Speaking of payola punditry, four newspapers—one in California, two in North Carolina, and one in Colorado—each published an identical paragaph in their respective papers' unsigned editorials in praise of stripping Davis-Bacon Act labor protections for Gulf Coast reconstruction projects. Same paragraph, four editorial columns. Have fun explaining that, eds.
UPDATE: As noted in comments, there's less than meets the eye to this story. It turns out that a shadowy megacorporation simply owns a number of small-market newspapers throughout the country, which they use to distribute pro-administration opinion.
If it weren't for the fact that the New York Times company owns not only the Boston Globe but also the Boston Red Sox* I think there would be cause for outrage. But, nah, just more crazy fishwrap fun.
* something like that
Posted by Kriston at October 21, 2005 12:49 PMKriston, whoever's behind the payola must have deep pockets to buy off the big opinion-makers at the Appeal-Democrat. I've lived in California for more than a decade, and have explored a fair bit of it. Where in the world is Marysville-Yuba City?
Posted by: David at October 21, 2005 4:45 PMMaybe the true scandal is that these cities have newspapers. Couldn't they get by with, I dunno, blogs?
Posted by: Kriston at October 21, 2005 4:57 PMThey'd need electricity for that.
Posted by: David at October 21, 2005 5:06 PMYou can run a laptop with a windmill.
Posted by: Kriston at October 21, 2005 5:17 PMAnd vice versa. Well, maybe not...
Posted by: David at October 21, 2005 5:21 PMYuba City was ranked least livable city in the survey what ranked Pittsburgh #1. See also Pandagon comments for insight into what happened. (Corporate propaganda rather than gov't, it seems.)
Posted by: Matt Weiner at October 21, 2005 10:36 PMYou mean Corporate propaganda comes from a different source than Government progaganda?
Posted by: Joseph Barbaccia at October 24, 2005 9:58 AMI think the difference is in how it's paid for. We pay for government propaganda directly through out taxes, and we pay for corporate propaganda indirectly (through government subsidies to corporations).
Posted by: David at October 24, 2005 6:25 PMYou might want to note something that was pointed out in a comment on the original blog entry to which you linked: all of these newspapers are actually owned by the same company. The central office sent out an editorial piece to run, and the smaller, wholly-owned affiliate papers went ahead and ran it. The Bush Administration or RNC talking points don't have to be involved at all.
Admittedly, it still represents a case of corporate policy dictating editorial content instead of local concerns, but it's a lot less scary as conspiracies go.
Posted by: Nate at October 26, 2005 5:23 PMYou're right, Nate. I'll update the front page.
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