Why I don’t want to be involved with corporate media. This is also why I don’t take donations usually. I received a donation in December of $600 of gift cards for our radio show, a donation that I had turned down in November just the month before.
The person called me and said that she had already sent Christmas gifts for our kids in the form of gift cards and that I was not allowed to turn it down. So I spent them on Christmas. I bought our kids’ toys with the money. But then today (January 6th 2020) the same person informed me that she is mad that I reported some details about the Thirty Meter Telescope’s budget issues. She was upset that I rebroadcast the New Your Times article on the subject from December 23rd 2019. She said I should not have “bashed the TMT”. After some filthy words and accusations were sent my way, only two weeks after she sent the gift cards, she is asking for me to return them to her.
I told her that I would return what I didn’t spend on promoting the video that she asked me to produce for her. In the video below I show where on facebook alone I spent $254 of that on ads to promote that media. Then I also advertised on Youtube and Twitter. When I calculated all of the money that I spent promoting this campaign, I spent over $700. Reference: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eGTpFQGkUbc
That doesn’t even include the time I spent editing and producing the media at her request.
But who asks for a Christmas gift back? That sounds like some asshole shit to do to someone. But this is also why I do not like to take donations from people for my media. I talk about it more at this link:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m7RifWnP-Io
And in the following video, this is what I referenced in the video above, about the censorship that Monsanto pushed on Fox News, and when Fox News censored their “investigative news team” so that they didn’t lose Monsanto advertising dollars.
When I made that video in 2011 about Corporate Media vs. Social Media, my point was the same. My fear was also the same. Any time in the past 20+ years that I have been sent a donation for a media project that I am working on, regardless of what it is. I seem to get the same consequence if I accept the donation. Someone wants to control my media or my behavior.
This is also why I encourage other people do their own media. So that there are no slaves and no masters when it comes to free expression. Those slave and master days are over thanks to the internet!
In my video above I say that I have been doing media since 2006, but actually it goes farther back than that.
I started www.Behindzioncurtain.com back in 1999. Then it was www.UtahPirateRadio.com, and then a flurry of others along the way. One of my most attended to social media blogs was www.xCannabis.com (and www.xcannabis.net), and then we did print newspapers with www.clovisstar.com for about 4 years in 3 different states. I interviewed a lot of people in Hawaii via https://www.blogtalkradio.com/sensilife about the “green 14”, and other cannabis initiatives that we were working on.
So that is a lot of media. We have had a lot of guests and a lot of guest hosts through the years, and a few times we even accepted donations. However I would say 8 out of 10 times that we have accepted donations, it has turned into “since I gave you that donation, you need to behave this way”.
Well, the point of blogging, rather than working for a media corporation, is no bosses. No one gets to tell me how to write, or vlog, or print newspapers. I own the media, and I have no bosses. That IS the point.
So I will not bend on this TMT issue. I still support the TMT, but I have some genuine concerns about it right now.
Reference:
If you treat me right, I will treat you right. Regardless of donations, payments, work, or anything financially related.
I don’t care if you have given me a million dollars, Im not going to kiss your ass or let you treatment poorly because of it. Nor will it change my point of view. I change my point of view based on good facts and logic, nothing else.
