Toledo free press vs toledo blade

may 1, 2015 comment in a tt thread

Excerpts from Baumhower's Mar 13, 2015 Toledo Free Press column :

I was tired of living in a city being bullied by its daily newspaper. I was tired of being shown, via front-page “special reports,” how bad and ugly my hometown was.

I never understood how the publisher of a city’s newspaper could live in a completely different state, hundreds of miles away.

The irony of a newspaper publishing repeated editorials offering advice to local politicians on how to run city government while itself losing millions of dollars a year is beyond rich.

Toledo Free Press has spent the past decade battling the one thing that has kept this city down since the last episode of “M*A*S*H” aired, and it isn’t the economy.

The Blade is close to crippling this paper with behind-the-scenes influence and legal bills from an insulting lawsuit.

If you can’t beat ’em, sue ’em. If they dare to point out the emperor wears no clothes, sue ’em some more.

“One of America’s Great Newspapers (For Law Firms)” would be a more accurate description.

Excerpts from the link that upso posted:

Pounds said he hated to cave in, but had no choice following his bruising battle with the powerful twin brothers who own The Blade.

... a 2009 editorial cartoon in the Free Press that implied the brothers were blocking job-creating development in the struggling city of 282,000 struck a nerve.

“That was the last straw for them,” Pounds said. “They went ballistic.”

A cartoon pushed these one-percenters over the edge???

The battle bled out of the courtroom and into the business community, where, Pounds claims, The Blade threatened advertisers into spurning the Free Press.

In one episode that underscored the rancor, a local TV station refused to allow Miller to appear on its air to promote a charity CD that benefited the Make-A-Wish Foundation, reportedly noting that he worked for a “direct competitor” of a "valued partner."

This is bizarre, but I don't know the background details.

Currently, the two sides are awaiting an appeal of a 2014 ruling by Common Pleas Judge Gary Cook requiring the Toledo Free Press to turn over its financial books and marketing strategy to The Blade.

#toledo #media #moronism #business