Dallas Blog

I don't see the Morning News folding soon, which is unfortunate since they could use some motivation to actually produce a decent daily edition.

Why would people in Buffalo want to read about Dallas?

I only buy the Sunday paper for the coupons. It can't be the content there is so little left.

A Friend of Unfair Park in the media (not at The News, the Star-T or here) said to me this morning that the FW paper was actually profitable and propping up a teensy piece of the sagging McClatchy empire, which today announced a 15-percent workforce reduction ... following last week's Startlegram announcement that it was laying off 12 percent of its employees. To which I responded, "Maybe, but folks aren't taking kindly to the news of layoffs the very week the paper announces a freebie weekly starting in April."

Oh how I wish the DMN would fold and the Startel would come to Dallas. McClatchy was the only major paper that has covered Iraq, the economic melt-down and the like.

McClatchy doesn't host any of those perennially wrong morons like Friedman, and the Neo-cons. Wrong on every point and more prominent than ever. I am increasingly angered over this media bias.

For instance, the cram-down is the only thing of the current solutions for our real-estate melt-down. A cram-down is perfuncta in bankruptcies. This means that a judge will seek an appraisal and re-value the property at current values.

This will accurately price the properties that are in distress. The only problem with this is that banks, and the loan holders take the hickey. But, after all, we usually assume the lender is the more sophisticated party, and will cynically check the value of any collateral.

As every foreclosure requires a sheriff, is it so hard to ask them to appoint a special master, seek a hard appraisal, if the borrower can pay the reset note at a fair interest rate, then a refinance is orchestrated by the judge in a bankruptcy, in this case the special master.

You won't hear this critique on TV. Why, evidently every voice you will hear will protect the bank's interests. The banks contributed $1 billion to Congress in the last decade. That's why they can charge rates on some transactions that would get a Pawn Shop closed down.

The Steve Blow imbroglio only affirms this pattern. Add to that, most of us folk want to hear what we want to hear, not what we need to hear. So, we like to hear the that the gov't serves the banks, since this is what happens. Controversy and the demands of thought outrage demands are just too taxing on the average news consumer.