HAS PROFIT TURNED NEWSPAPERS INTO HIRED HACKS?

RADICAL POSSIBILITIES: YOUR CHILDREN! The building of a fascist demagogue i...

HAS PROFIT TURNED NEWSPAPERS INTO HIRED HACKS?

Has Profit Turned Newspapers into Hired Hacks? Do newspapers influence public opinion to public benefit?
Warren Buffet effectively sets forth the function of a newspaper in his letter to publishers and editors upon Berkshire Hathaway's purchase of 28 daily newspapers at a cost of $344 million in 2013:

Your paper will operate from a position of financial strength. Berkshire will always maintain capital and liquidity second to none. We shun levels of debt that could ever impose problems. Therefore, you will determine your paper's destiny' outsiders will never dictate it.

As an education activist, I have begun to see newspapers in a different light. I once saw what appeared in the newspaper as truth -- or at least an honest effort at presenting differing points of view and perhaps a skepticism about "innovations". My epiphany came in the early 90s when I entered into the debates in Education at that time: Phonics versus Whole Language, Goals 2000 and Outcome Based Education, the Four Period Day.

I visited the local newspaper and their Education Editor with research countering that which came forth from the Administration. That information never appeared in the paper, unless I wrote an Opinion Piece. But, folks who write Op-Ed or Letters to the Letter are labeled kooks. The folks that get the paycheck get respect and a microphone plus millions of our tax dollars to make themselves look good.

And when all is shown to be the sham others tried to warn of? The newspaper merely becomes the Public Relations entity of the brand new reform to fix the one that failed.

Oh, by the way, the Education Editor for the paper during the time I mentioned was hired by the District Schools as their Public Relations liaison. Little need. In his official capacity for the newspaper he had already served in that function for the public schools for years! Why do research? Why encourage controversy? Why ask questions, like: Where has this been used before? What empirical data do you have on its effectiveness? Over what period of time was this used and does this data reflect that time span?

As you can see, there is really no preparation for an Education Reporter to challenge any establishment entity. Did you have a heads up about the total restructuring of education with Common Core? My family knew nothing until our granddaughter had trouble with the new math. And even then, even with two degrees in Education, I had no concept of how immensely important this shift in Education practice and theory would be not only to our schools and our children, but our country.

When the Chamber of Commerce runs a film on Common Core and pushes that agenda into a school system, from whom will the challenge come? The newspaper and reporter might report on the presentation and then publish pretty much whatever the Public Relations person in the Education system hands him/her.

Wouldn't you think someone in Florida would have challenged the acceptance of something as important as the Education of our children on the recommendation by someone who would be benefitting to such a glaring degree?

Why not challenge?

Advertising.

Advertising is significant to the bottom line. Do you want to upset major advertisers? Members of the Chamber of Commerce or the School System? Look in the Classified. Who runs the most ads? You'll find their names on Chamber lists.

So, if you cannot count on your local newspapers to do due diligence or remain skeptical regarding issues that can amount to millions of dollars in the education system, who can you trust?

I wonder if you could actually say that a political conflict of interest has been followed by the press by not challenging COMMON CORE with the obvious political agenda of Major Media. One has only to follow the link to ALABAMA'S CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER, Dr. Barbara Cooper's, admitted philosophy of education through the book she mentioned, Radical Possibilities, to know that someone should have researched this connection before assuming she meant to address the academic challenges she was hired to address and not the furtherance of her own political inclinations. I am sure there are others, but hers is the one with which I am most familiar.

See also:

The owners of these papers control the information that comes into our community. Berkshire Hathaway owns the Dothan Eagle. Warren Buffet owns Berkshire Hathaway.

GATEHOUSE MEDIA (NOW A JAPANESE COMPANY) OWNS THE PANAMA CITY NEWS HERALD (JEFF BEZOS, AMAZON, BOUGHT THE WASHINGTON POST FROM THE JAPANESE)