Air Enron...er, America

Thanks to Kira Zalan for pointing me to Michelle Malkin's Air America update. Malkin updates her blog frequently, so here are two links: first and second. Don't be surprised if there's a third (or more) after you read this.

Looks like AA is having financial troubles. OK, we knew that...you don't steal from poor inner-city kids and Alzheimer's patients unless you're really hard up. Well, it runs much deeper.

A lawsuit filed by an owner of radio stations claims that the transfer of ownership of the Air America radio network from Progress Media to Piquant LLC in May 2004 was a "sham" intended to maintain the network's assets while deceiving its creditors, according to documents posted on a blog yesterday.

In the suit, which was filed in state Supreme Court at Manhattan in May, Multicultural Radio Broadcasting, a radio station owner with affiliates across the country, is seeking more than $255,000 it claims it is owed by the current owners of Air America, Piquant LLC. Multicultural's complaint, as posted on the blog of Michelle Malkin, a conservative commentator, states that the station owner is trying to enforce a judgment in its favor last November, in which the court ordered Air America's owners to pay it that amount.

Does anyone other than yours truly see the delicious irony of a station that pimps race to convince people to subscribe to their way of thinking has screwed (a) a "multicultural" radio broadcasting company and (b) the poor inner-city (i.e. predominantly minority) children?

There's also some insight as to why the MSM is ignoring the leftie network's troubles.

Why are you so relentlessly pursuing the Air America story?

Simple: It's newsworthy and national journalists aren't covering it. The hype about Air America upon its launch last year, from the New York Times on down, was overwhelming. But where are all the mainstream media cheerleaders now as reality caves in on the beleaguered liberal radio network? Political, financial, entertainment and media reporters should be all over this. But the silence is deafening. So, blogs are filling the void.

Why do you think the mainstream media isn't picking up on it? I seem to recall that Hugh Hewitt thought one explanation might be that Air America is a network with so few listeners that it's seen by the rest of the media as inconsequential.

I think it's partly ideological bias, partly ego, partly turf protection. Liberal journalists touted Air America as the left-wing radio alternative that would bring down Rush Limbaugh and conservative talk radio. It was a pipe dream. They don't want to see it fail. They don't want to acknowledge they were wrong. And they sure as heck don't want to be forced to admit that a bunch of rabble-rousing bloggers beat them to the story and shamed them into covering it.

Pretty much bullseye, I'd say. The NYT has ignored the story as well as Barnie Frank ignores scantily-clad buxom women. But sit down for this feeble explanation from the Old Gray Hag as to why it has failed to report on the story thus far:

[I]t seems to me that this story is still unfolding, and The Times, for the sake of all its readers, needs to get to the bottom of any improper conduct and assess Air America's future.

Right...because the NYT doesn't run stories based on innuendos or unless they have all the facts and the story goes through to completion, because to do so would be irresponsible! Right...and Michael Moore is a serious svelt and studly filmmaker whose work is 100% fact, not fiction.

But at least the Hag isn't liberal. Nosireebob, Ombudsman Byrone Calame "has proof. He called the editors who ignored the Air America story, and they denied that liberal bias was the reason. So the Times is not liberal. Time to go back to the divan." Nope...no liberal media bias.