New Union Tribune owner Doug Manchester and his capo John Lynch have reportedly thrown journalistic integrity to the wind and turned their new toy into a one sided rag that merely promotes their own political and economic interests. A few tidbits from the article:
"...The paper has drawn scrutiny and shock from many employees for its aggressive promotion of business interests. "Saying you are going to be a cheerleader for business... goes against everything we have been taught and trained as journalists," said one current U-T San Diego staffer who requested anonymity. "A lot of people have rolled their eyes at the front page editorials that have run...The quality of the paper is less because there's more fluff in the paper, an emphasis on running more society photos and celebrity photos, that space could be better used on actual news and information."
...The editorial also drew criticism because it falsely suggested that Manchester did not have a financial stake in their proposal because he no longer owned hotels adjacent to the property that could benefit from the development.
...U-T CEO Lynch had pushed the idea of a publicly-funded new football stadium for years before the editorial's proposal. One long-time opponent of such plans, U-T sports columnist Tim Sullivan, says he was fired from the paper earlier this year for refusing to accept its vision as his own.
Sullivan, who lost his job in June after ten years at the paper, had used his column to criticize publicly-funded stadiums for years. In March, after the Manchester takeover and the U-T editorial board's declaration that a new stadium for the Chargers was at the heart of the paper's plan for the city's future, Sullivan wrote that the team was no threat to leave town without one.
Soon after his firing, Sullivan wrote that while he "can't read Lynch's mind," he believes that his "failure to endorse a new stadium without wondering whether that's good public policy, a justifiable offense or a good deal" was part of the reason for his firing.
"My position, I was not anti-stadium, I was anti-stupidity," he told Media Matters in a recent interview, later adding, "My tact had been, publicly and internally, that it was important that the paper be an advocate for responsibility to the taxpayer, if we have to speak truth, that we pick sides with the public over big business. I had great concerns with where things were headed."
1 comment:
I have been reading the UT for years. I have definitely noticed a change in the editorial positions since the new owners took over. The UT has always been right of center in it's editorial view, as had been all of the Copley papers, but it has really gone hard right over the last few years. I read it with a very jaundiced eye.
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