Bailout Brings Bonanza Of Baloney
… Brian Tierney is CEO of Philadelphia Media Holdings, which publishes Philadelphia’s Inquirer and Daily News and has missed loan payments since June. Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell’s spokesman says Tierney has had “a number of conversations” with Rendell about receiving state money that “could come from a number of revenue streams.”
The Wall Street Journal designated this “the worst bailout idea so far” and “nuts in eight different ways,” noting that the investors Tierney led in purchasing the two newspapers put up only 20 percent in equity, making them typical of “Americans who borrowed too heavily during the credit mania.” In response to Rendell’s spokesman saying that newspapers are “the lifeblood of democracy,” the Journal said “newspapers aren’t the lifeblood of anything if they are merely an adjunct of the state” and are “dependent on the politicians [they are] supposed to cover.” …