His
defeat was attributed to the political strength of Tammany Hall, the dominant and
thoroughly corrupt Democratic organization in New York City. Undeterred, Hearst
ran for president on the Democratic ticket in 1904, losing the nomination to a
conservative upright judge. Having secured the backing of Tammany Hall, he ran
for the U.S. Senate nomination in New York in 1922. Al Smith put the kibosh on
Hearst, a bid of political skullduggery the newspaper tycoon never forgot. Hearst
supported Franklin Roosevelt through factotums in 1932, mostly as a vendetta
against Smith – and a political god was born.
In the golden
years of American journalism, newspapers were neither non-partisan nor
dispassionate.
Big Media
conglomerates are now shedding newspapers, which probably can be bought for a
song by a group of one percenters who might want to use them to provide a
little political balance within Connecticut’s most exclusive club, its left of
center communications monopoly.
The Register
Citizen group – which has under new management been courageous enough to print
a variety of political opinion – will be on the auction block as the New Year
opens, and the Courant likely will be sold by its post-bankruptcy owners
sometime soon.
Comments
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Doubt that Linda McMahon would be allowed to buy the Courant. Al Jazeera might have suitable values.