CJR Daily yesterday took aim at Freedom Communications, the company that owns both The Hesperia Star and The Daily Press.
Over the last couple days, at least seven of Freedom’s newspapers have run an identical unsigned editorial calling on Congress to uphold the president’s temporary repeal of the Bacon-Davis Act in the Gulf Coast.
Bacon-Davis, by way of some quick background, requires that contractors working on federally funded construction projects pay workers the prevailing wage in the area in which the projects are taking place. Under the president’s plan, contractors in the Gulf region will be able to pay workers less — far less, if the market bears.
We were alerted to the identical op-eds by an item on the Facing South blog, and in looking into it ourselves, dug up a few more examples of the chain running the same editorial in its papers.
The piece so far has run in the Appeal-Democrat of Marysville-Yuba City, California; the Daily News of Jacksonville, North Carolina; the Free Press of Kinston, North Carolina and at least four other papers, according to a quick — and admittedly incomplete — scan of the pieces Freedom’s papers made available online.
It’s noteworthy that all of the editorials are unsigned, and there is nothing in them to suggest that they came from corporate HQ (or wherever they originated), which, logically, would lead readers to believe that they were written by the local editorial staff. Obviously, they weren’t.
Now, this isn’t a capital crime, but when homogenized product is being pumped to so many communities scattered across the nation, it does speak to the larger issue of media consolidation. In this case, what appears to be the company line is being toed by newspapers from California to North Carolina, with readers none the wiser.
It does not appear that it has run in either the Star or the Daily Press.
Liz Phair will sing “God Bless America” during the 7th inning stretch tomorrow during game one of the World Series.
If you’ve wanted to try out World of Warcraft and have access to the disks to install it on your computer, let me know. Blizzard sent out Guest Pass Keys to all current players:
Dear World of Warcraft® Subscriber:
You are eligible to receive a FREE 30-day credit* to your World of Warcraft subscription when you recruit a friend using the Guest Pass key below. This key is trackable back to your account and if your friend becomes a World of Warcraft subscriber and pays for their first 30 days of subscription time, your account will be automatically credited with a free 30 days. It’s that simple.
Here’s how it works:
1. Give a friend the Guest Pass Key provided below.
2. Install World of Warcraft on his or her machine using your Game CDs (your friend will not need the CDs to play the game after installation)
3. Have your friend enter the special Guest Pass Key below when prompted during the installation process (the Key can only be used once).
4. Your friend will have 10 days of free access to World of Warcraft.
5. When your friend completes their 10 free days, they will be given an option to upgrade to a full version of World of Warcraft by purchasing a retail copy of the game.
6. When your friend upgrades to a full version of World of Warcraft and then pays for their first month of World of Warcraft, your account will be automatically credited with a FREE 30-day World of Warcraft subscription.
7. Offer expires January 1st, 2006. Your friend must upgade to the full version of World of Warcraft on or before this date in order for you to receive the free 30 days of World of Warcraft subscription time.
Survivor Guatemala Fantasy League
Well, I still had Margaret on my team when she got the boot, so I’m down to 560 points, but that’s only 7 points behind my mother-in-law, who is in first place. So far, this season is pretty good, but I’m anxious for them to hurry up and get to the merge, since that’s when it gets really interesting.
I love my job. I can describe a work day, in part, thus: “Well, the ghostbusters were pushed back until tomorrow, but I still went up in the helicopter.”
It’s a good life.
(And that is, in fact, the worst of the images taken from over 600 feet in the air. Look for lots better in the paper on Tuesday.)
