It is bad enough that they own industries that pollute the crap out of the planet……it is bad enough that they own a portion of the GOP……it is bad enough that they have enough cash to buy many politicians……but now they are out to control as much of the media as they possibly can……who are these masked men of which I speak?
(Newser) – Brothers Charles and David Koch, the billionaire businessmen behind Koch Industries and noted supporters of libertarian causes, are looking to buy into the newspaper business. They’re exploring a deal to acquire the Tribune Company’s eight regional newspapers, including the Los Angeles Times, the Chicago Tribune and the Baltimore Sun, the New York Times reports. Some sources say it’s an investment opportunity only, but others believe the papers could serve as a valuable platform for spreading their conservative ideas.
An attendee of multiple Koch Industries seminars said the brothers often say that “they see the conservative voice as not being well represented” in the media. A former Koch Industries adviser says their interest in the Tribune papers is purely financial, and separate from their libertarian agenda. But as the Times notes, the papers have a collective value of around $623 million, which is pocket change for these oil tycoons. “A running joke among conservatives as we watched the GOP establishment spend $500 million on ineffectual TV ads is ‘Why don’t you just buy NBC?'” said a libertarian campaigner. “It’s good the Kochs are talking about fighting fire with a little fire.”
Thanx to Citizen’s United these guys get to buy an election…..but to make it a easier path to total control they need the media to help male their case…..slowly but slowly these guys are gaining total control of the message…..my question is where will they go with this.? Will there be a stopping point?
Please inject your thoughts on this.
I heard this first yesterday and thought, Oh no….
Why not? It is working well for GE and AOL and such…..? There should be a law that prevents corporations from owning the news….
I meant, Oh no, in the sense of here were go again with the Kochs. On the flipside, i think their reputation is so damaged now they can’t actually own media. media requires advertisers and in this digital-age activism targeting advertising is extremely effective.
We can only hope that people will pay attention and act accordingly……
We can hope for that, but we can have confidence in the sheer number of (private) watchdogs keeping an eye on the Kochs.
The problem there is who funds the watchdogs?
You and i are the watchdogs. Are you on Facebook, Lob? There are some truly excellent liberal pages like Americans Against the Tea Party. These guys (and many, many more) are all over the Koch brothers. Check out their page:
http://www.facebook.com/NoTeaParty?hc_location=stream
I am not on Facebook….it is the anti-Christ….I do not trust the site…sorry…..
Fair enough 🙂
I am on Twitter but mostly for breaking news….I am a radical from the 60’s so anything that ask too many questions I avoid…..
Even if the Kochs really didn’t use them for their own propaganda purposes, just buying all these newspapers would silence what objective voices there are within them, thus in effect silencing some of their enemies. But I feel certain they won’t be silent. Their libertarian, anti-government, free-market views will be bellowed daily.
The best thing to say is….propaganda. It worked well for the USSR, Hitler and it will work well for them…
More money = more power = more control. Repeat.
Sad to say but a simple formula for total control….especially in the minds of the people…..scary
The greatest day I had in my last two years of college was when I asked my Latin American Politics teacher a question that lead to him ranting about this. I had never seen him so impassioned. It was awesome!
In my years of reading everything I could lay my hands on I came across the writings of Antonio Gramsci and in one of his essays where he predicted corporate media would lead the way on teaching the people how to live and think…….so far he was right and that was 100 years ago…..and it will only get worse.