In North Carolina, where Gannett owns the Asheville Citizen Times, retailing magnate Art Pope is using a network of non-profit foundations and think tanks he controls to promote his conservative agenda, taking control of politics at a time when the state is among 2012's top battlegrounds.
Pope believes the collapse of the traditional news business has provided an opening, according to this recent New Yorker story. "Our goal is to fill in some of the gaps as the state press corps shrinks,'' he told the magazine.
The latest trend for advertisers is to get customers and potential customers to "like" them on Facebook. When they want to have a promotion or distribute an advertisement, they just data mine those ppl and batch email them the coupons, cutting the newspaper or TV station middleman out of the picture.
ReplyDeleteI heard about the Pope family on Fresh Air with Terry Gross when she interviewed the New Yorker writer.
ReplyDeletePope's efforts dovetail perfectly with the Koch brothers are doing with their support of the Tea Party. It makes perfect sense for them. Lower taxes on the rich, get rid of labor laws that mandate overtime and fair treatment of workers, lower or eliminate the minimum wage, declare a jihad against workers' rights and in time at all the Middle Class as we know it is gone.
The local papers should be reporting this but because Gannett has gutted their newsrooms, and frankly these objectives would benefit Gannett too, we're ignoring the crisis right under our noses. No wonder people are occupying Wall Street.