Since Lambert, at Corrente, doesn't seem to know why a big Republican conference was held in a building named "The Gaylord Auditorium," and since this had too many links for Haloscan to allow posting it as a comment there, here ya go:

The Gaylord family, through its ownership of the Oklahoma Publishing Company (OPUBCO), has dominated Oklahoma news media for a century. They did this by owning Oklahoma City's most powerful radio and TV stations and the state's largest newspaper, The Oklahoman, which was noted as The Worst Newspaper in America in 1999.

OPUBCO sold WKY (930 AM) to Citadel Broadcasting in 2003, but it still owns the Oklahoman, and still partners with WKY for news. OPUBCO was forced by FCC regulations in 1975 to sell WKY-TV channel 4. These are the same media regulations that the current FCC has tried to overturn in the past few years, barring owning too many different outlets in a single market. The station has been sold a few times and is now KFOR-TV, owned by the New York Times Company.

None of this has stopped OPUBCO from putting its mark on Oklahoma.

The CJR mentions Edward L. Gaylord, son of OPUBCO's founder. He died in 2003. The newer generation isn't quite as determined to let ideology trump news, but that's not saying a whole lot. As part of its media strategy, the Gaylord family diverged into entertainment starting in the 1970s. The family currently expresses this through Gaylord Entertainment, owners of Gaylord Hotels, ResortQuest, the Grand Ole Opry, the Ryman Auditorium that hosts the Opry, WSM Radio, and before any of that, the Opryland resort and hotel. The Gaylord family also owns 35% of Bass Pro Shops, a fact it did not disclose while OPUBCO was pushing hard for a tax exemption for Bass Pro in Oklahoma City.

The newspaper was always conservative, but until E.L. Gaylord took over from his father, the founder E.K. Gaylord, it was at least a journalistic enterprise. E.L. had absolutely no interest in putting the news ahead of ultra-right-wing politics, and he shredded the newspaper's reputation, both locally and nationally. In recent years, including just before his death, the family has tried to rehabilitate that somewhat with massive donations to the University of Oklahoma. The Sooners play on Owen Field, but thanks to a massive donation by the family to complete an expansion to Oklahoma Memorial Stadium (named for the university's students who gave their lives in various wars) is now officially known as "The Gaylord Family - Oklahoma Memorial Stadium at Owen Field." No locals use that name, not even the TV stations.

In the past year, the university also opened a technologically state-of-the-art journalism school and center, the home what is now known as the Gaylord School of Journalism. Suggestions that it be placed near the Richard Nixon School of Domestic Political Ethics have, to date, fallen on deaf ears.

Update: WKY-AM ownership information corrected thanks to Charles and the magic of trackback.