Rooting for Rupert
by David Atkins
I can’t believe I’m saying this, but given him or the Koch brothers, I’d have to pick Rupert Murdoch as my preferred favorite in this battle with the Tribune Company.
This could get very ugly, very fast. The Koch brothers are reportedly considering a bid for the Tribune Company newspapers — focusing on the crown jewels of the L.A. Times and Chicago Tribune, or at least what jewels of power are left in the flailing newspaper industry — but they may face stiff competition in the form of a debt-free, full pocketed media power player named Rupert Murdoch.
L.A. Weekly’s Hillel Aron reports “multiple sources” claiming Charles and David Koch will offer to buy the Tribune Co. slate of papers — including the Times, the Trib, the Baltimore Sun, and five other papers — or maybe just offer to buy all of Tribune Co. outright. If the notoriously free-spending political heavyweights and brothers in industry choose to go for the whole company — and, importantly, if their offer is taken seriously and ends up bailing out the papers — their purchase would also include 20 television stations along with the eight papers. The Tribune Co. emerged from bankruptcy at the end of 2012 and has been looking to unload their newspaper holdings, apparently as part of a single-package deal, according to Bloomberg’s Edmund Lee. Any buyer interested in Tribune’s Co.’s newspapers will have to cough up a cool $600 million to acquire the whole lot — not exactly a lot to the Koch brothers, who spent untold hundreds of millions on the 2012 election… and weren’t too pleased with their return on investment.
What makes the L.A. Weekly report all the more exciting — if a little far fetched — is the looming giant in the wings: Murdoch has been eyeing the L.A. Times and Chicago Tribune for months now. It’s been reported that Murdoch “covets” the Times as a potential addition to his empire of more than 175 newspapers. There were reports of his interest as far back as last June. Then there were dueling reports of Murdochian interest in the Times, in particular, in October: one from the Times itself, and another from Murdoch’s Wall Street Journal. This was described by Daily Intel’s Joe Coscarelli as “media mogul equivalent of flirting.” In December, Murdoch was planning “to take a close look at Tribune Co.’s newspaper assets once they’re available,” Bloomberg’s Lee reported.
Why Rupert? Because the Koch brothers are libertarian, partisan ideologues through and through. Buying the Tribune Company would be a pocket change investment in churning out right wing propaganda. Worst of all, that propaganda would be most invested in protecting the fossil fuel industry which forms the basis of the Koch empire. The Koch greedheads are quite literally the two biggest villains on the planet, as no individuals stand in the way of sane, effective action on climate change and job creation as they do.
Rupert Murdoch is different. While politically conservative, he’s mostly just looking to make money. Fox News has been a good business for him. Just as importantly, Murdoch is no spring chicken, and his immediate family are reportedly less conservative than he is.
Given the choice, I would vote for Murdoch if I had a vote. But something tells me the country and the world may not be so lucky.
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