The Media Bailout

The future of the newspaper and journalism continues to get darker and darker, especially with the bankruptcy of Affiliated Media, Inc. The debt ranges from $500 million to $1 billion. Affiliated Media, Inc. is the holding company of the second-largest newspaper publisher, the MediaNews Group. With that being said could newspapers be in even more trouble than before?

I believe that newspapers and journalism are both in some serious trouble. With a media company so large getting into this kind of trouble it really makes one think, "Is it reliable?" The best way to explain what I mean is to compare this to what happened to this nation's banks. People trusted banks, and put all of their savings into them. Then, what happened those banks needed a government bailout to survive. The same this is pretty much happening all over again but with media companies. How ironic is it, though, that now the banks are bailing Affiliated Media, Inc. out?

For 80 percent of ownership of Affiliated Media lenders, headed by the Bank of America, will take on $930 million of the debt. PRNewswire has an official Affiliated Media news release of this plan. To sum it up: by swapping the $930 million in debt for 80 percent of ownership Affiliated Media is able to restructure and fix its problems. The good news is that it is only Affiliated Media the holding company that will undergo restructuring. The newspapers and everyone working for them will come out unscathed. Now for the bad news, Chairman and CEO, William Dean Singleton, and President, Joseph J. Lodovic IV will not be going anywhere.

Does it make sense, to anybody, to let the men who were in charge and watched this debt accumulate, stay in charge?