Freedom of Speech,  Nancy Pelosi

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi Asks Obama Justice Department to Help Save the San Francisco Chronicle and Other Newspapers

save-the-newspapers

The letter House Speaker Pelosi wrote to the Justice Department was released this afternoon.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, worried about the fate of The Chronicle and other financially struggling newspapers, urged the Justice Department Monday to consider giving Bay Area papers more leeway to merge or consolidate business operations to stay afloat.

In a letter to Attorney General Eric Holder, released by Pelosi’s office late Monday, the San Francisco Democrat asked the department to weigh the public benefit of saving The Chronicle and other papers from closure against the agency’s antitrust mission to guard against anti-competitive behavior.

“We must ensure that our policies enable our news organizations to survive and to engage in the news gathering and analysis that the American people expect,” Pelosi wrote.

The speaker said the issue of newspapers’ survival and antitrust law will be the subject of a hearing soon before the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Courts and Competition Policy, chaired by Rep. Hank Johnson, D-Ga.

Pelosi’s spokesman, Brendan Daly, said the speaker was moved by the recent announcement by the Hearst Corp., the parent company of The Chronicle, that it would be forced to sell or close the paper if it could not achieve major cost-savings quickly. Hearst has said the paper lost $50 million last year and that this year’s losses will likely be worse.

How stupid. Why should the newspaper industry which is failing in the marketplace be supported  by favorable anti-trust rules/laws set by the federal government?

Next thing you know, Pelosi will be asking for $500 Billion of taxpayer money to bail their left-wing friends in the print media businesses out.

How is that for freedom of the press?


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2 Comments

  • Anniee451

    “Next thing you know, Pelosi will be asking for $500 Billion of taxpayer money to bail their left-wing friends in the print media businesses out.”

    Well if they do, then I’ll assume they’ll do what they did to the other bailout recipients – cap salaries with the promise that that will draw the best and the brightest reporters and editors INTO the field. Unfortunately then they will also demand allegiance…oops, in the case of print media, too late! That’s already done.

  • Anniee451

    “to engage in the news gathering and analysis that the American people expect”

    You mean deliberately reporting only the leftist half of the story, lying about conservatives, and putting leftist opinion pieces to that tune under all the headlines? Yeah, we don’t expect much – which is why the 48% or more of us line our pet cages with newspaper, or use it in the toilet to wipe with. Nothing else it’s good for.