Koch Industries, Chicago Tribune, and Market Based Journalism?

So for some reason the Koch Industries can’t seem to stay out of the news. The story was first broke here by the New York Times (I still can’t believe Paul Krugman is on that payroll). As you may know I have covered the Koch brothers extensively as I did a historical net worth analysis from 1984-2013 here, an extensive three part series on them here, here, and here. I always find it mysterious when people say that the Koch brothers are secretive when they agreed to this 37 pages profile in the Wichita Eagle from 1994 and this recent extensive series from the Wichita Eagle from last year, and this Forbes cover story last year. Charles and David Koch are American heroes in my book for building a company that employees 60,000 people, preaching how the free market can help people, and becoming billionaires by offering people products and services at high quality, and low prices. 

Basically as the story goes the Tribune Company which owns papers such as the Los Angeles Times, the Chicago Tribune, and other newspapers is expected to release their financial data. There are rumors that Koch Industries is interested. The total value of all the papers is $623 million (the Tribune itself is an $7 billion company). Daniel Fisher of Forbes estimated that Koch Industries has around $11 billion per year in cash flow (before taxes and depreciation). Koch Industries has revenue of $115 billion per year. Clearly, Koch Industries could purchase the Tribune Company. The question is what would Koch Industries do with it?

Koch Industries recently provided $240 million to American Greeting to take the company private. The investment was made by a subsidiary of Koch Industries which actually tends to invest companies (however they don’t operate them).

I honestly don’t believe Charles and David Koch will buy the Tribune Company and turn it into some Fox News themed newspaper. Koch Industries has a history of investing in companies for the long term as was pointed out in the December 2012 Forbes article. It may actually surprise people that Koch Industries doesn’t just milk companies for profits and turn them around to resell them. The company often invests for growth and profits over the long term (which one could make the argument is the morally right thing to do). Market Based Journalism would be interesting though.