Mary Neal's Sharebook 

WE REPORTED WHAT Y'ALL TOLD US TO 

AND CENSORED AS INSTUCTED TO DO

HELP US NOW - WE HAD NO CLUE

THE PUBLIC WOULD SAY, "WE DON'T NEED YOU."

                   by Mary Neal - (all rights reserved)
                       http://wrongfuldeathoflarryneal.com


Is Dan Rather suggesting a bailout for mainstream news?  The notion of free press being beholden to the Government is disturbing.  But if such a thing transpires, news reports probably will be no more biased than they already are.  See Rather's appeal to President Obama at the excerpt below.  The full article is available at the link.
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Dan Rather wants Obama to help save the news

Aspen Daily News - July 29, 2009
http://www.aspendailynews.com/section/home/135834

Former CBS News anchor Dan Rather called on President Barack Obama to form a White House commission to help save the press Tuesday night in an impassioned speech at the Aspen Institute.

“I personally encourage the president to establish a White House commission on public media,” the legendary newsman said.

Such a commission on media reform, Rather said, ought to make recommendations on saving journalism jobs and creating new business models to keep news organizations alive.

At stake, he argued, is the very survival of American democracy.

“A truly free and independent press is the red beating heart of democracy and freedom,” Rather said in an interview yesterday afternoon. “This is not something just for journalists to be concerned about, and the loss of jobs and the loss of newspapers, and the diminution of the American press’ traditional role of being the watchdog on power. This is something every citizen should be concerned about.”

Rather, who has been a working reporter for more than six decades and currently hosts “Dan Rather Reports” on HDNet, pointed out that there are precedents for such national commissions, which have been used to help other at-risk industries.

Corporate and political influence on newsrooms, along with the conflation of news and entertainment, has created what Rather called “the dumbing down and sleazing up of what we see on the news.”

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Many Would Shrug if Their Local Newspaper Closed
http://people-press.org/report/497/many-would-shrug-if-local-newspaper-closed

Newspaper Woes Worsening
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009/02/28/earlyshow/main4835656.shtml

While mainstream media declines, citizens journalism experiences growth.  It has become recognized as being so important that the U.S. Government asked Twitter to stay open during Iran's recent elections.

Mashable - The Social Media Guide
http://mashable.com/2009/06/16/twitter-iran/

A short while from now, Twitter will go down for maintenance due to extraordinary circumstances: The #IranElection Controversy. Originally scheduled to perform maintenance last night, the work was moved to 2 PM PT today so that Iranians could tweet about the crisis.

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VIDEO - Huffington speaks on the growth of citizens journalism and its expanding role in news coverage.

Arianna Huffington on Citizen Journalism
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=udJ0SVkuK44

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NowPublic is one of the fastest growing independent news networks.

http://blog.nowpublic.com/

In 2005, NowPublic became a recognized leader in the emerging field of citizen journalism. By harnessing the wisdom of crowds and tapping into the news creating potential of the hundreds of millions of Internet users, bloggers and photography enthusiasts, NowPublic is changing the way news is made and distributed.

This is latest coverage of NowPublic in the news.   

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This writer joined the members contributing to NowPublic.com in March 2008.  Due in large part to patient mentoring by the technical staff and senior members at NowPublic, I was able to effectively present news that was unwelcome in mainstream press about human rights in America.  Most of my submissions to NowPublic.com involve criminal justice, including prisoner issues, criminalizing mental illness, racial disparity as it relates to the justice system, anti-death penalty news, and more.  My lineup of articles is available at http://NowPublic.com/duo , and presently number 172.

As members of independent news sites learn to produce more quality work and their names become known, readership increases.  To demonstrate the tremendous interest in news presented nowhere else but citizens journalism, my recent Michael Jackson death conspiracy series of three articles were read by over 33,000 people, collectively.  The first article in that series is at the link below:

Michael Jackson's Death - The Conspiracy Theory - UPDATED!
http://my.nowpublic.com/culture/michael-jacksons-death-conspiracy-theory-updated

There was a time when reading the morning newspaper over breakfast and watching the 6 o'clock news every evening were a matter of course for most households.  That is CHANGING as more people regularly head to their computers and click their way to information on independent news sites like NowPublic.com and Care2 News Network.  They frequently find news that mainstream media under-reported or completely omitted.  Coverage at NowPublic.com is expanded by comments the public is invited to give, which often engenders lively conversation and debate about current events.

Mainstream news is beginning to feel the effects of the growing popularity of citizens journalism.  Numerous major newspapers and small town presses are floundering, and some have already closed.  In response, a number of mainstream news carriers have copied some of the features of successful computerized independent news sites.  Major journalism sources now have websites, carry blogs, and most accept comments from readers at the site of news articles.

Although mainstream news copied the methodology of rapidly expanding independent news sites like NowPublic.com, some media companies that crossed over to the Internet and a few independent news companies do not recognize why they lost the loyalty of their public to the competition.  One reason is censorship.  It hurts journalistic credibility when readers learn of major news events from other sources, since the assumption generally is that the mainstream news carriers knew about the events and deliberately did not report.  People rightly assume that if a younger news source has the information, then certainly giants like AP and carriers of its newsfeed have it, too.  Another problem is slanted news.  It hurts credibility to consistently see only one side of a story reported. 

The sky is the limit for successful independent news companies.  This writer is reminded of the early days of television when news reporting was done in a 15-minute broadcast aired three times daily.   Now there are successful 24-hour news channels to fulfill the public's insatiable thirst for more information about diverse subject matter.  Nowhere does the public find more news of interest from a wider array of contributing newshounds than in citizens journalism, and nowhere else is the public invited to participate as reporters.  Across the nation, thousands of people are filming and reporting on-the-spot news that grows into major news stories.  Several major news stories within the past few months were not reported first in mainstream news, but in citizens journalism.  The future of independent news is unlimited.

Regarding mainstream media's credibility with the public, this writer conducted a poll in 2008 to determine what the public thought about the intentional blackout of news reports regarding her family's justice quest after Larry Neal's Guantanamo-style secret death in Shelby County Jail in Memphis, Tennessee.  One hundred percent of the people surveyed reported that they were concerned about credibility in news reporting having learned about his wrongful death and the fact that one of the nation's largest plaintiffs law firms (The Cochran Firm) denied the existence of its Atlanta office in pleadings filed in Georgia Superior Court to dodge accountability for defrauding his grieving family. 

Survey respondents were more surprised to learn that the court had issued The Cochran Firm an order granting it non-existence in the State of Georgia.  The court order that was based on obvious perjury was then upheld in United States District Court where Larry's family again filed a breach of contract lawsuit against the firm under the diversity rule.  The diversity rule requires that a defendant has no office in the same state as plaintiffs in a civil action.  This happened despite prolific advertising of The Cochran Firm's Atlanta office, which was carried by mainstream media to millions of potential unsuspecting consumers.  This news might have made a difference to the family of 92-year-old police victim, Kathryn Johnston.  The Cochran Firm contracted to represent Johnston's survivors whose loss resulted from the high profile case of murder-by-police using a no-knock warrant.  

Much censorship is applied to my writing in mainstream media's online sites to prevent the dissemination of news about this trechery by mainstream journalism against consumers of legal services who contract with The Cochran Firm, most of whom are African Americans, although the law firm recently expanded its sevices to other minority clients by opening Latino offices.  Writing about Larry Neal's secret death and the conspiracy of cover-up facilitated by The Cochran Firm as the family's wrongful death attorneys, who used their position to protect Shelby County Jail from the family's lawsuit, is the source of personal endangerment for this reporter by sources unknown.

See the survey with respondent's comments at this link: