Democrats Threaten The LA Times Over Potential Koch Brothers Sale

The LA Times and several other publications all owned by the Tribune Company may be bought by the Koch brothers, the libertarian/conservative billionaires who have become bêtes noires for the left.

So, naturally, everybody is freaking out. Because it’s ok when liberals/progressives own mainstream media outlets, but not anyone from the right.

Anyway, now the Los Angeles City Council has entered the fray threatening to pull city pension investments from the Tribune Company if they sell to ownership that doesn’t meet their ideological tastes.

Because they’re protecting journalism, or something.

Three Los Angeles City Council members — including a candidate for mayor — asked their colleagues Tuesday to consider pulling city pension money from the investment firms that own the Los Angeles Times if they sell the publication to buyers who do not support “professional and objective journalism.”…

“Frankly what I hear about the Koch brothers, if it’s true, it’s the end of journalism,’’ said [Councilman Bill] Rosendahl, a former broadcaster. “I don’t want to see Los Angeles, the second-largest city and the biggest region in the nation, not to have a quality newspaper.”…

“We cannot support the sale of the Times to entities who Times readers would view as a political transaction first and foremost, turning L.A.’s metropolitan daily into an ideological mouthpiece whose commitment to empirical journalism would be unproven at best,” Rosendahl wrote in the motion. “A newspaper isn’t just a business it’s also a civic trust.”

Just so we’re clear, outspoken libertarians owning newspapers is the “end of journalism,” but government threatening media outlets with financial retribution over the politics of their owners isn’t?

What an upside down world we live in.

How about this: We embrace the freedom protected by the first amendment and allow that anyone, regardless of ideology, can own a media outlet.

Is a little bit of tolerance for ideological diversity in the mainstraem media too much to ask?