Freedom Communications pulled into family fight. (Libertarian)

[Dover]

Freedom Communications Pulled Into a Family Fight

By JACQUES STEINBERG and ANDREW ROSS SORKIN


reedom Communications has always played the iconoclast among the nation's media companies.

Freedom, the family-controlled company that owns The Orange County Register, 27 other daily newspapers and 8 television stations, was founded in the 1930's by R. C. Hoiles, a former printer's apprentice who steeped himself in the writings of Ayn Rand. True to that heritage, Freedom has long advocated a libertarian point of view on its editorial pages and often in the boardroom. To this day, it pays a college professor $50,000 a year to serve as its "adviser on libertarian issues," exposing its top managers at semiannual retreats known as "freedom schools" to a philosophy that emphasizes the rights of the individual over those of the government.

Given all this reverence for the individual, it should come as little surprise that as the nearly 85 shareholders or their representatives gather today at a Hilton conference center near Dallas to listen to formal bids for their company, they have yet to agree on whether Freedom is even for sale.....>>MORE

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/08/19/business/media/19FREE.html