@farmerman,
Quote:IT IS A MEANINGLESS MELANGE OF IRRELEVANCY.
The concentration of supposedly "local" newspaper ownership into a few, somewhat shy, conglomerates is a matter being given much attention by our Leveson enquiry into the state of media.
I don't think that pointing out that local media outlets are owned by almost anonymous, giant corporations is at all irrelevant. The situation in that regard is pretty bad here.
For example, a "local" newspaper with a monopoly in a district, published a very strident editorial severely castigating the government for raising interest rates. The rates were referred to as "crippling". A few days later the Financial Times published a table of winners and losers by the rate rise.
Lo and behold, the district in which this editorial appeared was top of the winners list and the location of the hub of ownership of 80 odd "local" newspapers was top of the losers list.
If we are going to get into weird conspiracy theories then how much is the hub paying you fm for promoting the idea that pointing out these distorting monopoly conditions is a "meaningless melange of irrelevancy": a bald assertion anyway with not a shred of evidence offered to sustain it and for the very good reason that there is no evidence to sustain it and that what evidence does exist points in the opposite direction. That it is highly relevant.
I am quite convinced that if Gannett thought creationism would increase profits it would be into bat for it faster than a rabbit bolts into its burrow on seeing a greyhound.
Don't try making out that Media has a principled stance for ****'s sake. It would be inconsistent with a materialist philosophy. One might make a case for materialism, and its political manifestation, communism, but hardly for incoherent versions. We are back to the Ladies' Man who goes wobbly at the bedroom door. Again.