And that is what Poppa Manchester and his SD Union Tribune created. Manchester's selling to the Los Angeles Times marks an hopeful end to the media domination of this rightwing zealot in a City starved for fact based journalism. To be a credible source of information, the "new" SD Union Tribune will inevitably lay off Manchester's mouthpieces and replace them with real reporters and editors, maybe even some of the sharp minds who contribute from San Diego to Dem Underground.
Yes, the layoffs so far have not been the Fox News level journalists of The Union Tribune but the printing & distribution workers. I'm not celebrating that fact. But I am excited for the powerful suppression of our Democratic point of view in San Diego might be coming to an end.
We are a City that is demographically Democratic and our major media should represent our views and proposals fairly. The Union Tribune's anti labor, anti Democratic media dominance polluted far into the major media in San Diego from tv stations to internet (ex yahoo) feeds. Hopefully The Los Angeles Times will churn less Fox Newsish propaganda to and about San Diego.
You know the San Diego City Council passed by a landslide a raise to the minimum wage in San Diego (beyond the State Of Ca increase.) Manchester (& his UT megaphone) and his rightwing cronies created a petition drive to halt the increase by forcing a voter referendum. This nefarious crap was wildly backed by SDUT propaganda. The workers' raise has been delayed until after this vote, denying thousands of workers much needed wages and also our City jobs that would have been created by the increased $ into our economy. Keep in mind that SD has an enormous economy based upon tourism and its dependence upon low paid service sector.
As a local hotel magnate, Manchester was also pivotal in creating a hotel tax upon tourists that siphoned off many millions to him & other hotel owners instead of the City or even paying hotel employees more. Imagine how many jobs or wage increases to low wage workers might have been created with those extra millions. It became a "cause celebre" in the SD Union Tribune, vehemently defending Manchester & his cronies right to levy & privately appropriate this tax.
I don't think Dem Underground sports a big Darryl Issa fan club. For good, fact based reasons. I've never read anything but blanket praise for Issa in the SD Union Tribune. And that goes for every Repub candidate who's ever run in the 20+ years I've lived in San Diego. It's been a Repub rag forever, but under Manchester's mainstream media monopoly it became increasingly hyperbolic & suffocating to a City demographically turning Democratic and longing to have their voices fairly represented on a daily basis.
I think any Democratic "air" that The Los Angeles Times brings into the San Diego mediascape will be a good change. Under Manchester's hermetic "vanity press" reign, the newspaper was increasingly losing circulation (and those printing/circulation jobs) I'm not a big fan of mergers, but in this case our city benefits from a more inclusive, representative daily newspaper that might, in fact, attract more readers and create more jobs. San Diego will, at least... and its a big deal, have a freer press.
And millions less of Manchester's plastic bags making their way into the ocean.
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