The paper of labor
When your salary is funded by Big Labor, you must sing Big Labor’s tune. Very sad to see this pressure being put on the San Diego Union Tribune editorial board, one of the few large center-right boards that exist in the country.
Or…existed:
The union representing Los Angeles police officers is pressuring the owner of San Diego’s biggest newspaper to change the paper’s editorial stance on labor issues or to fire its editorial writers.
The feud is rooted in the recent purchase of the San Diego Union-Tribune by Platinum Equity, a private Beverly Hills firm.
Platinum relies on a $30-million investment from the pension fund of Los Angeles police officers and firefighters, along with large sums from other public-employee pension systems across the state, to help fund its acquisitions of companies. As Los Angeles Police Protective League President Paul M. Weber views it, that makes the League part owner in the flagging Union-Tribune — and League officials are none too happy with the paper’s consistent position that San Diego lawmakers should cut back on salaries and benefits for public employees to help close gaping budget deficits.
“Since the very public employees they continually criticize are now their owners, we strongly believe that those who currently run the editorial pages should be replaced,” Weber wrote in a March 26 letter to Platinum Chief Executive Tom Gores.
Weber, in an interview, emphasized that the League is not demanding changes in the paper’s news coverage or in its staff of reporters. “It’s just these people on the opinion side. There is not even an attempt to be even-handed. They’re one step away from saying, ‘These public employees are parasites,’ ” he said.
Bob Kittle, editor of the Union-Tribune’s editorial page, rebuffed Weber’s comments. Although his staff has written several editorials critical of the benefits and pension commitments city leaders have made to San Diego’s five public employee unions, he denied Weber’s charge that the paper is out to hurt public employees.
“We are not anti-public safety or public employee,” he said. “All of this has to be considered within the context of what the city can afford. A bankrupt city can’t provide any public safety very well.”
***
On a related note, Reason TV has another excellent video out covering the government bailout of the dead-tree media:
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And they tell us with a straight face that unions don’t conduct mob-like intimidation.
Gee, Mr. Executive Bonus. That’s a nice company you just bought there. Too bad if something bad happened to it at the hands of your own employees…
I get most of my news from internet. I find even Fox News can be anywhere from 1 to 2 days behind the internet. My choice of local newspaper is so liberal I don’t bother paying for it.
Here in Honolulu we have two daily newspapers with two completely different editorial stances:
Left and Hard Left
The San Diego Union-Tribune has a center-right editorial board? As someone who’s been in San Diego for 20 years, that’s certainly news to me.
When you’re on the Alinsky fringe, even Karl Marx looks a little too conservative.
I’ve never seen the San Diego Union-Tribune, being an East-coaster, but I’m tempted to start subscribing to them!
I think I get it. A newspaper like the L.A. Times is allowed to be infected with leftist propaganda even in its “straight reporting” (don’t even ask about its opinion pieces), but a paper like the Union Tribune isn’t allowed to have even a right-leaning policy on its editorial page.
Yep, that’s fair.
Now I know to whom I can sell my shares of Smith-Corona Typewriter Company stock.
Can you get me their phone number?
I hope they don’t come after the OC Register next.
I only read the Sunday Commentary section and sports but it regularly has Thomas Sowell, Mark Steyn and others of like mind.
My other choice is the LA Times which was good when I was potty training my dogs but that is it (although I have to say it has a better sports section than the Register)
Can someone explain to me how any group/firm, like Platinum Equity, could think a newspaper is a good investment? To me it would seem to be like putting my money into buggy whip futures.
I don’t get my news from newspapers nor much from cable TV. Haven’t watched the alphabet channels in years. It’s amazing how many really important stories are only published on the internet. The opinions are the best and I gain great insight due to other’s imput.
It does seem that those union stooges are trying to bankrupt their pension funds even faster, doesn’t it? Maybe they’re hoping for a bailout.
On May 22nd, 2009 at 1:04 pm, tre said:
Smith-Corona Typewriter , That rung a bell, I worked there for 27 years.
He who pays the piper calls the tune…
My wife subscribes to the weekend UT, mostly for the ads and coupons. Michelle, please let us know as soon as the paper lets the, ahem, wrong thinking opinion writers go. It will be nice to cancel the rag with a little note to the editor.
One of the reasons people don’t read the mostly liberal press,is because the liberal education system didn’t teach them how to read.
Individually, the police, fire fighters, teachers are probably fine people.
As a group, they are almost always on the opposite side of issues I care about.
Any time I hear any of these groups endorsing a ballot initiative in California, I vote blindly against their recommendation. So far I am right about my voting choices.
Does anyone read newspapers today, apart from checking sports scores… ‘cuz that’s about the only thing they haven’t propagandized…
Free Speech?
Apparently not in The Republic of San Diego.
is that part of Mexico? I’m not sure….
2 words: Bernard Parks
Ever so slowly, yet making progress, the Left strives to control our lives and the information we receive. They want the death of liberty, with them in control, of course.
Actually NJ, SD county is one of the more conservative bastions in California, outside the rural areas at least. We are fortunate to have a very large Military population, thanks in large part to the Navy and Marines. Between the great weather and the dept of the Navy, it almost makes it worth living in California.
I would guess the conservative lean is all the more reason that the union thugs are willing to invest the rank and files money in a losing paper. They hate it when they are out numbered.
The UT has really only been right leaning when it comes to the military. I have not bought the paper in a long time, but I remember that there is not an illegal alien issue that the UT does not love to parade for. One of their op-ed authors is Ruben Nevarrate (sp?) one of the biggest racists I have ever read. I stopped buying the paper after an opinion piece I read that talked about how lucky San Diego was to have Tijuana next door because if there was ever a disaster, Tijuana would send up their emergency services to help us. No thanks, I’ll wait for help from Las Vegas or Phoenix. Right leaning? Depends on what section you are reading.
How center right the San Diego Union Tribune is I can not say–but if they do let the Union Funds push them Left they too will fold.
The once Great Arizona Republic started it’s leftward drift a number of years ago and has been on the decline since. They hire one leftist writer and editor after another to call us buffoons, hicks and other neat terms and wonder where the readers went.
So much for the union leadership investing for the benefit of their memebers pensions and benefits. California’s Public Employees Pension funds are in horrible shape–but go ahead and use union funds to prop up the ego of the leadership.
If I were a Los Angeles policemen or firefighter I might be just a tad ticked right now.
If I am not mistaken, isn’t the SDUT a McClatchy paper? If so, it is owned by the same folks that own the Sacto. Bee, as well as, I believe, the Orange County Register. Yes, I could check myself…but I am being lazy.
Guess with a name like Union-Tribune, you can’t blame labor for thinking it should be their little mouthpiece.
Just like the government — You take their money, you sing their song!
Bye, Bye “journalism”