Tuesday, September 4, 2012

The Agenda - Politics of Publishing


It didn't take long for a Republican to step up and announce his intentions to seek the office of Fort Wayne Mayor before the phone rang at Tracy Warner's desk at the Journal Gazette. The voice at the other end of the line must have heard the rumor and now Tracy was tasked with beginning the painstaking process of destroying the character of this upstart candidate in order to protect his newspaper's political interests. How dare someone challenge the long held agenda of the Journal Gazette ownership by wishing to unseat a perfectly good Democrat who has enjoyed a prosperous and well-oiled, symbiotic relationship with the paper and it's "community involved" ownership? Say what you want about media ownership - private vs corporate. Both have their negatives, and locally owned erudite "do-gooders" are a prime example.
Here's Mr. Warner's "work":


Make no mistake, Mitch Harper is a big boy and an experienced politician. He can take care of himself. The rub is that Mitch, unlike Tom Henry, will not have the advantage of a loyal media ally on his bench. Sure, the News Sentinel is often referred to as "the Republican" paper, but their corporate ownership, hidden away somewhere in the hills of West Virginia, are more concerned with lineage and readership rather than supporting local candidates who share their political philosophy. Activists they are not.
So, the first salvo has been hurled. Mitch will, and should ignore the barb, and we voters and the few who still subscribe to the local papers, will be in for another round of negative campaigning spearheaded by local millionaires who diddle and daddle with politics from their ivory towers overlooking the Courthouse Green.....which, you will recall, was built because daddy's office view of our stately Courthouse was blocked by a few old buildings.  The joys of owning a newspaper. 

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