WHAT is that ugly, fish-smelling blob? Catsimatidis

Catsimatidis. Is that the name of a disease? Is that the name of this repulsive blobby fish??

No, Catsimatidis is another word for "Fat Cat." It's JOHN CATSIMATIDIS who wants to be the Rupert Murdoch of America, by buying a newspaper and using it to bully the world.

A few years ago he tried to buy the New York's mayor race and run as a manipulative conservative King Despot. He would've been the richest fattest most ruthless maniac King since Henry VIII.

That he once used his big fat wallet to smack ALL newspapers into NOT reporting on supermarket chicanery, is not lost on The New York Post. The Post's media writer is quite amused that "Fat Cat" is now trying to buy the rival Daily News, a paper he once refused to sell in his supermarket chain.

Is this a local story of interest only to New Yorkers? No. It points up the kind of bullying and corruption that is intimidating news coverage all over the world.

"Hit 'em in the wallet." You can't have effective news reporting without money. Money usually comes from ad revenue or, in the case of the few "public television" TV stations, grants from big corporations who don't expect that their generous hand is going to be bitten. Few companies will take out ads in a paper that doesn't fit their political beliefs, or would run an expose on things their industry does wrong.

When The Daily News dared to print government inspections of area supermarkets, and report on all the sneaky tricks supermarkets use, "Fat Cat" not only pulled his ads, but contacted all his rivals and told them to boycott the paper, too. And the paper was no longer sold in his supermarkets.

As Kelly points out in the text of this article, "once Catsimatidis objected and organized a boycott that cost the paper millions in lost ad revenue over the next month and a half," the paper caved in and ran a positive series on supermarkets.

The Daily News defended their sudden multi-page ode to area supermarkets as "value-added marketing that we hope will bring supermarkets back into the newspaper."

The disgusting truth is newspapers are now more amusement than news. Worse, when they do run the news, they are mindful of NOT running crusading articles on corruption that might come back to haunt them. An article on the dangers of fast food when there could be a full page Burger King ad? Let's be VERY careful how we slant that article IF we run it at all.

So what happens if Catsimatidis buys The Daily News? Will he fire anyone still around from 2001? Or worse, will he make sure the paper runs only positive articles on his pals and cronies, and slants their news coverage to his conservative agenda?

“I stand for honesty and integrity — more so than anybody I know,” he says. He must know a lot of fat disgusting crooks.

IF I'M BEING HONEST, all news coverage is corrupt. If there's a way to slant it, it will be slanted. It can be slanted toward Liberals or Conservatives. Even photos can color a story, and only flattering shots appear if the editorial meeting says "don't get that person angry." If there's a way to curry favor, or get some money on the side, it will be done. Some of this is harmless. Some isn't.

Harmless? Harmless is a publicist telling a writer, "Promote my client's restaurant. I'll tell you a few celebs who've been in there, and YOU mention it in your gossip section. Or, if you do an interview with a star, say it happened in his restaurant. Then come in for a FREE MEAL for yourself and your wife. Nice?"

That's the sort of harmless side of it. It progresses to "don't write a bad review of that book (cd, dvd, etc.) because that company is going to take out a full page ad next week for some of their other stuff." And from there, you can imagine. If there's REAL money on the table, or a chance to become an ambassador, or get your son a do-nothing government job, etc. etc., the newspaper article becomes a "puff piece."

There are some politicians who are always in the news giving speeches. Others never get coverage no matter how important the topic. Hmmm...

Sometimes someone in the media goes too far or gets too greedy, and then a "Fat Cat" or a Brian Williams is exposed for greed and/or lies. But the downside is it's throwing only one broken-winged bat to the wolves. It makes it seem like there's no festering cave full of rabid bats, chittering madly, shitting all over the floor, and careening around with their fangs dripping blood.