Not great news for Detroit Free Press readers - Gannett buying it

[blm]

from Knight-Ridder. Gannett is quite a bit more corporate leaning than KR.

This could be a factor in future elections. The RNC has always figured that they can turn Michigan red.

The news should be hitting later this afternoon.

[wli]

1. might as well rename it "Detroit Republican Press"

Even Russians who lived in the height of USSR propaganda are aghast at the amount of propaganda going on in the US.

[SteppingRazor]

2. I don't know if that's really fair.

It completely depends on the paper. For example, KR owns the highly conservative Denver papers, but the more moderate Miami Herald (except where Cubans are concerned, in which case the Herald is far-right). Yet even the Herald fires its most muckraking reporter practically on a whim if it suits them (see: Jim Defede)

gannett, meanwhile, may own USA "McNews" Today, but most of its other papers are just small-town rags, and therefore almost by definition somewhat conservative. Gannett owns the Burlington paper, a very liberal town, and even that paper skews somewhat rightward.

I think you'll find that, where major newspaper companies are concerned, there's not really a whole lot of agreement in voice from one paper to the next -- unlike comprehensive media companies such as, say, NewsCorp.

[blm]

4. We'll find out. I just know from inside scoops that the more corporate

the news organization, the more likely the paper will follow suit to an extent.

I don't give KRT a pass - I railed against them heavily for putting their corporate needs ahead of their employees when they wouldn't cover the loss of overtime pay story.

I do acknowledge their great work on Iraq and the intel community's anger at Bush regime, however.

[SteppingRazor]

5. Well, lemme give you another inside scoop...

Being a journalist who works for a large, faceless corporation. I can actually write just about anything I please in my column (which, unfortunately, is about music, not politics). I think that corporate media does NOT have a right or left bias. It has a bias toward, well, corporations. Obviously. But on a day-to-day level, it's your editor's biases you have to deal with, not some institutional bias that goes from the top down. At least, that's been my experience.

[blm]

6. To an extent. I'm just aware of too many political stories that wind up

buzzsawed.

Just think, though....I may have known you in my past music life...are you in Cleveland, LA or NY?

[SteppingRazor]

7. Grew up around LA, but I'm currently in South Florida.

[blm]

8. well...

depending on how old you are, and if you were doing your work in LA, we may have run into each other.

[Pacifist Patriot]

3. Not good news at all. I live in a Gannett circulation area.

Their approach to journalism killed local coverage here. We used to have long-time reporters who really knew their beat backwards and forwards. Now we're lucky if we get a new-grad in the same slot for more than 9 months.

[sabra]

9. It's on the wire now... :-(