I am curious of you opinion on our news sources in Iowa

[rurallib]

Radio, TV and newspapers.
I used to read the CR Gazette daily. But in the last few years the Gazette seems to have turned from a pretty moderate paper to one that has a right agenda. It seems to have come when they hired a couple guys from Muscatine as editors.
Now I ocassionally read the DM Register. Had pretty much quit them when Gannet took them over decades back.
I now get most of my local news from IPR, but I find that to be pretty selective. Other radio stations in Iowa are pretty much right wing and as such I seldom listen to them.
Now I seem to get most of my news from the internet via liberal radio or places like this.

Frankly it kind of makes me mad that our news sources are so suspect.
47of74 kind of caused me to do some thinking on this with his seeming battle with the Dubuque paper.
I get the impression that most of our news sources are gearing their news to the Fox crowd. As such, their circulations seem to be diving.

[Bluzmann57]

1. I subscribe to the QC Times

And it isn't a real bad paper, editorially although they have Krauthammer, Buchanan, Bozell, Naverette, and Broder as columnists. Leonard Pitts, Froma Harrop, and Susan Estrich also have columns. Obviously, Pitts is the most liberal of the bunch. The Times local editorial staff leans (sort of) to the center-left.
Aas far as radio, I just don't get news from any radio source except NPR from time to time. And I watch local news mostly on WQAD TV, channel 8 here in the Quads. They seem relatively bias free and better than certain channel 6 personalities who I will not name at this time. But like you, I get most of my news from the 'net via liberal radio and sites like this.

[47of74]

2. Let's see

Local news I oftentimes go to the TH - even though I disagree with their politics. If you strip away the increasingly conservative political views espoused by the paper, it isn't too bad of a newspaper. I also go to KCRG followed by KWWL for news.

With the amount I'm on the road for work I have to pay close attention to the weather during the colder months so I generally get weather from a number of different sources. There are times when one station will say one thing, another will say something else, and something like the Weather Channel will say something else entirely.

[rurallib]

3. Is WQAD still owned by the NY Times?

I know they once were - couple years ago - and I thought they were one of the most reliable news sources around.

[Bluzmann57]

4. Not 100 % sure

I seem to remember the selling of WQAD a few years ago. Not to sound like that ex governor who's out there peddling some book, but I'll check it out and get back to you.
Ok, here we go. WQAD is owned by some outfit called local tv LLC. They apparently own 19 stations in mid to larger sized markets. St. Louis and Denver seem to be their largest markets. www.localtvllc.com or just go to www.wqad.com and follow the link, about three quarters of the way down the page.

[rurallib]

5. localtvllc is owned by a group called Oak Hill Capital Partners

which means to me that they are in the process of wringing every nickel out of WQAD and then leaving it broke and pretty much worthless. Oak Hill is an "private equity firm" and that is what they do.
Terri Gross had a guy on last week who discussed how private equity firms work. Most of the companies that they take over are bled dry and then dumped with huge amounts of debt on their books. It's all legal, though.
Worth a listen:
http://www.npr.org/templates/rundowns/rundown.php?prgId=13&prgDate=11-16-2009
click on the name Joshua Kosman to listen.