The right-wing mocks "liberal" Newsweek's lack of profits, ignores WashTimes' monumental losses
May 08, 2010 11:21 am ET by Eric Boehlert
Question: With the Washington Times, the long-time, right-wing vanity publication owned by Rev. Sun Myung Moon and run as a GOP welfare state, now hemorrhaging so much money that even its delusional owner has decided to sell it, do you think it's really the best time for right-wing bloggers to be mocking Newsweek because it can't turn a profit?
Apparently it is.
Leaving logic and hypocrisy aside, GOP blogger Ace of Spades rambles on and on about Newsweek needs to find a new owner because it's too liberal and that's why it's losing so much money today. Lots of `wingers are doing the same thing online, prematurely dancing on Newsweek's grave and celebrating its demise because it proves that supposedly liberal magazines can't survive in the (center-right) American marketplace; that consumers aren't interested in the liberal perspective.
Right.
And did I mention that over the span of its lifetime, the Washington Times has likely lost more than $3 billion dollars for its owner. (It's probably the most expensive failed American media venture. Ever.) Meaning, if the Washington Times hadn't been run like a right-wing welfare outlet since the day its presses first started to run nearly three decades ago, the Times would have gone out of business within months of its founding.
Why? Because there was no natural audience for its right-wing drivel and the Times could never sustain itself. Because if the free marketplace had dictated the results, the Times would have come and gone as a colossal business failure. But the Rev. Moon, who fancies himself as the Messiah, wanted a vanity press and was willing to use his church/cult resources to back the endeavor.
So yes Ace of Spades, please keep lecturing us about the media's free marketplace and how Newsweek-- which flourished for decades as a money-making machine before the media landscape, and news consumption, drastically changed in the Internet Age-- failed because it was too liberal. Please instruct us how conservative publications like the Washington Times are so much better equipped to attract readers and advertisers.
Perhaps to those like A.O.S. who believe all that do not blindly goose step to every stupid idea to come from the right are liberals.
To me Newsweek is no more liberal than the Washington Post itself. I'd call them corporatist.
Support a war for oil on Iraq? Check.
Oppose bringing a Washington Insider like Scooter Libby to justice for outing a CIA agent? Check.
Concern troll about the deficit after keeping quiet for 8 years while Bush and Cheney doubled the debt with tax cuts for the rich? Check.
Oppose investigating war crimes committed by Bush and Cheney? Check.
What's liberal about Newsweek or the Washington Post, in this day and age?
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They might as well be latte-sipping pinko beatniks.
Really?
Is it a facts/liberal bias thing?
pls see above and refute, or your point is kinda meaningless.
http://mediamatters.org/blog/201005080002#847106
LOL!
When you're standing on Pluto, all those other planets are way to close to the sun.
Wingnut science, in a nut shell.
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You challenge without providing any evidence to support your idea. That is why we cannot find common ground on THIS issue. You make lots of sweeping generalizations too . . .
Keep in mind court docs have revealed that before the schism the paper's controlling board did whatever Moon ordered it to do even though he was not on the board "officially." The board always - ALWAYS - fulfilled "the founder's" wishes until the son put his allies on the board and took it over. That's one way SMM controlled the paper in the past and it proves his spinners and shills lied over and over about him not having any role at the WT. The nation was conned.
What do you mean by "Vanity press"? Is there an official journalistic meaning to that term? If you mean that Moon knew the paper would never make a profit and still funded it, yes. But if you mean he funded it simply as an ego trip for no real purpose you don't understand what the WT is/was about. It served Moon well. The WT was a propaganda instrument for SMM to manipulate our political system. He and his friends got more than their money's worth from it over the years. He wasn't duped into spending his money, either.
Long before there was a Fox or a Rush, there was the new right's spine, the WT. Moon also got a right wing America more in tune with his ideology and open to the influences of his beloved theocrats. The paper promoted Moon's messianic plan to add a theocratic mechanism to the United Nations' structure.
Moon rightfully boasted about using the paper to gather intelligence for his organization and he also used it as a recruiting tool.
If you did not know this watch this panel discussion. Pay close attention to Mr. Warder's talk.
You are so right to point out that the paper had nothing to do with the free market which the right hypocritically claims is integral to judging something's worth and ability to sustain itself.
quoting "Moonstruck: The Reverend and his Newspaper" by Ann Louise Bardach in 1992: