The Koch brothers decided they don’t want the Tribune papers as their propaganda outlet after all.
After the Kochs conducted a “due diligence test” they concluded the papers, which include the LA Times, the Chicago Tribune, The Baltimore Sun and aren’t “financially viable” enough to use as Tea Party style propaganda outlets. Of course, the public outcry against the Kochs buying the news to put their special spin on it had absolutely nothing to do with it.
According to the Daily Caller, which broke the story, the Koch Brothers lost interest once they found out that CareerBuilder.com, a job search website and Classified Ventures LLC – a car and building rental site bring in a lot of the revenue.
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Two of the Tribune Company’s digital assets in particular, CareerBuilder.com and Classified Ventures LLC., a source with knowledge of the proceedings told The Daily Caller, were discovered to be half of the company’s revenue.
“They’re basically such an important part of the revenue,” the source confirmed, “in a way that if they sold them, it goes away.”
Translation: The job search site and the rental site earned lots of money, but they’re too icky for the Kochs to keep because you know, they actually do some good for human kind. Their ickiness outweighed the allure of having access to a huge audience for their Tea Party style propaganda. In other words, even profit isn’t enough incentive for the Koch brothers to have any association with something that might actually help the unemployed get a job or help people who want to rent a car.
The whole notion of a job search site bringing in a significant amount of money during a period of unemployment shouldn’t be surprising – even for people who are so removed from the world that most Americans live in. Aside from the ick factor that would go with a business that makes profits but also does some good for people, there is another plausible reason the Kochs were turned off. Career Builder’s income creates a few optics problems for the Koch brothers.
It dispels the right wing meme that unemployment is a life style of choice for all those lazy takers. The site cannot profit unless both “job creators” and “job takers” use the site. Employers are not going to pay for a service that doesn’t lead them to suitable employees. In other words, the site’s significant income proves the unemployed are actively looking for work.
The only thing worse than keeping these sites is selling them because as the Daily Caller’s insightful source pointed out the revenue “goes away.”
Thankfully, the Kochs’ utter disdain for people who didn’t “earn” their money the old-fashioned way outweighed their ever ending lust for profit – regardless of its human benefits. Hey, now we know the Koch Brothers do have principles after all.
Naturally, this is good news for writers who won’t become mere propaganda machines for what would probably be lower paychecks and for the readers who will be spared the daily doses of Koch tea.
Of course, the Koch brothers continue to shop for a propaganda outlet that is economically viable – without doing anything to help people.
Now that the Kochs are looking elsewhere to unleash their Tea Party spin machine, the Tribune Co. is moving ahead with some restructuring plans. According to USA Today, the company’s plans include creating a separate company, Tribune Publishing, for The LA Times, The Chicago Tribune and several other newspapers. They also intend to focus more attention on the television branch of their business.
Image: Forbes
Former contributor.
