Media Bosses Get It Bassackward
There’s been another outbreak of the dangerous Wall Street disease known as Boss Hog Flu.
The latest outbreak is not on Wall Street, though – it’s in Chicago, home of the Tribune media conglomerate that owns the Chicago Tribune, Los Angeles Times, The Baltimore Sun, and a host of television stations. The Tribune’s top executives have made a mess of the place, having amassed an $8 billion debt to finance their media mergers while watching revenues and stock prices plummet. In desperate straits, the bosses fired thousands of employees, sold off prized assets, and finally plunged the company into bankruptcy.
So, as you would expect, the executive wizzes who made this mess have apologized, resigned, and are now looking for honest work.
Ha! Just kidding! Like their Wall Street peers, these management elites were bitten long ago by the boss hog flu bug, so they are doing what comes naturally to them: demanding bonuses! Yes, the Tribune’s 23 top honchos are asking the bankruptcy judge to approve $9.3 million in bonus pay to be split among them this year – an average of $400,000 each.
Why? The chief financial officer, Mr. Chandler Bigelow III, says bonuses are necessary to “incentivize our key managers to battle all of the intense challenges that unfortunately our local media businesses are facing.”
Wait – why should they get extra money just to do their jobs, which they don’t seem very good at in the first place? Well, says Bigelow, “I will tell you that not being rewarded for hard work and hard effort is demotivating.”
Yeah, Bigelow, but what about those hard-working reporters, editors, and others that you “demotivated” by firing? Once again, the top executives are getting it bassackward – they should be getting pink slips. Those who actually produce the news products should get the bonuses.
Goofing Up Health Care Reform
America’s shouting match over health care reform has turned completely goofy – and I’m not talking about confused seniors at teabag rallies getting red-faced with anger after being told by the right-wing scare machine that “government is trying to take over Medicare.” No, I’m talking about our United States senators.
Take Max Baucus. Please! He’s the lightweight Montana Democrat to whom President Obama entrusted the heavy job of shepherding health care reform through the upper chamber. It was like asking Tweety Bird to lift a bowling ball.
Baucus, backed by unanimous and enthusiastic support from every Republican on his committee, has merrily jettisoned reform after reform that the industry opposed. For example, an amendment to require drug-price discounts for low-income seniors with multiple chronic illnesses: killed. The provision to include a not-for-profit public insurance option to increase competition, provide consumer choice, and keep insurance corporations honest: gone.
Why? Baucus said his goal was to produce a bill that could win the industry’s support and get the 60 votes needed to overcome a Republican filibuster.
That’s it? That’s his goal? If the meek ever inherit the earth, Baucus will be a land baron! Why isn’t it his goal to produce the best health care there is for all of the American people? Why has he let Republicans (who were voted out of office last year in part because of their failure to deal with American’s health care needs) control the terms of the debate and the content of the Democrats’ bill? Why doesn’t he take a couple of testosterone shots and reach out to the 65% of Americans (including 47% of Republicans and 63% of doctors) who support the public insurance option? Why doesn’t he rally them to kick the selfish health insurance lobbyists right in the butt and do what needs to be done for America?
This article appears in October 23 • 2009.