Completely, unforgivably off-topic, but if you have a few tens of millions of dollars you'd like to invest in a profitable business that might help your community and leave you with a clear conscience at night, buy your local Gannett newspaper and turn it into a vibrant, local, proud, snarling, pissy, exciting rag.
http://gannettblog.blogspot.com/
Those motherfuckers are finally pulling the guts out of the business they bled years ago, putting the ax to hundreds of reporters/editors/photogs across the country, most of whom had valiantly carried on despite being owned and manhandled by a company that hates news, can't get by on profits of 30-35 percent in some cases, and turned some decent newspapers into insufferably boring, stale, dry, gutted, cheap, soulless, lifeless, bloodless, gutless, lying! (life is exciting motherfuckers! but it certainly isn't presented that way by your local Gannett paper) sacks of fish wrap shit.
I know some really good people who have done excellent work at Gannett papers, despite the ridiculous over-management, shitty pay, shitty benefits, where's the union? hours, etc. Today I think of them, and I think of the business I entered at 19, smoking an unfiltered Lucky Strike, full of a lot of shit, but right there on the streets, reporting. And I've left that behind. Wisely, as I have a family to feed and clothe.
The Internet is not going to kill news. And I'm not even certain it killed Gannett. But they would like you to believe it.
If I were a millionaire, my ass would be buying a small paper today.
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