COVID-19 Is Crushing Newspapers, Worsening Hunger for Accurate Information

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1981

Is the First Amendment Under Attack?

Editor’s Note: I’ve been saying for years that our U.S. Constitution, our First Amendment as well as other personal liberties are under attack. I used to think I was alone and being a bit radical or conspiratorial in my analysis, but the evidence continues to pile up almost daily.

According to the London Economic a recent survey found that 57% of Americans expressed concern that the five freedoms protected by the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution are at risk. See article: https://www.thelondoneconomic.com/news/world-news/majority-of-americans-believe-first-amendment-rights-under-attack/20/03/


I’ve personally witnessed “Fake News.” Ironically, even my journalism professor who at teaches media and TV news media told me while i was in class (LOL) said, “Mike, what the news media is doing to you is unethical.”
I responded, “Ya think!–This is the main reason I’m in your class-to hopefully learn to combat it and get the truth to people.”
I love the quote by Edward R. Murrow.

To be persuasive we must be believable; to be believable we must be credible; credible we must be truthful.”

~Edward R. Murrow

Edward R. Murrow, April 25, 1908 – April 27, 1965) was an American broadcast journalist and war correspondent. He first gained prominence during World War II with a series of live radio broadcasts from Europe for the news division of CBS.


I’ve had many local journalists who agree with my premise. The journalist have told me, “Mike, I have to report what my editors and TV producers want me to.”

Today, within our country, five corporations, headquartered mostly in New York, control the vast majority of market share in the traditional media industry: television, radio, books, movies, music, and more.
Today journalism has become an oligopoly today. It is controlled by a few powerful entities, thus much of them are owned by corporate sponsors, thus the truth is often ignored and suppressed by those groups.

One specific piece of legislation that our office passed that I am most proud of was House Bill 0899. The bill eliminated taxes from monthly periodicals and newspapers. I’ve said for many years that our small business community and individuals do not have lobbyist here at the state capitol. The Murfreesboro Pulse had been paying sales+ taxes for many years

      

“If we lose freedom here, there is no place to escape to. This is the last stand on Earth.” Ronald Reagan

 

COVID-19 Is Crushing Newspapers, Worsening Hunger for Accurate Information

According to a Pew Research article, the Staff of The Denver Post wrote an editorial in 2018 calling out its corporate owner, Alden Global Capital, to invest more in its papers. State and local newspapers have been closing at a rapid clip, and the drop in advertising revenue since the onset of COVID-19 has only exacerbated a preexisting financial crisis. 

Read Stateline coverage of the latest state action on coronavirus.

David Erickson got the call directly from the publisher of the Missoulian, the Montana newspaper where he works as a reporter writing about business and housing. You might as well hear it first so you can break the news, the publisher told him earlier in August. The newspaper building, on the riverfront in a highly coveted part of downtown Missoula, was going up for sale for $8.5 million.

Erickson and his colleagues had been working from home during the pandemic, but they hoped to return to their newsroom once it was over. The potential loss of the physical building, owned by Lee Enterprises, felt like a gut punch to an already battered local news operation.

Since 2000, the Missoulian’s editorial staff has dwindled from 40 to 21 employees, similar to newspaper losses around the country. The city’s local news ecosystem had already taken a hit: Lee in 2017 purchased the rival weekly, the Missoula Independent, and shut it down the next year.

“Statehouse reporting is just so incredibly vital for people to understand what’s happening with their government and what’s happening with their local reps,” Galloway said. “And it’s really, I think, the most important way people have of influencing policy as it happens. I just think it’s a really powerful way to connect people with the government.”

To read the full article visit: https://www.pewtrusts.org/en/research-and-analysis/blogs/stateline/2020/09/08/covid-19-is-crushing-newspapers-worsening-hunger-for-accurate-information?utm_campaign=09-8-2020+SD&utm_medium=email&utm_source=Pew