Following closely on The Huffington Post's announcement Monday that AOL will acquire the website for $315 million, Markos Moulitsas, creator of the left wing political discussion website Daily Kos has announced that it is selling the site to Rupert Murdoch's Fox News for $630 million. Fox News CEO Roger Ailes issued a followup press release stating that he feels that "the price of the DKos site reflects the fact that the quality of writing is at least double that of the on-line articles at The Huffington Post."
Ailes also stated that fans of the site can "expect only very minor changes in the content, intended to raise journalistic standards."
Among the changes expected are that:
- Fox News commentator Glenn Beck will take over the regular feature This Week in Science from regular DKos contributor Dark Syde.
- Cheers and Jeers will maintain its northern wilderness flavor, but will change its title to Hisses and Boos, Also and pass from current writer Bill in Portland Maine to someone named Sarah in Wasilla Alaska.
- Ailes himself will take over authorship from DemFromCT of the popular daily feature Abbreviated Pundit Roundup in order to give "a more balanced picture."
- Reporting of political polls on the site is, according to Ailes, "so scattered across so many different polls that it confuses the readership." To rectify this, only Rasmussen polls will hereafter be published on the new Daily Kos.
Traditional Daily Kos fans may be relieved to know that Moulitsas himself will continue working for the site, if in a less public role. Ailes announced that the founder will be moving to a "new position where he will be able to work more closely with the other fifteen Fox employees of a Hispanic background."
There are currently many other rumors of purchases and takeovers that may be announced in the coming week. These include:
- The group Planned Parenthood has announced that it is being purchased by the Utah-based corporation The Church of Latter-day Saints.
- Founder of the Internet website Wikileaks Julian Assange has refused to confirm rumors that he is planning to sell the site to another popular Internet website The CIA Factbook.
- The Qatar-based Arabic television network al-Jazeera is in ongoing negotiations for purchase by the Israeli daily newspaper Haaretz.
In the wake of all these takeovers, the new White House Press Secretary Jay Carney found it necessary to declare that the rumors that all White House property will be sold to the Republican Party are completely false. However, Carney did confirm that options on the soul of President Obama were secretly purchased in early 2009 by Bank of America.
UPDATE: Sheesh! Recommended. Thanks. (Hope no one is misled into thinking it's true -- Jonathan Swift paranoia!)