[Texgreen] Toll Road Giant Buys Newspapers to Silence Critics

[Craig MIller]

Let's see ... $80 million for the papers, drop in the buck for a $160 billion
project that will leave hundreds of millions $ in profit.  Sounds like a
reasonable business strategy (economically).

cdm 




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---- On Sun, 28 Jan 2007, margaret (max104@io.com) wrote:

http://www.thenewspaper.com/news/15/1570.asp

Toll Road Giant Buys Newspapers to Silence Critics

Critics charge that the Macquarie purchase of American Consolidated 
Media is designed to silence critics of a Texas toll road project

The Newspaper | January 28, 2007 

Australian toll road giant Macquarie agreed Wednesday to purchase forty 
local newspapers, primarily in Texas and Oklahoma, for $80 million. 
Macquarie Bank is Australia's largest capital raising firm and has 
invested billions in purchasing roads in the US, Canada and UK. Most 
recently the company joined with Cintra Concesiones of Spain in a 
controversial 75-year lease of the 157-mile Indiana Toll Road.

Sal Costello, the leading opponent of toll road projects as head of the 
Texas Toll Party, says the move is directly related to a 4,000-mile 
toll road project known as the Trans-Texas Corridor. It will cost 
between $145 and $183 billion to construct the road, expected to be up 
to 1,200 feet wide, requiring the acquisition of 9,000 square miles of 
land in the areas through which it will pass.

"The newspapers are the main communication tool for many of the rural 
Texan communities, with many citizens at risk of losing their homes and 
farms through eminent domain," Costello wrote.

Many of the small papers purchased, most have a circulation of 5,000 or 
less, have been critical of the Trans-Texas Corridor. An article in the 
Bonham Journal for example, states, "The toll roads will be under 
control of foreign investors, which more than frustrates Texans."
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