"A child's learning is the function more of the characteristics of his classmates than those of the teacher." James Coleman, 1972

Friday, July 13, 2007

Tribune, Inc. and the Editorials that Money Can Buy

From the looks of the Tribune Company's recent editorials on NCLB in its Chicago and L. A. properties, some valuable political points are being chalked up as the Tribune Co. seeks a couple of favorable business decisions that will be broken or made by machinations of the Rove-Cheney White House. Is this kind of ignorant and irresponsible kowtowing to the Party line what happens when your media company gets on bended knee to plead for a $350 million tax refund in order to help pay down its debt for going private? Or does this kind of blind and dumb acceptance of the oft-quoted Bush/Spellings lies about NCLB get repeated just to help grease the wheels as Tribune, Inc. tries "to renew Federal Communications Commission waivers for broadcast licenses in cities where it also owns newspapers?"

If the Tribune has signed on with the Bush Team to push its only remaining domestic initiative that hasn't been buried--yet, then at least it would seem they would bother to get someone to write about it who knows even the most basic facts. The affable lightweight, Ron Brownstein, who was recruited to write the L.A. Times NCLB PR script, doesn't even know how many subgroups there are or what subjects are required to be tested. But then why should a few bad facts get in the way some perfectly good opinions that never required any facts to begin with?

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