How To Bankrupt a Newspaper

( UPDATE: After this article was written, the Washington Post announced it has been sold to Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon.com.  Purchase price: $ 250 million....CASH.  Mr. Bezos has previously stated that in twenty years there would be no more print newspapers.  Although a publicly traded company with substantial shareholders like Berkshire Hathaway, the Graham family has controlled the paper since purchased in bankruptcy in 1933.)

Everyone knows the definition of stupidity: trying the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result.  I think that sums up the news media.  Beitbart  reported today that the New York Times is selling the Boston Globe to the owner of the Boston Red Sox for $70 million.  Sounds good but for the fact the Times paid $1.1 billion for it in 1993…that makes for a 93% loss (not taking into account inflation which would make it worse)…and the NTY has to keep the pension liabilities estimated over $100 million.  What is utterly amazing is the Times in 2011 turned down an offer to sell the Globe to the owner of the Orange County Register for $300 million plus assumption of the pension liabilities.

It warms the cockles of my heart to watch this debacle involving two of the most liberal and elitist newspapers in the country.  What a bunch of idiots.  Even better, when the Times announced it was going to sell the Globe, Rupert Murdoch (yes..that’s the Fox News Rupert Murdoch) was giving serious consideration to buying it.  Oh the humanity…the liberal press harangued how they would never let that happen.  The staff of the Globe said they would quit in en masse; which makes one query as to the Orange County Register offer in 2011!  The OC Register is one of the most conservative papers in the country.    Mmmmmm.

Ostensibly the reason the Times turned down the Register offer was because it did not contain sufficient up-front cash.  There may be some truth to that.  On the other hand, political correctness may have reached a pinnacle.   The New York Times, you see, is a publicly traded company.  If I were the shareholders, I would be viewing the entire series of transactions with a skeptical eye, perhaps CBS!!

Even AlGore put business first.  He sold his green television network to the oil sheiks.  Maybe we’ll have a few more carbon emissions…but who cares.  AlGore pocketed a cool $100 mil.   And that really warms the cockles of my heart!

Here is how it works.  Liberal media does badly.  Conservative media does well.  Liberal television news networks, including CNN, languish in the Fox News dust.  Liberal magazines go under.  Liberal radio flops.   And liberal newspapers don’t sell…not even to liberals who tend to get their news from an assortment of liberal blogs.  Why needs to pay for the Times?

Barack Obama is not the source of our country’s ills.  It is the elite media who have been his lap dogs, not holding him to account.  In the worst economy in 60 years…there are no homeless.  Nobody is going hungry.  There is no crime in Chicago or Detroit.  There is peace and love in the world.  America has more respect among the family of nations than ever.  Everybody is making lots of money.  The poor are getting richer and rich are getting poorer.  Education is abounding.  What national debt? And what problems we have left are the fault of Rush Limbaugh. 

It is comical, if it weren’t so sad.   I am optimistic about the future of America because I faith in our people.  I am also optimistic about the press.  If the New York Times is any indication as to how the liberal media does business, they will be bankrupt by the end of the Obama administration, and then maybe we can get back to normal; that is if we are not bankrupt ourselves!!