Musician and newspaper fan Steve Earle weighs in on media consolidation and media bias:

"It's not that it's right-wing or left-wing, it's just that they're doing the same thing radio is doing -- doing market research and pandering to a market they've identified. I'm ready to do the Bill O'Reilly show on Fox this month, but equating that with a real political discussion is like believing pro wrestling is real. It's just pandering to our worst instincts, and it works. They've just identified a market and can sell to it. It sells more beer.

"I don't have a problem with the existence of the right, but the right has a problem with my existence. We just have a different definition of patriotism. One day this country will be remembered maybe for rock 'n' roll, maybe for baseball, and a few other things, but our Constitution is going to be like Hammarabi's code. It's a hipper document than its framers intended it to be. ...

"Newspapers have always had to turn a profit and they lived and died. It was a volatile industry and now they have sort of stabilized with nearly everything being owned by a few corporations. It comes back down to every three months, they have to report to the stockholders. For the same reason a public stock offering is a bad way to subsidize art, it is a bad way to subsidize journalism."