{"id":11058,"date":"2012-09-20T15:59:54","date_gmt":"2012-09-20T22:59:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.carlsbadistan.com\/?p=11058"},"modified":"2012-09-20T16:23:38","modified_gmt":"2012-09-20T23:23:38","slug":"get-riehl-censorship-comes-to-town","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.carlsbadistan.com\/?p=11058","title":{"rendered":"Get Riehl: Censorship Comes to Town"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Screen<\/a>Beginning in October Carlsbadians will get only Papa Doug Manchester\u2019s<\/a><\/strong> (right) slant on the daily news. <\/p>\n

Who\u2019s Papa Doug (his preferred first name) and why should we care? The hotelier-turned-media mogul bought the <\/a><\/strong>North County Times<\/a><\/em><\/strong> [for $11.95 million]. Added to his acquisition and name change to the San Diego Union Tribune<\/a><\/em><\/strong> two years ago, he’s hellbent on creating a Hearst-like media empire in San Diego County.<\/p>\n

And why should we care? He\u2019s declared an editorial war on government employees, unions, President Obama, writers who don\u2019t help promote the community, and anyone who walks, talks or acts like a Democrat. My last North County Times<\/em> column critical of the empty boosterism of Carlsbad\u2019s latest State of the City video would not see the light of day in a Manchester newspaper.I experienced Papa Doug\u2019s reign of terror for journalists when I submitted what was intended to be my last The Riehl World<\/a><\/em><\/strong> column scheduled for publication tomorrow. Here\u2019s the part that was deemed too hot to handle, followed by Editor Kent Davy\u2019s<\/strong> explanation.<\/p>\n

\u201cAfter being able to rant on this page for nine years, often at odds with editorial board positions, my homework assignments for the NCT end with this, my last column. I made that decision after learning the newspaper had been sold. Not that the new owners would have welcomed my prickly presence on their opinion pages.<\/p>\n

In a KPBS interview on September 11 Doug Manchester said he hadn\u2019t yet decided on the \u201cbrand\u201d of the North County Times. But he left little doubt it will be a virtual clone of UT San Diego, given his primary goal to \u201csalute what\u2019s right and good about San Diego,\u201d with a special pro-military, pro-business, and pro-Padres and Chargers focus.<\/p>\n

NCT Editor Kent Davy, on the same KPBS show, described the newspaper\u2019s mission: “We don\u2019t work for corporate masters. We work for readers and the notion of doing good work,” to \u201chold a mirror up to the community,\u201d to \u201cshow the community its successes and failures\u201d and to \u201cright wrongs.”<\/p>\n

Asked if the new NCT will keep its own editorial board, Manchester replied, \u201cWe will definitely get editorial input from the North County area.\u201d He didn\u2019t promise editorial independence. But he did promise that the NCT, like its big brother in San Diego, will carry front page editorials advancing his conservative political agenda.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ll be rooting from the sidelines for the survival of NCT\u2019s journalistic integrity, but I\u2019m not holding my breath.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

And here\u2019s Davy\u2019s explanation of why the column was rejected:<\/p>\n

“Richard: I am not willing to let you tee off on Manchester this way. There are people here who will have to work for him even if you don’t.” — Kent R. Davy | Editor | North County Times<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

It\u2019s a sad day, not only for journalists, but for Carlsbad residents who will need to find sources other than their daily newspaper to find a diversity of opinions about issues they care about.<\/p>\n

Richard Riehl writes from La Costa. Contact him at <\/em>richard_riehl@yahoo.com<\/a><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Beginning in October Carlsbadians will get only Papa Doug Manchester\u2019s (right) slant on the daily news. Who\u2019s Papa Doug (his preferred first name) and why should we care? The hotelier-turned-media mogul bought the North County Times [for $11.95 million]. Added to his acquisition and name change to the San Diego Union Tribune two years ago, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[8,46,17],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.carlsbadistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11058"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.carlsbadistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.carlsbadistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.carlsbadistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.carlsbadistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=11058"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"http:\/\/www.carlsbadistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11058\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11067,"href":"http:\/\/www.carlsbadistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11058\/revisions\/11067"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.carlsbadistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=11058"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.carlsbadistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=11058"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.carlsbadistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=11058"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}