There's a story on CNN/Fortune today that perfectly illustrates one of the main problems with American journalism.
A little background: the New York Times Company has two classes of stock. One is owned by whoever wants to buy one; the other is owned by the Ochs-Sulzberger family. Only the Ochs-Sulzberger shares have an effective vote.
The upshot of this, of course, is that the family can run the Times any damn way they please, which means they don't have to kow tow to shareholders and Wall Street, which distinguishes them from McClatchy and Knight Ridder, the once family controlled companies who now no longer own our local dailies.
The CNN/Fortune story is about the Ochs-Sulzberger family's reaction to a Morgan Stanley fund manager who is trying to force them to run the Times in a fashion that will be more pleasing to shareholders (read himself.) The family responded by pulling all their holdings out of Morgan Stanley.
Last I looked, nobody was hiding the fact that NY Times public shares were non voting and nobody was holding a gun to anyone's head forcing you to buy them. Anyone with half a brain and who had done a tiny bit of research into the Times would know that the public shares were probably a lousy investment...in everything except good journalism.
In other news, another name writer has left a New Times paper on less-than-friendly terms. Rebecca Schoenkopf, who wrote the Commie Girl column for the Orange County (CA) weekly, was shown the door immediately after offering her two-week notice. Schoenkopf was last year's winner for best political column from the Association of Alternative Newsweeklies.
