The Tribune Company is for sale — putting some of the most influential papers in the country vulnerable to ownership by the climate change-denying Koch brothers. Over 100,000 people have joined Daily Kos, the Courage Campaign, and Forecast the Facts in calling on the Tribune Company board to reject a bid from the petrochemical billionaires.
If the purchase of Tribune by Charles and David Koch goes through, you can bet you won’t see editorials like these any more:
CLIMATE CHANGE EDITORIALS IN TRIBUNE CO. PAPERS
Los Angeles Times: "No on Prop 23"
Chicago Tribune: "No denying it: Climate change is real"
Baltimore Sun: "After Hurricane Sandy, can we finally talk about climate change?"
Orlando Sentinel: "US, state must confront reality of climate change"
Instead, you'll see this:
Sign the petition to Tribune CEO Peter Liguori: “Do not sell the Tribune Company media properties to David and Charles Koch, or any other climate-denying propagandists.”
Let’s start with the LA Times, the crown jewel of Tribune’s assets, and the paper with the fourth highest circulation in the country. The Times is the only top-five newspaper in the country that maintains a designated environmental desk. Top reporters like Ken Weiss (@KennethWeiss), Bettina Boxall, Julie Cart, and Neela Banerjee (@neelaeast) publish the Greenspace blog, the @LATenvironment Twitter feed, as well as regular print local, national, and international stories.
Tts editorial board has done a good job of conveying stark climate realities— their December 21, 2012 editorial on the day of the predicted Mayan apocalypse admonished readers to dwell on actual crises like climate change.
Perhaps most noteworthy was the paper’s exposure of Prop 23 in 2010, an effort by out-of-state oil companies to repeal California’s first-in-the-nation cap on global warming emissions. The third-largest booster of Prop 23 was Flint Hill Resources, a subsidiary of -- you guessed it -- Koch Industries. After the Kochs chipped in $1 million to repeal California’s cutting-edge cap-and-trade program, the LA Times called them out, “Bid to suspend California global-warming law gets $1 million from billionaire brothers’ firm.”
In the end, California voters overwhelmingly rejected Prop 23, spurred in part by the Times’ editorial and reporting about the Kochs' big-oil corruption.
Next up is the Chicago Tribune, the storied paper of “Dewey Defeats Truman” lore. The Tribune has the ninth highest circulation nationally, making the Tribune Company the only media corporation to own two papers in the top ten. The Tribune's editorial board is traditionally conservative, and it didn’t endorse a Democrat for President until Barack Obama in 2008. But in August 2012, the editorial board penned a column titled "No denying it," making the case that politicians of all stripes should move past the manufactured fight over climate science’s legitimacy, and begin to tackle the problem. One of the key hooks the Tribune used to make their case: the conversion of Richard Muller, a former climate change denier whose Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature Study (BEST) confirmed the conclusions of the entire scientific community. Here’s the Tribune opining as to why Muller’s conversion was so noteworthy:
One reason Muller’s conversion is drawing attention: His Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature Project was heavily funded by the Charles Koch Charitable Foundation, which has a history of supporting groups that deny climate change.
The Kochs’ climate denial is so notorious that the
Tribune found it remarkable that a Koch-funded scientist would be able to independently assess climate and temperature trends. Will the right-leaning
Chicago Tribune be able to exercise such independence should it come under Koch ownership?
The Baltimore Sun is Tribune Company’s next largest newspaper. With a daily circulation of close to 200,000, it has long served as Maryland’s most influential paper. 2012 was an election season in which both presidential candidates downplayed or ignored climate change to historic effect, and the Baltimore Sun became one of the most prominent editorial boards to call out the climate silence.
Finally, rounding out top-40 newspapers owned by Tribune, there’s the Orlando Sentinel. The Sentinel’s editorial board is the most recent Tribune-owned paper to sound the call for climate action, writing in an editorial earlier this year that “Florida should be a leader among the states, because it is among those most threatened with ecological problems and rising sea levels.”
Florida Senator Marco Rubio might have agreed with that statement once. As Florida State House Speaker in 2007, Rubio called climate action an “opportunity” for Florida to become the “silicon valley” of the clean energy industry. But Rubio has since changed his tune on climate, mocking climate science in his response to President Obama’s State of the Union earlier this year.
You can be sure of at least one big reason why. Rubio was elected in 2010 on a wave of Tea-Party enthusiasm, with considerable help from the Koch brothers. With over $32,000 in direct support from Koch Industries, Rubio is among Washington’s most Koch-friendly senators. Will a Koch-owned Sentinel similarly change its tune?
Don't let that happen.
Sign the petition to Tribune CEO Peter Liguori: “Do not sell the Tribune Company media properties to David and Charles Koch, or any other climate-denying propagandists.”
Written by Jordan Haedtler and Brad Johnson.
