Eli Broad In Market For L.A. Times

Buried in this NY Times story about the Koch Brothers looking to buy a bunch of newspapers owned by the Tribune company, including the L.A. Times, is this:

At this early stage, the thinking inside the Tribune Company, the people close to the deal said, is that Koch Industries could prove the most appealing buyer. Others interested, including a group of wealthy Los Angeles residents led by the billionaire Eli Broad and Ronald W. Burkle, both prominent Democratic donors, and Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation, would prefer to buy only The Los Angeles Times. 

The Tribune Company has signaled it prefers to sell all eight papers and their back-office operations as a bundle. (Tribune, a $7 billion media company that also owns 23 television stations, could also decide to keep the papers if they do not attract a high enough offer.) 

...

Koch Industries’ main competitor for The Los Angeles Times is a group of mostly Democratic local residents. In the 2012 political cycle, Mr. Broad gave $477,800, either directly or through his foundation, to Democratic candidates and causes, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. 

Mr. Burkle has long championed labor unions. President Bill Clinton served as an adviser to Mr. Burkle’s money management firm, Yucaipa Companies, which in 2012 gave $107,500 to Democrats and related causes. The group also includes Austin Beutner, a Democratic candidate for mayor of Los Angeles, and an investment banker who co-founded Evercore Partners. 

“This will be a bipartisan group,” Mr. Beutner said. “It’s not about ideology, it’s about a civic interest.” (The Los Angeles consortium is expected to also include Andrew Cherng, founder of the Panda Express Chinese restaurant chain and a Republican.) 

“It’s a frightening scenario when a free press is actually a bought and paid-for press and it can happen on both sides,” said Ellen Miller, executive director of the Sunlight Foundation, a nonpartisan watchdog group.

So the pro-corporate education reform/anti-union L.A. Times could soon be sold to either the pro-corporate education reform/anti-union Koch Brothers or the pro-corporate education reform/anti-union consortium of "Democratic" investors led by Eli Broad or the pro-corporate education reform/anti-union Rupert Murdoch.

Gotta love how the NY Times article writer frames this as some red/blue dichotomy between the Kochs, Murdoch and the Broad consortium when the reality is, these groups have very similar neo-liberal agendas

It seems no matter whether the current owners of the L.A. Times continue to hold onto the paper or the Kochs buy it along with the other Tribune properties or the Broad consortium buys it or Rupert Murdoch snatches it up for his Amplify/newspaper division, the agenda at the paper will remain the same - pro-education reform, anti-teacher and anti-union.

Isn't it great to live in an oligarchy?