THE FREE MARKET AND THE WINGNUTS

We hear over and over again that truth, justice and the American Way crucially depend on free markets. There are many exceptions, as Nobel Prize winners know, and one of them is terrifically ironic: wingnut publications.

The National Review has never made a profit, according to this article in the New York Sun, "An 'Encounter' With Conservative Publishing":

Mr. Buckley recalled that about a week ago, at an affair celebrating the 50th anniversary of the National Review, he had divulged that the National Review had lost about $25 million over 50 years, or about $500,000 a year - "about the cost of one third of one torpedo." He said people who backed the enterprise volunteered money over the years: "Our dear donors and friends had a sort of genius for exactly estimating how much money we needed to survive," because, Mr. Buckley said, they never gave one dollar more than was necessary. The National Review founder said it was correct to say the existence of that journal had affected the destiny of this country and would not have been possible without the help of Americans who understood that ideas have consequences.

The same is true for the Washington Times according to this WaPo article, "Tension of the Times":

The Unification Church has bankrolled huge losses at the Times, which several sources estimated have totaled more than $1 billion over the past 22 years. The paper's losses are running about $20 million annually, one source said; another source offered a slightly higher estimate.

Thanx to a nasty divorce proceeding, I also learned that the wingnut paper The Pittsburgh Tribune-Review has also failed the free-market test. According to the WaPo article "Low Road to Splitsville":

...the Tribune-Review has been a gurgling sinkhole from Day One; Scaife's lawyers say their client has pumped as much as $312 million into it over the years. And he's going to have to keep on pumping. The Tribune-Review's CEO has predicted an annual shortfall of $20 million for years to come.