Google and Facebook reap news revenues, while reporters become destitute

Google and Facebook reap news revenues while real reporters struggle to survive

By Brenda Norrell

Censored News

The Wall Street Journal is hardly the voice of the people, but it makes an important point here -- Google and Facebook are receiving most of the revenues from news these days, and reporters are receiving almost nothing.
The article does not mention the fact that reporters in Indian country are usually paying out of their own pockets to go out on news stories, and the thieves on Facebook and websites shared by Google, are making about three-fourths of the money.
Most of the news websites on Facebook are not alternative news sites at all, they are stolen news. These are operated by plagiarizers who copy and paste, or rewrite, the hard work of the real reporters struggling to survive.
For real reporters, there is the cost of travel -- cars and lodging -- along with computer, photography, cell and video equipment. All this makes it nearly impossible for most freelancers to keep going.
And in Indian country, the few remaining reporters who are present are usually freelancers, which means no expense reimbursements, no insurance, and of course, no bail money during protests.
There must be a way to turn this around, and return salaries and expenses to honest, hard working reporters.
It probably would help if readers would not share stolen rewrites and stolen photos by those who are illegally profiteering. They are seizing this content without permission, and placing it on a webpage to illegally make money off of it.
These are often obvious because the webpages are loaded with advertising, so just scroll down to the bottom and look. On Facebook, the pages say "shop now" at the top.
Many fake site use the word 'Native' or 'Indigenous,' or use progressive words like 'Free Thought,' 'Freedom,' or 'Progress.'
Clickbait and Adwords are hard to determine. These are about getting traffic to websites of stolen work. They want 'clicks' on their links, and 'likes' on Facebook.
Here's what readers can do: Before posting or sharing, message the reporters and photographers and ask them if this is their original work and if they were actually present.
Readers can carry out a web search by copying and pasting the first portion of the news story into a search, in order to see if a reputable news organization, or reporter, actually wrote the article.
Meanwhile, those brilliant new reporters and publishers can work on a means of creating the new journalism for future generations -- where news professionals can make a living and prosper for their hard work. And remember, many risk their lives to do this work.
Thanks to all of you, Brenda, Censored News.

Wall Street Journal Article

https://www.wsj.com/articles/protect-the-news-from-google-and-facebook-1519594942


Brenda Norrell created Censored News in 2006, after being censored and terminated as a longtime staff reporter at Indian Country Today. She began her lifelong career as a reporter at the Navajo Times, during the 18 years that she lived on the Navajo Nation. As a freelancer, she worked for The Associated Press for five years, covering the Navajo Nation and federal courts, and USA Today for seven years. Since moving to the borderlands, she has traveled with the Zapatistas in Mexico numerous times, and reported from the mountains of Bolivia, and Indian lands throughout the West.

Censored by Twitter
Twitter has blocked the links of Censored News since September of 2016, when Censored News exposed the police and Dakota Access Pipeline security officers responsible for attacking water protectors at Standing Rock with dogs.

Censored News targeted in law enforcement dragnet of Standing Rock water protectors

Censored News coverage of Standing Rock water protectors, police excessive force and DAPL security brutality.

Collusion of big oil, big money and law enforcement results in targeting of Censored News for coverage of Standing Rock Water Protectors

By Brenda Norrell, publisher
Censored News

The Intercept exposed a blueprint of the intelligence operation at the North Dakota fusion center targeting Standing Rock water protectors, which includes Brenda Norrell, Censored News.
In regard to leaders of the movement at Standing Rock, it is obvious that the intelligence operation did not have a clue as to how the movement began or grew as a global force.
While I am honored to be on the same page with these global heroes, the water protectors of Standing Rock camps, it is disturbing to view how this reporter and Censored News were targeted in this diagram by the fusion center, comprised of multiple law enforcement agencies.
Equally disturbing is the fact that most of those identified were arrested.
Censored News was created in 2006, after I was censored and terminated, without any cause stated, as a staff reporter at Indian Country Today. I had served as a staff reporter for most of the years after it was created in 1995.
Today, Censored News is a service to Indigenous Peoples and others engaged in the struggle for human rights. There are no ads, revenues or salaries. Now in our 12th year, we have 17 million page views.
As a news reporter, I began as a staff reporter at the Navajo Times in 1982. During the 18 years that I lived on the Navajo Nation, I worked as a stringer for The Associated Press for five years, and USA Today for seven years, primarily covering the Navajo Nation government and federal courts.
My work as a news reporter has appeared in Outside magazine and newspapers throughout Indian country and the west. 
The intelligence operations targeting Standing Rock water protectors were an attack on peaceful defenders of the land, water and air, and sacred burial places.
Standing Rock water protectors sacrificed personally to protect their drinking water and the Missouri River from the Dakota Access pipeline.
The intelligence operation diagram exposed by The Intercept, and the arrests of journalists, reveal that this United States intelligence operation is part of the ongoing collusion of big oil, big money and law enforcement. 
The facts exposed by The Intercept reveal that now, more than ever, is a time for journalists and land defenders to bolt into the global arena and halt the ongoing destruction of the Earth for corporate gain and political expediency. 
It is with gratitude to the courage of the water protectors that I write this. I am especially thankful to the photographers, videographers and Standing Rock Spirit Resistance Radio for making possible our coverage at Censored News.
I look forward to the global work ahead.
Brenda Norrell, publisher, Censored News

Excerpt from the article An activist is accused of firing a gun at Standing Rock. It belonged to her love, an FBI Informant, by Will Parrish, The Intercept.

Sara Jumping Eagle, a physician on the Standing Rock Sioux reservation who was among the first DAPL opponents arrested in August, said the heavy-handed law enforcement response at Standing Rock was not altogether surprising. “There’s a long history of the U.S. labeling people who stand up as terrorists, so some of us figured they were gonna use those same tactics against this movement as well,” she said.
Jumping Eagle was among some two dozen activists featured on an early blueprint for the intelligence operation at the North Dakota fusion center, a “links chart on leaders of the movement,” obtained by The Intercept via public records request. The document mapped out connections between DAPL opponents purportedly affiliated with the Red Warrior and Sacred Stone camps, two of the main nerve centers of pipeline resistance on the Northern Great plains. Nearly everyone on the chart is an indigenous person.
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