Assistance or antitrust?
So Hearst Corp., owner of one of the San Francisco papers, is providing a quarter-million dollars as part of MediaNews Group's billion-dollar purchase of the San Jose and Contra Costa papers. San Jose alum Dan Gillmor calls it "unnervingly close to a noncompete agreement," and absent further details I'd have to agree.
The arrangement might be similar to "joint operating agreements," federally sanctioned exceptions in antitrust law in which two financially struggling papers (with different owners) in a market combine business operations while maintaining competing newsrooms. But it is not the same thing, and if the government enforced antitrust law much anymore, I have no doubt this deal would be getting the kind of examination that would make a prostate exam feel like a quick stick-out-your-tongue in comparison.
