Buyout contract assures newspaper’s liberal tilt
Rathergate.com
This by far has to be one of the oddest things I’ve added to the “oh, that liberal media” file — the purchase agreement for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch requires the newspaper to keep its “longstanding liberal editorial slant” for the next five years.
Editor & Publisher reports that the lcontract language is contained in Lee Enterprises Inc.’s $1.46 billion buyout of Pulitzer Inc. — the Dispatch is the chain’s crown jewel.
The agreement allows the Dispatch to maintain its current editorial mission statement, adopted in 1911:
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“[The newspaper] will always fight for progress and reform, never tolerate injustice or corruption, always fight demagogues of all parties, never belong to any party, always oppose privileged classes and public plunderers, never lack sympathy with the poor, always remain devoted to the public welfare, never be satisfied with merely printing news, always be drastically independent, never be afraid to attack wrong, whether by predatory plutocracy or predatory poverty.”
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(As for the newspaper’s haughty pledge to “always oppose privileged classes,” Pulitzer’s former President and CEO is receiving an $8.8 million severance package. I’m loving it.)
The newspaper, according to E&P (and just about anyone who’s visited St. Louis), has a “reliably Democratic or liberal view of issues.” An MSM agency reliably Democratic or liberal? No! Say it isn’t so!!
This story and the bizarre twist of codifying editorial slant in writing bring a few questions to Staff Sgt. Craver’s tiny brain:
1) How does the newspaper’s management, in an age of meteoric readership declines and the blogosphere’s Argus eyes, hope to attract conservative readers, i.e. half the country, by publicly stating and enforcing a left-wing slant?
2) Does the newspaper expect me to believe for a second that this editorial policy does not spill over into the news pages? Quick trivia question — who makes up a newspaper’s editorial board that decides its take on matters? Give up? The news editors.
3) Why aren’t journalists buzzing about this at watering holes like Poynter and Columbia Journalism Review? I mean, would journalists be silent if the Post-Dispatch’s contract required a conservative slant? Never mind — I just answered my own question.
4) If the newspaper is ever forced to — gulp!! — write an editorial supporting a conservative idea, can its liberal readers sue the newspaper for breach of contract?
The Post-Dispatch actually gained readers since last year. After this gets around the blogosphere, let’s get together next May and see how the Post-Dispatch does, barring a liberal immigration wave to St. Louis.
rathergate.com
stltoday.com
editorandpublisher.com |
