A west Tennessee journalist disgusted by bizpig journalism calls out the Tennessean

Newscoma considers journalism's gilded age of greed, comparing Memphis and Nashville:

Here is what eats at my soul this week about the [Memphis] Commercial Appeal. The [Memphis] Flyer believes they aren’t losing as much money as you might think:

Apparently not everybody at The Commercial Appeal has been forced to cinch up their belts. Last March, after the newspaper’s largest round of layoffs, CA publisher Joe Pepe purchased a second home on Excitement Drive in Celebration, Florida. Documents (available here) show that Pepe made a down payment of $100,000, and took out a $279,500 mortgage through Countrywide Bank. The three bedroom, 2.5 bath home was built in 2005 and originally listed for $424,900. It’s Pepe’s second Florida property. He purchased an undeveloped parcel of land in Osceola County in 2005 for $305,000.

And this is where we are going in this post. Bruce Vanwyngarden is showing you about how news has become entertainment. News isn’t supposed to be bright and shiny all the time. Sometimes it just plum sucks, but if you have anchors that have moved into celebrity categories taking on the roll of messenger, then we are getting into some tricky ground ....

And as for the Tennessean, what can one say about this story [involving $15,000 in political donations to lobbyists] ....

What would Edward R. Murrow say? I think he’d be pretty damned ticked off right now that the news he loved, and fought for,which has been compromised by greed, corporate indulgence and the pursuit of the all-mighty dollar over substance. And good for the Flyer and other media outlets for calling BS.

Newspapers, and news as a whole, are supposed to stand up for the average citizen, not be part of the problem. They at least used to supply some solutions.