Mayor Mike is expanding his news media outlet to include opinion pieces. According to the NY Times:
“… At the mayor’s urging, his giant media company will soon make a splashy foray into opinion, churning out columns and essays on issues as varied as gun control and deficit spending. At the center: up to two editorials a day that channel the views of Mr. Bloomberg himself. The mayor, a keen student of power, is privately conceding to friends that he will not be a candidate for president … He has told associates that his new op-ed project, called Bloomberg View, will allow him to maintain, and perhaps even deepen, his influence, long after the 24-hour spotlight of public office recedes …”
If he’s such a keen student of power, how come all his efforts to move gun control have been such a failure? He’s spent millions on advertising and PR stunts and it’s gotten him nothing. From a business standpoint, I can’t see there being much of a market outside of some traditional leftist areas for his op-eds and those areas are already served by the Times, Boston Globe, Washington Post, etc. He’s not bringing anything new to the table.
“… The notion of media barons using editorials to shape public opinion and policy according to their personal views is an old one in American journalism. William Randolph Hearst, for example, often wrote front-page editorials for his newspapers. Mr. Bloomberg, it would seem, is casting himself in that mold, though there are no plans for him to begin writing signed editorials. For now, he is content letting his trusted deputies speak for him …”
The problem here is that technology has opening up new media outlets which didn’t exist in Heart’s time. For such a keen student of power, he’s learned nothing from the failure of Air America which was funded by other rich leftists wanting to move their agenda. Bloomberg View looks to be essentially the same thing.