In a move that could change the character of several major American newspapers, Charles and David Koch are said to be considering a purchase of the Tribune media company, which would give them the Chicago Tribune, the Los Angeles Times, the Baltimore Sun, the Orlando Sentinel and the Hartford Courant, among other publications. (Full disclosure: from 2000 to 2007, the Valley Advocate was a property of the Courant.)
The billionaire Koch brothers are libertarians who support minimum regulation and minimum government interference with big business. They have funded studies opposing climate change legislation and bankrolled an organization, the American Legislative Exchange Council, that has sponsored laws promoting stricter voting regulations, lower corporate taxes and more relaxed gun laws. Thousands of people have already signed a petition on Huffington Post protesting acquisition of the Tribune papers by the Kochs. The Tribune sale follows the failure of billionaire Sam Zell, who bought Tribune in 2007, to make a go of the business that included historic publications like the Sun, where H.L Mencken once held forth, and the Times, winner of dozens of Pulitzer Prizes and one of the smartest, most credible daily papers in the country.•
