10 out of 18 reporters, photographers and other staff plus two editors were told that, effective immediately, they were fired. This was soon after the Carpenter Media Group, out of Natchez, Mississippi announced that they had acquired the Everett Herald. Here, about forty people supporting the journalists marched along Colby Avenue in downtown Everett, Washington on Monday morning, June 24. Meanwhile, journalists at other Carpenter newspapers took on a one day temp gig to put out a “scab” edition.
the Carpenter Media Group owns some 100 newspapers across the US. Apparently, they are a family run enterprise that springs from Old South old money going back to antebellum, pre Civil War plantation owning days.
Most people are likely to say something dismissive and cynical. Oh well. There goes another local newspaper. This has been going on for at least fifty years that I know of.
But at some point we have to be concerned about how much of this chipping away at Franklin’s proposition “a republic, if you can keep it” can the First Amendment take?
local journalism is especially vulnerable to pressures from would be oligarchy. If you ask the key powers that be questions, it is personal. Lines of credit that all businesses need to keep going, including newspapers, can magically dry up. Advertising can be canceled. What is needed is respect for the basis of our civilization, which is a free press.
without it, the American social structure and the rule of law becomes subject to the prerogatives of money and the corruption of every level of government. You might think that this would be a great outcome for the wealthy. But it means eating the world and trying to live in resulting waste.
