This will be relatively short and sweet.
Pursuant to my previous discussion regarding the idea that we, the Liberal and Left, will never get a fair hearing or be able to "get our message out" in the current media climate...please refer to recent headlines in the NYTimes regarding the "jobs report that gives ammunition to both sides"...or refer to the censoring of MoveOn ads by CBS, or the current attempt to censor MoveOn ads by the RNC and the FCC...
And regarding the idea that, above and beyond media criticism (see FAIR, takebackthemedia, MWO, dailyhowler, and so on)...we need OUR OWN media...for example Gore and MoveOn's so-far-unsuccessful attempt to buy a cable network...
I submit the following idea:
- We form an Investment Club and duly register it under the proper laws regarding such clubs.
- We do the research on a particular media company, outlet, or corporation, for example The New York Times and calculate the volume of shares we need to control in order to
a) get a controlling share and conduct a hostile takeover, or
b) get a large share and influence the board directly, or
c) get a large share over time and sell it in a day and get a lot of people really worried...
- We work out the procedure for Ceding stock or shares or control of the shares we own as individuals to a holding company or proxy...like a Soros or a Gore or a MoveOn type entity.
- We organize thusly:
First, we create a central location to conduct tallying and accounting, signing up and etc.
Second we plan out a buying strategy (for example based on alphabetical order of surname, A buys first, B second, C third...) and buy individual shares in the amount each individual can afford, over a period of months or whatever...
Third we conduct the buy, one, five, ten, fifty, one hundred shares at a time, and keep track of the total and the aggregate percentage share....over time to prevent the price from rising too high and to prevent getting too much notice.
Fourth we cede the shares to our proxy, as noted above.
Fifth, the proxy then engages in the a) buyout ("you're ALL FIRED!!"), b) the influencing (For example see Eisner's recent humiliation via shareholder revolt), or c) the cratering of the stock price via bulk selloff.
Keep in mind the following "back of the envelope calculations" coupled with some observations.
- The readership of Kos, TPM, MWO, MoveOn, Atrios, Hesiod, ThisModernWorld, TakeBackTheMedia, DemocraticUnderground, and the "left blogosphere" is very very large - probably in the millions.
- Last fall, more than ten million people were organized in a coordinated, worldwide, single-day event...largely or at least in significant part over the internet.
- MoveOn submitted 1 million signatures to congress...signatures collected in ONE week, over the internet.
- There is a LOT of interest overseas in helping the American Liberal and Left, and there are NO laws banning foreign ownership of corporate stock.
- The NYTimes has a market cap of ~7 billion dollars....10 million people buying 700 dollars worth of stock each could buy it ALL...ALL of it...
And we don't need to buy it all to get a LOT of power in such a corporation.
This procedure is perfectly legal...the basis for organizing, buying, and coordinating already exists, and links to the general group could be promulgated using blogads or links, or whatever.
And we could BUY OUT the media.