A letter to the editor sent to me from an anonymous reader:
All of a sudden the Greensboro News & Record has found itself owned by one of Wall Street’s most powerful financiers, Warren Buffet.
Having sold out to the financial sector, one can’t help but wonder how the News & Record will be able to discharge its reporting duties now that it is owned virtually lock, stock and barrel by the same interests it's supposed to report about.
How much of an influence the local elite and Buffet have over editorial decisions is obvious, as the paper remains unlikely to be bite the multiple hands that feed it, which wouldn't be that big of a thing, if the interests of our oligarchy were aligned with the wider public interest the paper is meant to serve.
If the recent past has shown anything, most things that matter to the board members of our local non-profits don't match the general public’s.
When the Roy Carroll and Robbie Perkins crowd win, the rest of us tend to lose.
For instance, when "they" chose to go for a huge taxpayer-funded performing arts center to bailout downtown property owners, that money must be taken from elsewhere – and it’s invariably from essential public services.
"They" are more than happy to throw everyone else out of the boat to ensure their own upper income survival.
With the News & Record struggling to make ends meet in this new age of Internet journalism and plummeting advertising revenues, it's not a surprise to see the "paper of record" to get bought by a politically active capitalist. Warren will be among the only ones left with enough resources to pay the exorbitant upkeep costs of a fully-staffed newspaper.
But at what price?
The dangers are to obvious: excessive influence of the Greensboro "Partnership" etc... and real estate advertising clients inevitably leads to the covert manipulation of political decisions in favour of hidden economic interests.
The problem with journalism in Greensboro is it no longer serves the public.
A diverse and independent media is supposed to serve as a protection against entrenched interests and the government.
Now they are one and the same.
-Anonymous
