Censorship and Manipulating the Media: Just How "Free" is the Press?
By Diego Garcia III | Editor of The Brownsville Beacon
You can't believe everything you read on the internet.
Especially when the large monopolies that control access to what you see online are pulling the strings and leading the conversation where they want it to go.
Print media, especially small town outlets, died a long time ago, getting gobbled up by large conglomerates like Freedom Communications. Freedom Communications was a California-based media company that owned several newspapers in Texas, including almost all the newspapers in the Rio Grande Valley as well as the Odessa American.
Freedom declared bankruptcy and AIM Media Texas, LLC. purchased all of their Texas newspapers. AIM Media's headquarters is in McAllen and is captained by former Dallas Morning News president and American Consolidated Media founder Jeremy Halbreich.
I've said it before, and I'll say it again. Brownsville does not have a local newspaper anymore. The "local" news and information we receive is controlled by AIM Media and Jeremy Halbreich.
The once great newsrooms of The Brownsville Herald on East Van Buren Street were shuttered a long time ago, the giant printing presses making their way south of the border. The "Brownsville" newspaper now operates in a tiny office out of the VentureX building (the old refurbished and repurposed Edelstein's Furniture warehouse off the expressway next to The Vermillion and The Oyster Bar.
Local television hasn't really fared any better. Channel 5 concentrates on Harlingen and McAllen news, and our local CBS and NBC affiliates have merged. Our local Fox affiliate would rather report something form Laredo instead of something that happens in Brownsville.
National media isn't that much better. For all the fighting and bickering CNN, MSNBC, and Fox News do, they usually cover the same stories the same way with the exception of a heavy bias either to the right or the left.
At least we had the internet. The age of the citizen journalist would keep "old media" honest. Bloggers, independent journalists, podcasters, and YouTubers would take their brand of journalism straight to the people. The news would no longer have big multimedia conglomerates filtering the message they want to deliver.
However, the internet giveth, and the internet taketh away.
Sites like Facebook have decided to stay out of the fight against false political advertisements. Late last year they announced they would not be fact checking any political ads with no explanation. Often times, Facebook will suspend accounts that post certain things with little explanation as well.
Facebook is not the only tech/social media company that has decided to allow fake and misleading advertisements or made moves to silence certain people. Google and YouTube "discourage" popular YouTube channels from posting certain videos by threatening to demonetize, or strip the videos of any potential advertising revenue they would gain through views if the video mentions a sensitive topic.
As of last week, YouTube has classified the COVID-19 (Coronavirus) outbreak a sensitive topic, and as such, the powers-that-be have begun demonetizing videos mentioning the virus.
The irony is YouTube will allow news channels (old media) to mention, and keep, their ads talking about the Coronavirus.
Large media conglomerates and social media companies still seem to be controlling the conversation and giving us the news they want us to have.
You really have to ask yourself, do we really have freedom of the press, or does it just look like we have freedom of the press?
Appearances can definitely be deceiving.
You can't believe everything you read on the internet.
Especially when the large monopolies that control access to what you see online are pulling the strings and leading the conversation where they want it to go.
Print media, especially small town outlets, died a long time ago, getting gobbled up by large conglomerates like Freedom Communications. Freedom Communications was a California-based media company that owned several newspapers in Texas, including almost all the newspapers in the Rio Grande Valley as well as the Odessa American.
Freedom declared bankruptcy and AIM Media Texas, LLC. purchased all of their Texas newspapers. AIM Media's headquarters is in McAllen and is captained by former Dallas Morning News president and American Consolidated Media founder Jeremy Halbreich.
I've said it before, and I'll say it again. Brownsville does not have a local newspaper anymore. The "local" news and information we receive is controlled by AIM Media and Jeremy Halbreich.
The once great newsrooms of The Brownsville Herald on East Van Buren Street were shuttered a long time ago, the giant printing presses making their way south of the border. The "Brownsville" newspaper now operates in a tiny office out of the VentureX building (the old refurbished and repurposed Edelstein's Furniture warehouse off the expressway next to The Vermillion and The Oyster Bar.
Local television hasn't really fared any better. Channel 5 concentrates on Harlingen and McAllen news, and our local CBS and NBC affiliates have merged. Our local Fox affiliate would rather report something form Laredo instead of something that happens in Brownsville.
National media isn't that much better. For all the fighting and bickering CNN, MSNBC, and Fox News do, they usually cover the same stories the same way with the exception of a heavy bias either to the right or the left.
At least we had the internet. The age of the citizen journalist would keep "old media" honest. Bloggers, independent journalists, podcasters, and YouTubers would take their brand of journalism straight to the people. The news would no longer have big multimedia conglomerates filtering the message they want to deliver.
However, the internet giveth, and the internet taketh away.
Sites like Facebook have decided to stay out of the fight against false political advertisements. Late last year they announced they would not be fact checking any political ads with no explanation. Often times, Facebook will suspend accounts that post certain things with little explanation as well.
Facebook is not the only tech/social media company that has decided to allow fake and misleading advertisements or made moves to silence certain people. Google and YouTube "discourage" popular YouTube channels from posting certain videos by threatening to demonetize, or strip the videos of any potential advertising revenue they would gain through views if the video mentions a sensitive topic.
As of last week, YouTube has classified the COVID-19 (Coronavirus) outbreak a sensitive topic, and as such, the powers-that-be have begun demonetizing videos mentioning the virus.
The irony is YouTube will allow news channels (old media) to mention, and keep, their ads talking about the Coronavirus.
Large media conglomerates and social media companies still seem to be controlling the conversation and giving us the news they want us to have.
You really have to ask yourself, do we really have freedom of the press, or does it just look like we have freedom of the press?
Appearances can definitely be deceiving.
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