NPR Reports on VVM-New Times Anti-Trust Investigation
By AAN Staff
december 5, 2002 11:59 am
An anti-trust lawyer tells NPR's Laura
Sydell that the VVM-New Times deal
looks like a clear anti-trust
violation: "It was very public what they
did, and my only feeling is they could not
have had any anti-trust advice." The Bay
Guardian's Tim
Redmond decries the deal and
compares it to the monopolization of local
dailies, which, he argues, was the reason
the
alternative press "sprung up" in the first
place. But AAN's Richard Karpel
says there weren't enough ad dollars to
sustain two large alternative weeklies
in LA and Cleveland, and U. of
Maryland j-school dean Thomas
Kunkel says he was surprised by the
investigation: "Anyone who is looking at
the Justice Dept.'s attitude towards this
sort of transaction in the near past might
wonder what the fuss is about." After all,
he notes, Justice didn't seem
terribly disturbed as cities around the
country became one-newspaper towns.