Payback: The newspaper bailout

Labor unions are starting to collect on their investment in a Democratic victory at the polls, and now it’s time for the mainstream media cabal to do the same. After all, it costs big money to harass Sarah Palin and her family, send teams of investigators up to Alaska and distribute slanderous allegations nationwide. Hollywood has already received its $300 million in tax credits, discreetly buried deep inside the pork-ridden bank bailout bill. Now, it’s the media barons’ turn to belly up to the trough. The New York Times and the LA Times are both losing readership and classified ad revenues. They haven’t been able to make much money online. Conservative pundits attribute this to extreme bias and pandering to the left, resulting in an exodus of subscribers. That’s only partially true. The big problem isn’t readership, it’s reading.

In a twist of supreme irony, the same newspapers that championed diversity and multiculturalism, that tirelessly promoted social engineering and socialist causes, are now reaping their just reward. Americans who no longer feel compelled to learn English are not going to read a newspaper printed in English, or its online analog. Americans who no longer feel compelled to be engaged in the national discourse are not going to read a newspaper, English or otherwise. Americans who have come to live in this country in order to enrich themselves and not participate in public life or public institutions are not going to read a newspaper. And finally, those who might consider reading a newspaper or its online equivalent can’t, because they have been so poorly educated by the very same unions and public schools these newspapers have always supported.

Now that bailout spending has reached an epic $7-plus trillion and President Obama promises another trillion in handouts, the newspaper guys think it’s just as well to stick their hands out. One problem - a government subsidizing only a select few media outlets effectively makes those outlets nothing more than propaganda tools. Not that they haven’t already functioned as propaganda tools. This would just formalize the arrangement.  A government-supported New York Times is as dangerous as a government-funded ACLU. It shouldn’t come as a surprise that those who don’t benefit from the government’s largess will be at a competitive disadvantage. But then, fair play has never been a concern of mainstream journalists and TV news anchors. Just ask Bristol Palin.