# Last Week: Screw You Boss, We're Joining a Union / This Week: Whaddya Mean Closing?? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [November 5, 2017, 8:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/last-week-screw-you-boss-were-joining-a-union-this-week-whaddya-mean-closing/800812 "2017-11-05T20:15:45Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 10
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2017, 1:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/last-week-screw-you-boss-were-joining-a-union-this-week-whaddya-mean-closing/800812/181 "2017-11-08T01:46:21Z")
> [@Kimstu](#): > > As I noted in my previous post, the control of consumer choice is generally shared between individual consumers and the government. > [@D\_Anconia](#): > > That’s a silly statement. The government doesn’t, or at least shouldn’t, have any say in consumer choice. That’s, at best, a libertarian aspiration when applied broadly, so it’s not one that is shared by many people. I don’t know that I’d say it’s objectively wrong, but history has shown that it’s not what people want (heh!). You’re on firmer ground if we restrict the discussion to news consumption. > [@](#): > > Serious question, are you in favor of a planned economy? Don’t answer, **Kimstu**. It’s a trap!! 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2017, 2:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/last-week-screw-you-boss-were-joining-a-union-this-week-whaddya-mean-closing/800812/182 "2017-11-08T02:04:28Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > Perhaps not, but we’re not talking here about “reliable” news; we’re discussing news outlets that were very comfortable in putting liberal spin on news. But the point is, as all the linked articles covering this story have addressed, that such outlets are nearly or entirely the only remaining source of in-depth **local** news on events and policies that affect communities. > [@Bricker](#): > > […] the model of journalism that Gothamist offered included, for instance, such gems as inveighing against the fact that prison inmate workers are not permitted to form unions. You’ll hopefully forgive me for not regarding this as serious reliable news. 😕 Are you referring to [this article](http://gothamist.com/2017/11/02/prison_slave_labor_ny.php)? > [@](#): > > How NY Prison ‘Slave Labor’ Powers A $50 Million Manufacturing Enterprise > > […] While Corcraft’s operations are largely hidden behind prison walls, a 2014 DOCCS report says Corcraft “employs approximately 2,100 inmates and 288 civilians in 14 facilities across the state.” > > Corcraft averages around $48 million in sales annually, according to the 2014 DOCCS report, a figure confirmed by an independent state comptroller report. Revenue from sales goes into the state general fund. > > According to DOCCS’ spokesperson Patrick J. Bailey, the “average Corcraft inmate wage during FY15-16 was 65 cents an hour or about $1,092 per inmate per year.” The lowest Corcraft wage is 16 cents per hour, though some can earn bonuses equal to $1.14 per hour. > > At these rates, “Prison labor is prison slave labor,” charges Alex Friedmann, managing editor of Prison Legal News and associate director of the Human Rights Defense Center, a prisoners’ rights advocacy group. […] > > State law requires local governments to purchase commodities from Corcraft if it has a product that satisfies the form, function and utility required. The law, in effect, gives Corcraft monopoly-like power over the state-wide municipal institution market because the law exempts Corcraft from another state law mandating competitive bidding. > > According to Bailey, New York City is the largest single purchaser of Corcraft products. Cathy Hanson, a spokesperson for the Department of Citywide Services (the city agency responsible for keeping city agencies supplied), tells Gothamist that this fiscal year New York spent more than $15 million on Corcraft items. > > Doug Turetsky and his colleagues at the Independent Budget Office provided a detailed accounting of city purchases dating back to March 2013, totaling around $41 million. […] > > Governor Andrew Cuomo has the power to raise prisoners’ wages, either through executive action or the budget process. […] > > The last time New York’s prisoners were given a pay raise was in 1993, when Governor Cuomo’s father, Mario, was the governor. […] Whatever your views on the ethics of prison labor wage rates or equating them with “slave labor”, ISTM that this is a fairly important piece of reporting on the relationship of municipal expenditure to local prison systems. In the classic tradition of muckraking journalism, it summarizes and analyzes a lot of information that isn’t readily available about an issue that’s largely invisible to public perception. > [@Bricker](#): > > The idea that publications can simply say stuff and people will still consume it because they have no choice is long gone, buried next to the draught horse. ISTM that instead of being obsolete, the “lack of choice” issue is still absolutely crucial in this situation. What amount of “choice” currently exists for similarly in-depth reporting on local news issues? You have gone off on the tangent that these news outlets are dispensable because they’re “liberal”. But what I want to know is whether the sort of information research and in-depth reportage that they provided to their communities is being covered at all, now that they’re gone. > [@Bricker](#): > > No, I was clear. No, as it turns out, but your particular misconception was in fact different from what I initially guessed it was. You are arguing that ignorance of news on subjects like local prison labor, sexual abuse of prisoners, electoral backroom deals on charter schools, the silent “sunsetting” of a provision reducing city personal income tax rates for many residents, and so on, is preferable to learning about such news from reporting that may have a “liberal bias”. You imagine that the cessation of such reporting represents some kind of a victory for “consumer choice”. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2017, 2:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/last-week-screw-you-boss-were-joining-a-union-this-week-whaddya-mean-closing/800812/183 "2017-11-08T02:07:23Z")
> [@Kimstu](#): > > Not at all, I was just lazily redirecting you to those previous posts to avoid more typing. What I meant was “Yes, I agree that the assumption of rational economic actors is a recognized condition for the efficient operation of markets that in practice often does not obtain.” Isn’t that pretty much orthodox economic thinking these days? Rational actors have their place when you’re unable to do any better, but once you are, then their usefulness diminishes. > [@](#): > > Um, but you **do** buy into the idea that “some panel of experts” should be making **some** decisions, and pretty important ones at that, for most humans. > > At least, I have never seen you protesting the fact that the Pentagon and the JCS make decisions about what arrangements we need for national defense, and that the FDA makes decisions about what we can put in our commercial food products and prescription drugs, and that the local DOT makes decisions about when our roads need repairing, and so on and so forth ad infinitum. > > The market-fundamentalist notion that individuals are always the best judges of their own requirements, or even that individual choice is always at least better than any other system for satisfying their requirements, is an unworkable fantasy that no functioning society comes close to implementing in reality. OK, that was probably my “laziness”. We kind of keep jumping between “general market ideas” and “issue surrounding a free press”. My comments were related to the latter. I do agree that “panels of experts” have a place in our society, even if I probably wouldn’t agree with you on their scope. But when it comes to the news, what then shall we do? > [@](#): > > Well, I think we should start by not losing sight of the fact that we often override the principle of individual consumer choice in order to avoid some of the bad outcomes inevitably produced by individual human irrationality. I agree that beyond that, though, it’s pretty complicated. Agreed! > [@](#): > > Um, you know that I didn’t make up [these criteria](http://www.triplepundit.com/2011/12/fallacies-free-markets/) myself, right? Yes, of course. I was using “your” in the sense of “the criteria you are using”. Sorry if that wasn’t clear. But, more importantly, I don’t see how this applies to a web based news outlet. People are increasingly less willing to pay anything for web based content, so when a product is essentially free, we’re not even talking about a market in the first place. Or, the market place is who gets the best paying advertisers for their site. In that case, though, we’re not talking about “stoopid, uninformed consumerses (little Gollum joke there)”, but people who need to be experts in their industry and I’m not seeing the market failure there. If I’m missing it, please help me out. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2017, 2:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/last-week-screw-you-boss-were-joining-a-union-this-week-whaddya-mean-closing/800812/184 "2017-11-08T02:24:34Z")
> [@D\_Anconia](#): > > The government doesn’t, or at least shouldn’t, have any say in consumer choice. Uh-huh, sure. This is why consumers still buy “paregoric” syrup for teething babies that has hefty doses of opium in it. Or if they don’t, they should absolutely be able to. The fundamental right of consumers to choose to give opium to their teething babies must be protected at all costs. :rolleyes: Come on **D’Anconia** , you can’t be serious about this. You can’t possibly be so naive as to imagine that just because you can walk down the drugstore aisle and make up your own mind about, say, which of several heavily regulated and advisory-accompanied packages of anti-fungal foot cream you prefer to buy, without a jackbooted government agent standing over you shouting _“You must buy this one and not that one!”_, therefore the government “doesn’t have any say in consumer choice”. Of fucking course the government has a hell of a huge amount of say in what choices consumers may make. Under what Martian rock have you been living that you can even begin to imagine it doesn’t? > [@D'Anconia](#): > > Serious question, are you in favor of a planned economy? What exactly do you mean by “a planned economy”? Given how bizarrely and unrealistically you seem to interpret basic economic concepts like governmental involvement in consumer choice, I really can’t venture to guess what a term like “planned economy” might mean to you. > [@John Mace](#): > > Don’t answer, Kimstu. It’s a trap!! 😉 Yeah, a trap baited with half a dead cockroach and a chewed-up 1986 Chevy Cavalier owner’s manual. Fortunately, I managed to resist its allure. ---
**Author:** ![D\_Anconia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/67e7ee/32.png) [@D\_Anconia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/D_Anconia)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2017, 6:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/last-week-screw-you-boss-were-joining-a-union-this-week-whaddya-mean-closing/800812/185 "2017-11-08T06:01:46Z")
A “panel of experts” might be the dumbest thing I’ve ever read on the board. Who appoints them? Who are they answerable to? Why should they have any say in the first place? This isn’t (yet) a nanny state. ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2017, 8:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/last-week-screw-you-boss-were-joining-a-union-this-week-whaddya-mean-closing/800812/186 "2017-11-08T08:21:02Z")
You sure you wouldn’t like Mary Poppins to come to your place and be stern with you? ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2017, 8:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/last-week-screw-you-boss-were-joining-a-union-this-week-whaddya-mean-closing/800812/187 "2017-11-08T08:38:04Z")
> [@D\_Anconia](#): > > A “panel of experts” might be the dumbest thing I’ve ever read on the board. Who appoints them? Who are they answerable to? Why should they have any say in the first place? It’s called a regulatory agency. They’re appointed by our elected officials, and we often disagree about what the scope of their powers should be, but let’s just say one thing they do is make sure your next-door neighbor doesn’t roof his house with thatch bales that have been soaked in gasoline. But like I said, you’re standing on firmer ground when you confine the discussion to news outlets. ---
**Author:** ![nightshadea](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/7ba0ec/32.png) [@nightshadea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nightshadea)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2017, 9:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/last-week-screw-you-boss-were-joining-a-union-this-week-whaddya-mean-closing/800812/188 "2017-11-08T09:05:50Z")
> [@doorhinge](#): > > You’re demanding that someone continue to fund a company that they no longer wish to fund. Maybe you’re confusing private industry with some government program? No I mean they don’t want any safety laws no minimum wage and probably wouldn’t mind bringing back child labor as long as it didn’t interfere with the almighty profit pretty much how big business factory wage slavery worked in the guilded age of course they forget that all of that worked only because of unskilled immigrant labor which wouldn’t work in America .these days ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2017, 9:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/last-week-screw-you-boss-were-joining-a-union-this-week-whaddya-mean-closing/800812/189 "2017-11-08T09:27:20Z")
\*Gilded \*Age. Cheap, gold-plated. Sorry, can’t help it. Pedantic spasms, a snotty version of Tourette’s. ---
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2017, 12:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/last-week-screw-you-boss-were-joining-a-union-this-week-whaddya-mean-closing/800812/190 "2017-11-08T12:29:46Z")
> [@Kimstu](#): > > But the point is, as all the linked articles covering this story have addressed, that such outlets are nearly or entirely the only remaining source of in-depth **local** news on events and policies that affect communities. I prefer “no in-depth local news,” to “in-depth local news with a heavy liberal slant.” > [@](#): > > 😕 Are you referring to [this article](http://gothamist.com/2017/11/02/prison_slave_labor_ny.php)? > > Whatever your views on the ethics of prison labor wage rates or equating them with “slave labor”, ISTM that this is a fairly important piece of reporting on the relationship of municipal expenditure to local prison systems. In the classic tradition of muckraking journalism, it summarizes and analyzes a lot of information that isn’t readily available about an issue that’s largely invisible to public perception. And it does so in an absurd and hysterical way. If my choice is “none” or “absurd and hysterical,” then I’m happy with “none.” > [@](#): > > You have gone off on the tangent that these news outlets are dispensable because they’re “liberal”. But what I want to know is whether the sort of information research and in-depth reportage that they provided to their communities is being covered at all, now that they’re gone. Why should I regard the loss as a worse outcome than their continued presence? > [@](#): > > No, as it turns out, but your particular misconception was in fact different from what I initially guessed it was. You are arguing that ignorance of news on subjects like local prison labor, sexual abuse of prisoners, electoral backroom deals on charter schools, the silent “sunsetting” of a provision reducing city personal income tax rates for many residents, and so on, is preferable to learning about such news from reporting that may have a “liberal bias”. You imagine that the cessation of such reporting represents some kind of a victory for “consumer choice”. May? May?? No: DOES have a liberal bias. And yes, I argue that biased information is worse than no information. ---
**Author:** ![Stanislaus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/stanislaus/32/3391_2.png) [@Stanislaus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stanislaus)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2017, 1:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/last-week-screw-you-boss-were-joining-a-union-this-week-whaddya-mean-closing/800812/191 "2017-11-08T13:13:46Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > And yes, I argue that biased information is worse than no information. Is this a purely partisan objection, or would you, on principal, object just as strongly to an “absurd and hysterical” right-leaning local news site? ---
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2017, 1:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/last-week-screw-you-boss-were-joining-a-union-this-week-whaddya-mean-closing/800812/192 "2017-11-08T13:36:40Z")
> [@elucidator](#): > > \*Gilded \*Age. Cheap, gold-plated. > > Sorry, can’t help it. Pedantic spasms, a snotty version of Tourette’s. Well, I’d have to agree that “how big business factory wage slavery worked in the guilded age” pretty accurately reflects the old European guild/master/apprentice system in the trades, except maybe for the “big” part. ---
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2017, 2:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/last-week-screw-you-boss-were-joining-a-union-this-week-whaddya-mean-closing/800812/193 "2017-11-08T14:06:38Z")
> [@Stanislaus](#): > > Is this a purely partisan objection, or would you, on principal, object just as strongly to an “absurd and hysterical” right-leaning local news site? Yes. While it’s undeniable that my sympathies tend to lean rightwards, the right-wing sites that spew absurd and hysterical stuff I regard as almost worse than the lefty sites, because they are ostensibly “my side,” and I am always left thinking, “Um. . . stop ‘helping,’ mmmkay?” I’d love to see economic pressure shutter absurd and hysterical content across the board. And this includes Fox News to the extent that they hyperventilated about Benghazi and emails, both of which I regarded as manufactured outrage (and said so here). ---
**Author:** ![Airbeck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/airbeck/32/6574_2.png) [@Airbeck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Airbeck)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2017, 2:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/last-week-screw-you-boss-were-joining-a-union-this-week-whaddya-mean-closing/800812/194 "2017-11-08T14:35:22Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > Yes. > > While it’s undeniable that my sympathies tend to lean rightwards, the right-wing sites that spew absurd and hysterical stuff I regard as almost worse than the lefty sites, because they are ostensibly “my side,” and I am always left thinking, “Um. . . stop ‘helping,’ mmmkay?” > > I’d love to see economic pressure shutter absurd and hysterical content across the board. And this includes Fox News to the extent that they hyperventilated about Benghazi and emails, both of which I regarded as manufactured outrage (and said so here). Can you give an example of a news outlet that you do not consider to be biased in any way? I just want to see what you consider to be objective journalism. If you think any such thing exists. ---
**Author:** ![Stanislaus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/stanislaus/32/3391_2.png) [@Stanislaus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stanislaus)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2017, 2:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/last-week-screw-you-boss-were-joining-a-union-this-week-whaddya-mean-closing/800812/195 "2017-11-08T14:54:08Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > Yes. > > While it’s undeniable that my sympathies tend to lean rightwards, the right-wing sites that spew absurd and hysterical stuff I regard as almost worse than the lefty sites, because they are ostensibly “my side,” and I am always left thinking, “Um. . . stop ‘helping,’ mmmkay?” > > I’d love to see economic pressure shutter absurd and hysterical content across the board. And this includes Fox News to the extent that they hyperventilated about Benghazi and emails, both of which I regarded as manufactured outrage (and said so here). Very fair! (I mean, I don’t agree that the article on prison labour, although it clearly had a point of view, was absurd or hysterical. But I guess I’d classify some right-wing journalism differently than you, too.) I’m going to go out on a limb and guess that the reason you specified economic pressure above is because you’d recoil in horror at the idea of a bipartisan panel of experts deciding what constituted absurd and hysterical bias and shutting down media outlets accordingly. (As well you might.) However, leaving it to “economic pressure” seems to have some problems. It wasn’t entirely economic pressure that shut down Gothamist though, was it? AIUI, it was profitable till July 2017, when it was bought and merged with an unprofitable site. It only failed when the new owner decided he didn’t want to employ a unionised workforce. We can’t tell whether the market has selected against liberal leaning local news, or dilettante and slightly petulant billionaires. Indeed, is it really fair to consider this a decision of the market at all? Ricketts certainly didn’t seem to see eye-to-eye with his employees politically, and this seems to have had some influence on his decision to close the site. But I doubt he planned this out. However, what if a biased billionaire were to buy a partisan site with the intention of closing it down and taking its filthy propaganda off-air (so to speak). Or alternatively, to buy a failing partisan news site and pump money into it so that it stayed afloat when otherwise it would fail? Is that just another version of the market in action, insofar as the market includes partisan billionaires? I would think it a distortion of market pressure, personally. One way round this problem might be the creation of a publicly-funded, independently run news organisation which is accountable to the public and has open and transparent editorial guidelines. It’s crazy, but it might just [work](http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbctrust/governance/regulatory_framework/charter_agreement.html/). ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2017, 2:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/last-week-screw-you-boss-were-joining-a-union-this-week-whaddya-mean-closing/800812/196 "2017-11-08T14:56:59Z")
> [@Stanislaus](#): > > It wasn’t entirely economic pressure that shut down Gothamist though, was it? AIUI, it was profitable till July 2017, when it was bought and merged with an unprofitable site. It only failed when the new owner decided he didn’t want to employ a unionised workforce. We can’t tell whether the market has selected against liberal leaning local news, or dilettante and slightly petulant billionaires. Indeed, is it really fair to consider this a decision of the market at all? The implicit assumption there, though, is that if it was profitable before having a union, it would be profitable after. So we can’t claim that we know it wasn’t entirely economic pressure. ---
**Author:** ![Stanislaus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/stanislaus/32/3391_2.png) [@Stanislaus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stanislaus)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2017, 3:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/last-week-screw-you-boss-were-joining-a-union-this-week-whaddya-mean-closing/800812/197 "2017-11-08T15:02:24Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > The implicit assumption there, though, is that if it was profitable before having a union, it would be profitable after. So we can’t claim that we know it wasn’t entirely economic pressure. Absolutely. My point is precisely that we can’t be certain what the fate of Gothamist would have been had Ricketts never bought it, not that we do know and it would have been fine. But that uncertainty isn’t a great platform for declaring that the market has shut down liberal bias. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2017, 3:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/last-week-screw-you-boss-were-joining-a-union-this-week-whaddya-mean-closing/800812/198 "2017-11-08T15:06:03Z")
> [@Stanislaus](#): > > Absolutely. My point is precisely that we can’t be certain what the fate of Gothamist would have been had Ricketts never bought it, not that we do know and it would have been fine. But that uncertainty isn’t a great platform for declaring that the market has shut down liberal bias. Oh, OK. I’m kinda not paying attention to the whole “liberal bias” thing as I think it’s not something that is ever rationally debated here, if it can be rationally debated anywhere. ---
**Author:** ![D\_Anconia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/67e7ee/32.png) [@D\_Anconia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/D_Anconia)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2017, 3:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/last-week-screw-you-boss-were-joining-a-union-this-week-whaddya-mean-closing/800812/199 "2017-11-08T15:08:53Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > But like I said, you’re standing on firmer ground when you confine the discussion to news outlets. Yes, you’re right. Health and safety regulations are good, and I have no problem with them. On the other hand, “regulating” the news is 100% objectionable. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2017, 3:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/last-week-screw-you-boss-were-joining-a-union-this-week-whaddya-mean-closing/800812/200 "2017-11-08T15:24:07Z")
> [@D\_Anconia](#): > > Yes, you’re right. Health and safety regulations are good, and I have no problem with them. On the other hand, “regulating” the news is 100% objectionable. OK. That’s a reasonable response. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/last-week-screw-you-boss-were-joining-a-union-this-week-whaddya-mean-closing/800812.md?page=9) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/last-week-screw-you-boss-were-joining-a-union-this-week-whaddya-mean-closing/800812.md?page=11)