The new bidder is officially the China Southern Daily Group, but the company is owned by the Guangdong Provincial Communist Party. So a successful bid would mean a major American news publication would be owned by one of China’s provincial-level Communist parties.

As Jim Geraghty tweets, that should move Newsweek’s editorial slant to the right.

Seriously though, I’m no fan of protectionism but it seems like a dangerous precedent to effectively permit unfriendly foreign governments — China only really permits the Communist Party to openly operate — to own well-established American news publications.

Politics aside, I’d rather see Newsweek fail entirely than have a foreign Communist Party pump propaganda onto the grocery store newsstand.