Your paper not even mention an important local news story, especially if such unreported news is not good for its owner.
Why would your local newspaper not even mention an important local news story? Perhaps because such unreported news is a damning story about the conglomerate owner of the paper.
This month, hundreds of journalists working for major dailies in some two dozen cities across America joined in an extraordinary mass walkout from their jobs. They were protesting the rank greed, gross mismanagement and abandonment of democratic duty by the owner of their papers. That owner is Gannett, a massive financial conglomerate that has grabbed control of more than 200 dailies in 43 states. This is a huge, multidimensional unreported news story about news itself — but where was the coverage?
Big Story No. 1: Unbeknownst to most people in these communities, they no longer have a local daily paper: Control over everything from news content to price now belongs to bean-counting strangers at Gannett headquarters hundreds of miles away.
Big Story No. 2: More fundamentally, control has moved from journalists to bankers. Gannett is owned by SoftBank, a Japanese hedge fund that has rapaciously looted American newsrooms to grab extravagant fees, salaries and profits for its rich financial hucksters.
Big Story No. 3: The workaday hometown reporters, photographers and others who actually produce Gannett’s papers are making a gutsy stand against the profiteer, not just for themselves, but for the essential ideals of journalistic integrity and grassroots democracy.
Biggest Story of All: Gannett’s 200-plus papers cravenly joined in a concerted blanket coverup of this momentous story, stiffing the public they’re supposed to serve and disrespecting the ethical stand of their own employees. Even Gannett’s flagship paper USA Today — which regularly reports on other labor actions — took a dive on covering the journalistic malfeasance of its own overseer.
To fight hedge fund corporatization of journalism, local news and democracy, go to newsguild.org.
True ‘Wokeism’ is a Core American Value — Stand Up for It!
As Scottish literary giant Robert Burns wrote, “The best-laid schemes of mice and men / Go oft awry.”
His 1785 poem, titled “To a Mouse,” could be directed today at the right-wing sloganeers who’ve been scheming so furiously to turn their hokey “woke” snobbery into a winning political stratagem. “Your local librarian is woke!” they screech. “So is Disney, Inc.! Some of your churches, too, plus all Democrats, and — OMG — even Bud Light!!!” Creeping “wokeism” is the new Red Scare, Welfare Queen and Willie Horton political bugaboos rolled into one, forming the main “issue” of Republicans now running for president, Congress and dogcatcher.
But rather than getting defensive, insisting you are NOT woke, consider firing back by saying, “Of course I’m woke!” For the great majority of Americans, being woke is a very positive characteristic, meaning you’re awake, attentive to what’s going on. Indeed, in Black communities, “stay woke” has long meant staying alert to racial and social injustices. But even some Republicans must consider it bizarrely self-defeating for their party’s top candidates to be urging voters to go to sleep.
GOP leaders explain that “anti-woke” means crusading against DEI (diversity, equity and inclusion). But wait — that means they’re opposing America itself, for we are a nation united under the essential principle of e pluribus unum. As affirmed by the egalitarian principles of the Declaration of Independence, the 14th Amendment, the Statue of Liberty — and our kindergarten teachings of sharing and fairness — ours is a country rooted in constant diversification, expanding equality and the democratic idea that every voice ought to be included. Our country needs more of all three!
This is Jim Hightower saying… America is way short of achieving these historic ideals, but shame on those revisionist political elites now demanding we abandon even striving for them. Confront the charlatans!
Twice elected Texas Agriculture Commissioner, Hightower is a modern-day Johnny Appleseed, spreading the message of progressive populism all across the American grassroots.
He broadcasts daily radio commentaries that are carried in more than 150 commercial and public stations and on the web.
- Hey, Democrats: Find the Party’s Future in its Populist Past - May 3, 2024
- Big Apple Mayor Takes Big Bite Out of Democracy - April 24, 2024
- Where’s George Orwell Today? Texas! - April 17, 2024
