Tioga Herald

Newspaper, Newspaper, Where Art Thou Fair Newspaper (& the Fairness Doctrine)?

When I was living and working in Florida, we had hurricanes quite frequently. Homeowners’ insurance, for a tiny little villa less than living space of 1000 square feet was far more expensive than for a 2300 square foot home in upstate New York. You ask, what does that have to do with newspapers? It does not, I suppose. Except that it was a newspaper article where I read about the condo commandos of Florida who were given license by the Republican Party of Florida in a one-party state, to go after a retiree there when the condo association was fraudulent in their actions to run the association. Repeat. They were given “license” to have the upper hand over the demand side of the market or the consumer. Buyer beware, they would say, as if to mock the consumer and the demand side of the market for “not knowing enough so therefore it is the FAULT of the consumer. No lawyers to protect such abuse, either, as I see lawyers like William Mattar and their stupid advertisements which teach America to go after one another and have no love of neighbor, as Jesus Christ and the Judeo-Christian belief system has been about.

Thus, I am taking a whole paragraph of introduction to begin to describe the media in Florida in which, at one time, it worked to uncover such abuses. Not anymore.

A newspaper such as the Orlando Sentinel publishes to an area of Florida which carried Donald Trump, Rick Scott, and DUH-SATAN (DeSantis). The Orlando Sentinel proved that people ARE still interested in reading print copies. When on the campus of the University of Central Florida and carrying a “Knight” student card, one had access to a FREE copy of the Orlando Sentinel. I know. I was once a student at UCF. The boxes with newspapers were like those anyone could once find in order to purchase any newspaper. But one could access these boxes on campus with a “Knight” card. As a student who once delivered newspapers and has always loved reading newspapers, I would rush to a box on campus and rarely got there before they were emptied.

Think about this. A more conservative newspaper and the ONLY voice in Orlando (because there was no “liberal” one) made money from advertising because their FREE newspapers went like hotcakes. In contrast, The Palm Beach Post, a more moderate to liberal newspaper in South Florida (owned by Cox Media), complained and complained and complained about losing money. So bad that they eventually sold the newspaper to a more conservative chain called Gannett. Yet, when this former UCF student returned to Palm Beach County and wrote to recommend they set a similar “free” newspaper availability with a Panther Card and Owls card at Palm Beach State College and Florida Atlantic University, both located in Palm Beach County, the accountants there must have thought this former student was a real dolt. They had blinders on and were operating within a box. They could not understand that advertising dollars could be increased by selling a larger number of papers – the “circulation.” By handing out free newspapers to the younger generation at these colleges, they could (1) sell a larger number and (2) teach the younger generation to like newspapers, including the print copies. Why such Republican money-crunchers have such blinders on is beyond this former Republicans brain, I guess. (Here the number-crunchers with all the money go again – opposition to ways to increase the coffers of our Federal budget – PROVEN by past BIPARTISAN efforts which recognized, if you give money to the Middle Class, it will more likely stimulate the economy AND bring down the Federal deficit – WE STILL FIGHT THIS GODDAMN NOTION WITH BLINDERS ON THE FREAKING LOUSY NUMBER CRUNCHERS WHO MAKE MORE THAN PROFESSORS DO).

My point here? That big corporate CEOs of big corporate monopolies are wrong when they say “young people don’t read newspapers or young people don’t read print copies.” You are freaking wrong, you idiots who only look at a LOVE OF MONEY than you do about how to MAKE money and EARN money. You bastards have a lousy thought with blinders on and there is evidence to the contrary for what you say. No. Perhaps you idiot dolts would rather cling to the lies of a Trump regarding fraud, right?

Another example (EVIDENCE!). A hurricane’s destructive force destroying a portion of the library where I worked. Contrary to the LIES, LIES, LIES of big corporate publishing executives in America…. the ones who perpetrated mergers and acquisitions to bring together all these publishing houses into a monopolized business… (terrible way to write this, don’t you know? I don’t give one damn). These executives with their LOVE OF MONEY. I repeat for those who don’t get it…. I don’t say MONEY…. I say LOVE OF MONEY. There is a big difference. I don’t think like the dolt who inspired the Bolsheviks in Russia who thinks profits are bad so thus earning MONEY is bad. I think like a CAPITALIST who knows what TRUE CAPITALISM of SUPPLY AND DEMAND and EARNING A PROFIT by being the BEST in a competitive market is all about. I know what INVESTMENT and RETURN ON INVESTMENT is about, but supply side freaking asinine ones have no idea what this means. I have written this for some 20 years and now appear angry that I STILL HAVE TO WRITE THIS so people will LEARN HOW TO LEARN —— AND LEARN.

SIDE NOTE: Thank you, the late Ms. Steinkamp and so many others who taught me this when we used the Cornell University library while in high school. Thank you, Professor Mike Eisenberg (today affiliated with the west coast’s University of Washington, as professor and dean emeritus) and the late Professor Jeff Katzer, both professors of mine at Syracuse University School of Information Studies, among others, who taught me this. Some wonderful teachers and professors in my life. LEARN TO LEARN.

Why do I expand upon this capitalism stuff while speaking of newspapers and the media? You might think I am dumping crap out here. You might think “I want a little cheese with my whine.” If that is the case, and it is not, then let me explain. I want CHEESE WITH MY WINE because I remove the “H” which stands for hatred.

Look at Orlando and its support of Trump. Why? Yet, in Palm Beach County, Trump cannot win there. Why? “Blame the damn liberals and Democrats,” Trumpicans say. They are full of bull manure in saying this. All lies. Bull manure by any other name smells just as stinky.

Let’s see. How many times have I heard the blame put on liberal professors, too? We, the ones who teach students with LEARN TO LEARN. That is such a liberal thing, don’t you know? Yet, I have heard graduates where conservative professors predominate and they speak more disgustingly of the professors at such universities than I do with students who have the so-called “liberal” professors. I won’t mention the names of the universities because I am a nice guy who recognizes that even at THOSE universities, there is a combination of “red AND blue.” Understand that one? If you don’t, then LEARN TO LEARN.

When I was a kid, I delivered what some considered to be a more liberal newspaper. Oh, yeah? Then why did this newspaper feature CONSERVATIVE William F. Buckley, Jr., the FOUNDER of the CONSERVATIVE magazine named The National Review? That was before Gannett Newspapers purchased this more “liberal” newspaper and shut down the “competing” voice and “competing” business. They shut down a newspaper better able to handle the “Fairness Doctrine” than I consider was done by Gannett, especially today.

In Palm Beach County, there were also two newspapers. In St. Petersburg, FL, there were also two newspapers. I lived in both those areas. I recall the Evening Independent, in St. Petersburg, promising they would give out free newspapers any day in St. Petersburg when the sun did not shine. They could do that and not lose much circulation money. Not possible in Binghamton, NY. That newspaper in St. Petersburg no longer exists, as well as the competitor across the bay, the Tampa Tribune. No longer. Merged. The newspaper which won out? A Republican-based one in a Republican-majority county. Not so in Palm Beach County where there are more Democrats. Yet, Democrats are blamed, should they have the ONE voice, but no one blames the more conservative (Orlando) or Republican (St. Pete) ones.

This shoots holes in the stupidity of the lies of the Trumpicans who blame all of the bad conditions on liberals and Democrats and wishing to shut down media which is opposed and have a one-comment media from Australian Rupert Murdock. Get the hell out of America, Murdock, because you are one of the major ruining factors of America and its ability to have competitive forces in media and newspapers. Go to hell Rupert Murdock because many of us don’t want you around to disturb what ever peace we have which can bring about human justice. You are a jackass Murdock… or Sean Hannity or Carson Daily or Steve Bannon or … others. You lie when you blame it all on liberals, while we have watched so many liberal newspapers and media destroyed. It’s like saying the election in Georgia was a fraud, unless a Republican won. And believe me, there were plenty of Republicans who won. The entire Georgia legislature and governor and lt. governor are all Republicans. Must be they all one by fraudulent means, right?

When I was on the union negotiating team at a college, we were faced with a desire by a Republican Rick Scott board of trustees – the wealthy ones of the community who likely got on the board by sending Rick Scott tons of campaign money – to destroy faculty tenure. The union, with a wonderful and vivacious woman, stepped up to the plate and said, “ok, here are solutions in which we can help make certain any qualms about tenure are laid to rest. We put on the table a proposal, before these lousy Republicans, in which we proposed an administration working with a peer-reviewing group of faculty in order to determine tenure. We had examples of academic institutions which did it this way and, with peer-review, it was found that peers were tougher on granting tenure than administrators were. In any method of doing it, though, we acknowledged that it was tough to remove the foul stench of politics and favoritism. DOes not matter who determines it. And. That administrators receive an “unwritten” tenure when there was a white racist administrator who condemned our black president. She had tenure, all right. She did not maintain her position, but was moved to an isolated office where she could continue to draw a paycheck and DO NOTHING which was pertinent for the college. A white racist FEMALE administrator. Did I say that? Imagine if a black man serving as an administrator had done something wrong. Would he or she be given an isolated office and continue to draw a paycheck? Nah.

With this negotiation, what was the Republican reply? Similar to the freaking lousy governor and lt. governor of Georgia regarding the pissy laws passed by the Georgia legislature. And then when questioned about how, if there is such fraud in the elections, then how do they have a large number of Republicans running the Georgia legislature? In this case at the college, the faculty was threatened with firing all those who already had tenure, as if to say, our proposal was telling these goddamn Republicans that administrators did not do a good job in approving tenure. I say. Fire the entire Georgia legislature because they must have gotten there, due to fraud, right? Only Democrats do the fraud, right?

You bastards who think like this are on a path to destruction of democracy and propping up a one-party state. You have destroyed the Fairness Doctrine in media, which brought on hate monger Rush Limbaugh and have worked with a strategy to “burn publications” by getting rid of the opposing voices which provide choices in a SUPPLY AND DEMAND SIDE newspaper print copy market. It has been shown this way all around, from Murdock to Gannett to Newsmax to Breitbart to … and what else? What will Jeff Bezos do to the Washington Post? Got a clue? What about other newspapers who provide an alternative voice and thus give us a protection of the FIRST AMENDMENT. Worthless gun slingers of America (NRA) who still believe the barbaric and savage frontier still exists, don’t protect the First Amendment and lie with paranoia and fear that the Second Amendment will be removed from them so they can no longer protect hatred in America. That is the issue, not militias or the other crap promoted by the NRA which pushes people to run for cover and demand gun control These bastards are at fault, with their hatred, for such gun control proposals. Nations like Canada, where there is less racial divide and less hatred, they have more guns per capita than in America. ‘Splain that to me, Lucy?

Oh, yeah. Go ahead. Come up with some kind of twisted fabrication in order to explain. The people of America have had enough of that s**t. We want the fairness of capitalist competition which once existed in the news media, before the bastards of neocons and Nazi loving white supremacy worked their little fingers of manipulation. We the people don’t want to repeal the Second Amendment because we recognize the TRUE intent of it which was not to pit American against American with hateful, bratty, and immature lousy attitudes, as exemplified by the dolts of Proud Boys, Qanon and other idiotic brats who don’t recognize that it was this one-time mixture, due to the Fairness Doctrine, and competitive capitalism of print journalism which gave these bastards the life they have which is far better than in many other nations, such as those in South America where they clamor to come here and escape the Nazi loving bastards from Germany who, following World War II, fled to South America in order to bolster the banana republic ideology of plantations. They escaped execution in the war-time trials in Germany and have influenced this hemisphere too damn much. They need to be STOPPED.

Newspaper, newspaper, where art thou fair newspaper and a competitive world with journalists who seek the truth, not lies, as does Murdock’s lousy media empire (hate-generating Fox) and others. The BIPARTISAN intent of the 1940s-implementation of the Fairness Doctrine in journalism and media was to assure we did NOT have a propaganda s**t like that of Goebbels of Germany who said, “tell a lie enough times and it becomes the truth.” We need to bring back that Fairness Doctrine and challenge the lies of those with tons of money and preclude those of us without money from being able to speak the truth. Who destroyed the Fairness Doctrine? Think. Which political party works to destroy EVERYTHING which might be good? It is not the Democrats who wish to destroy the ACA rather than come up with a plan which might reform it and make it better. Shall I bring up other things? And even when the Democrats SHOULD, for the sake of preserving our democracy, cannot even come forward to abolish and destroy the U.S. Senate filibuster which is used to advocate the status quo some white bastards think are so important regarding a Jim Crow type of society. These white bastards with the NRA make a society on earth which looks like hell on earth, disturbing the peace of civilization and humanity and ending up destroying JUSTICE FOR ALL. Maybe these bastards need to stop their goddamn hypocrisy by reciting words like this. Where are these words found and repeated many times? “…with liberty and justice for all.” You bastards will find some way to flip this idea to your satisfaction. How about if we isolate all such people to an island somewhere so they cannot freak us all over with their idea of “justice only for white wealthy male Americans, not for those of non-white colored skin or… LGBTQ … or even for many females.”

I have had enough of this. I have had enough of trying to get people to speak out in favor of what I say and they seem to be freaking WIMPS who are afraid of some retributions or other crap, so they remain silent. This silence is like “a cancer which grows” in the herd mentality of the Wimps of America .

Newspaper, newspaper, where art thou fair newspaper? A good newspaper or media outlet, which follows the Fairness Doctrine appropriately, by any other name, would smell just as sweet. We cannot have peace unless we strive for justice.