It is hard to ignore the fact that to this day the El Paso Times and the City of El Paso share a building.
The part of the building that used to be the administrative offices of the Times was sold by the newspaper to the city. Some of us think that the price the city paid was significantly higher than would have been paid in an arm’s length transaction.
The Times wanted to get out of their building so they sold part of it to the city. Moving the production facilities was evidently deemed to be too expensive.
So now we have a situation where city executives work with Times personnel in the same building on a daily basis.
If the opprobrium of the many current city scandals ever goes away we will still have to see our city government and what should be an independent newspaper residing in the same building sharing common financial goals.
We deserve better
Brutus
Brutus
What has been sometimes called the forth wheel of a government “the press” is clearly broken in El Paso. Hell Brutus that fourth wheel has fallen off the wagon and is now for sale in the local flea market of El Paso media.
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Yeah, and the general public is NOT WELCOME to even enter the building. You have to tell security where you are going and they have to verify with that office that the person is there and watch out that you don’t have any metal detector no-no’s on you. That security sucks, sucks, sucks!
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The security at the other offices is much more lenient. I guess it’s all about protecting the City Reps and the Mayor from bad guys…but the City staff is open game.
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I am surprised by this post. Normally, Brutus sticks carefully to the facts. While Brutus’ information is correct, it does not tell all of the story, as Paul Harvey used to say.
The Times did not own the building and had no say over its sale. The building was owned by a holding company that owned the Times. The paper’s locals / staff were not involved in the sale.
The east part of the building houses the Time’s printing presses
and is separate from the main building that houses the Mayor and the reps plus staff. The guy that runs the press does not have anything to do with editorial content and is separated by a wall from the city part of the building. The editorial staff send their stories and layout over the press guy digitally over the internet. They do not have any reason to visit the presses. .
I really see no conflict here.
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Germain
If you believe some one at the Times had zero input to the sell of the Times building to the City then your an example of the gullibility of some in El Paso that has got your city in the trouble it’s in.
So Digital First Media just figure out what was taking place in the City of El Paso by osmosis coming up with the idea out of the clear blue sky to make the big sale to the city of their building, with just the perfect timing,with out any one at the Times having any hand or part in at least the promotion of the idea to the heads of the parent company Digital First Media .
Oh that also happen just before the sell of the Times to Gannett.
Can understand why you can’t see any conflict here.
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You are sugar coating “conflict of interest”. In other words the holding company that owned the Times and the Times cannot bite the hand that feeds them.
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There is a certain irony in that the chief purveyor of BS is right down the hall from the chief supplier of the same.
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