In recent days you can't swing a dead cat without hitting some media member or politician blaming the Koch brothers for the government shutdown.
On Wednesday, Koch Industries sent a letter to a number of people on Capitol Hill trying to set the record straight while attempting to end the misinformation campaign (published with permission):
.... and the envelope please for Most Overwrought Hyperbole from Left-Wing Radio Host Rendered Deranged by Government Shutdown ... the winner is .... Thom Hartmann ... and it was the unanimous decision of our judges! (cue applause)
Alas, Hartmann will be unable to accept the award in person, seeing how the ceremony conflicted with the next round of his strictly monitored medication schedule ... (Audio after the jump).
Billionaire philanthropists and conservative donors Charles and David Koch are not interested in purchasing newspapers currently owned by the Tribune Company.
A spokeswoman for Koch Industries confirmed this officially Thursday after the Daily Caller filed an item based upon anonymous sources saying the brothers did not wish to purchase the newspapers which include the Los Angeles Times and the Chicago Tribune.
Who knows what long-term effects we'll see from the so-called Affordable Care Act, unless and until it dies a well-deserved demise, but at least one repercussion has become obvious -- borderline hysteria among liberals in media.
An example of this could be heard on Thom Hartmann's radio show yesterday when he was complaining about the conservative group FreedomWorks' opposition to Obamacare. (Audio after the jump)
Former Vice President Al Gore made some disgraceful statements about the Koch brothers Tuesday.
Participating in a Google+ Conversation, Gore accused two of the nation's largest employers of being "purveyors of the dirtiest energy on earth" (video follows with transcript and commentary):
As NewsBusters has been reporting, liberal media members have been absolutely apoplectic over the thought of the Koch brothers buying the Chicago Tribune and the Los Angeles Times.
CNN's Howard Kurtz gave a somewhat more reasoned view of such an eventuality on Reliable Sources Sunday saying, "Let's remember that more liberal businessmen such as Warren Buffett have been snapping up newspapers without compromising their journalistic mission" (video follows with transcript and commentary):
Billionaire conservative philathropists David Koch and Charles Koch officially confirmed news reports that they are interested in getting into the media business through an interview with the Wall Street Journal and in a post on their website KochFacts.com.
In a statement, Charles Koch stated an important point about the brothers' intentions for media: to provide actual unbiased news to customers, an exceedingly rare commodity in America today, particularly at the local level where many regions of the country are served by a single newspaper which is not open to ideological diversity.
Ever since libertarian billionaires Charles and David Koch expressed an interest this past March in buying the Los Angeles Times, half of the daily newspaper's staff has threatened to quit if the deal goes through because the paper would become an “ideological mouthpiece” for conservative Republicans.
Well, the people who oppose the sale -- including union members and the Los Angeles City Council -- don't need to worry since the newspaper has already proven its overwhelming bias by endorsing every Democratic candidate in the upcoming May 21 election.
"Mainstream media" are alarmed by reports that billionaires Charles and David Koch are considering the purchase of Tribune Company's eight daily newspapers, including the Los Angeles Times.
When Warren Buffett spent $344 million to purchase 28 newspapers, there were mostly sighs of relief from journalists glad to keep their jobs. However, reaction to reports of the Koch brothers' interest in buying the Tribune papers was quite different. Charles and David Koch, you see, are conservative libertarians, not liberals. Will the Kochs, gasp, force their conservatism on readers? Will they sully journalism's good name? Truth is, no one knows what the Kochs plan to do.
"If you're going to say that a known conservative entity like the Koch brothers should not be getting into the business of dictating what a news operation should do, what does that tell you about Warren Buffett," or the Sulzburger or Graham families behind the New York Times and Washington Post respectively, Brent Bozell argued on the April 30 edition of CNBC's Kudlow Report. Bozell also noted the vast sums of money leftist billionaire George Soros pumps into media outlets, while the liberal media raise no concerns about him somehow corrupting journalism with ideological influence.
The NewsBusters publisher and Media Research Center founder was on the program opposite Steven Pearlstein of the Washington Post, who last week offered up an uncharacteristically blustery column -- headlined "How the L.A. Times can stop the Kochs" -- in which Pearlstein coached Times reporters to threaten to quite en masse rather than work for libertarian publishers. [To watch the full segment, click play on the embedded video below the page break]
The Los Angeles Times is up for sale, and there are super-wealthy conservative bidders. Get out the popcorn and watch the liberals squeal. The hilarious kickoff came when two leftist collectives – the Daily Kos website and the California-based Courage Campaign Institute – set out to buy an ad in the the L.A. Times to protest the Koch brothers pondering a bid.
I kid you not, the ad began: “WE NEED NEWS, NOT MORE SPIN.” This would assume that today’s Los Angeles Times – which just endorsed Obama’s re-election – is an oasis of objectivity in a desert of media bias. They expressed outrage when the Times wouldn't publish the ad -- but then they did.
LA Weekly on Tuesday published a story about a rumored purchase of the Tribune Company by the Koch Brothers.
As you might imagine, this has gotten great attention in the media world: