The Richmond-based Media General owns 27 daily newspapers and 26 television stations, spread throughout the southeast, and a few in the midwest. One of those papers is The Daily Progress, in Charlottesville. As of today, not a single one has endorsed Kerry. Which is a funny thing, since newspapers are endorsing Kerry over Bush by better than a 3:2 margin. You’d think that somewhere a little over half of their papers would be endorsing Kerry. Instead, none. Notably, two of them have refused to endorse any candidate: The Tampa Tribune and The Winston-Salem Journal. This refusal was widely noted and discussed among those who follow the media, as it demonstrates a highly-unusual reluctance on their part.
Also interesting is that Media General is working very, very hard to get federal antitrust regulations overturned, which would permit Media General to buy up their competition to create regional monopolies. The Clinton administration went after monopolies (such as Microsoft), enforcing antitrust laws vigorously. The Bush administration dropped existing cases (such as Microsoft) and, under Attorney General John Ashcroft, declared an end to monopoly regulations. Though Media General has filed over 600 pages of documents demanding that media monopoly regulations be eliminated, they haven’t seen fit to report on this in any of their newspapers or on any of their television stations.
It seems to me that four more years of President Bush would benefit Media General greatly and consumers of media very little. I hope that the last round of endorsements coming out in six days’ time, including that of The Daily Progress, include at least a few editorial boards showing a little backbone. But I’m not counting on it.