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Is 'Corporate' Ownership Good for Newspapers?

By AAN Staff
june 2, 2006  01:02 pm
That was one of the questions asked last night during a panel discussion in San Francisco on "The Coming Media Monopoly: Concentration of Press Ownership and Its Effects on Democracy." It will surprise few AAN members that panelists Stephen Buel, editor of Village Voice Media's East Bay Express, and Tim Redmond, executive editor of the San Francisco Bay Guardian, didn't see eye-to-eye on the matter. According to the "alternative online daily" BeyondChron, Buel said the Express' sale to VVM-predecessor New Times allowed the paper to hire more staff, purchase new computers and rent more office space. "In the past year, I've seen members of an alternative newsweekly buy houses in the Bay Area, and I think that's cool,” Buel said. Redmond disagreed, arguing that conglomeration results in homogenization of content and the pricing out of any true independent press.
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