Leslie Savan at
Mother Jones ponders what will happen as
Verizon Swallows Net-Neutrality Champion Huffington Post:
Most of the coverage of Verizon’s planned $4.4 billion acquisition of AOL—and thus of the Huffington Post and other news sites—has been almost giddy about all the moneymaking and technological possibilities. By merging with AOL, Verizon will expand by leaps and bounds into mobile video services and “programmatic ad buying,” bringing America’s largest mobile company “a new kind of energy and talent,” as one venture capitalist enthused. On its end of the pre-nup, AOL will get some much-needed cash and, still crumpled by its disastrous merger with Time-Warner in 2000, some fresh cachet. [...]
And, whether Verizon sells HuffPost (most observers believe it will) or keeps it (AOL CEO Tim Armstrong insists, “AOL’s always going to be an owner of HuffPost”), the deal’s been deemed a win-win for Arianna Huffington. As Lloyd Grove writes, she “sold her digital media company to AOL for an eye-popping $315 million only four years ago, [and] has once again fallen into a giant tub of butter.”
But there hasn’t been nearly as much talk about what this means for the content—you know, the journalism. When a telecom giant at the center of every poli-techno controversy, from net neutrality to NSA spying, owns and is expected to invest millions in one of the world’s most-read news sites, what happens to editorial independence? [...]
And how free would HuffPost be in the future to report on Verizon’s and other telecom’s involvement in government surveillance of Americans’ phone records? Or on Verizon’s support of the rightwing, Koch-backed policy-maker, the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC)? Just days before the Verizon/AOL deal was announced, HuffPost ran a post headlined: “Telecom Sleaze: ALEC and Its Communication’s Funders—AT&T, Verizon, CenturyLink, Comcast and Time Warner Cable.” I’m just guessing, but that could be the last time we see HuffPost casually refer to Verizon as “sleaze.” [...]
Blast from the Past. At Daily Kos on this date in 2012—Thesis that Republicans are the problem doesn't get even half a minute on the Sunday talk shows:
Late last month, Thomas Mann and Norman Ornstein wrote an op-ed that sparked a megaton of discussion in Washington, D.C., and across the country. But not on the Sunday talk shows. Their premise is the same as in their new book:
We have been studying Washington politics and Congress for more than 40 years, and never have we seen them this dysfunctional. In our past writings, we have criticized both parties when we believed it was warranted. Today, however, we have no choice but to acknowledge that the core of the problem lies with the Republican Party. |
Whether you think they hit the bullseye in their critique, or chose the wrong party to pick on, or should have stuck with their previous approach of criticizing both parties or don't really know enough to decide whether they are right or wrong, you have to admit the subject is one worth delving into in some depth. Exactly the kind of thing that ought to lend itself to a thorough back and forth on the Sunday talk shows.
But. No.
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On
today's Kagro in the Morning show: A white-on-white crime shocker leads off.
Greg Dworkin updates us on a GunFAIL story, and notes the passing of B.B. King and “the father of evidence based medicine.” Banking on the Gordie Howe bridge. Another cycle of Jeb & Iraq. Rubio, Flavor of the Month.
Armando joins in expressing his disbelief at Jeb's flub, nearly has a car accident in the 51st minute of the show, and doesn't miss a beat as he handicaps the GOP field. Stephanopolous outrage. David Dayen's "10 biggest lies" about TPP. The ACLU on cops and cams. Gimmetarianism defined: the jerky anti-ACA jerk who acted like a jerk and then got in over his head and said more jerky stuff.
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