Watch the video below and listen to Steven Pearlstein argue that Charles and David Koch are too ideologically driven to own a newspaper. His concern is that their ideology will cause them to influence the reporting of news at the eight affiliated newspapers of the Tribune Company if they succeed at buying the media conglomerate.
You can read Pearlstein's article that is the topic of the video discussion here, where he encourages the writers and editors and other staff of the LA Times (and also the other seven affiliated Tribune newspapers) to threaten to quit en masse if the hedge funds and asset management companies that currently own the Tribune Company agree to sell it to the Kochs. In doing so, his theory goes, the Kochs will be deterred from even making an offer and the world will be spared these two undeserving potential newspaper owners having a venue to espouse their ideological drivel.
Now, I don't know if the Koch brothers are too ideologically driven to own a newspaper or not. I do know that many, many writers have complained that the Kochs have too much influence in higher education, with all that money they donate to universities, including George Mason University. Oh, and by the way, GMU just happens to be the university where Steven Pearlstein teaches.
If Pearlstein is truly concerned about the ideological influence of the Kochs on news reporting should they succeed in buying the Tribune Company, then certainly he must be equally concerned—even moreso from my perspective—about their undue influence on the faculty and administration at universities that accept their money and what is taught at these universities. If so, if any university accepts Koch money, including GMU, doesn't Pearlstein's principle dictate that the faculty and adminstrators at these universities should quit (preferrably en-masse) in order to preserve ideological independence and purity. I truly believe Pearlstein to be a man of noble character who holds fast to his principles, so shouldn't he abide by that same advice he offered to reporters, photographers, editors and other staff at newspapers?

