Our Perspective

My experience in the news business goes back to 1970 and the Vietnam War. The media was broken then, so I have trouble trying to call it something else now. Back then, the powers that reigned pushed through policies that adversely affected certain communities, and the real news of it was rendered in the smallest print possible and buried in the want ad section. ​

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Eight months into my first year, there was a labor dispute and I guess nobody told me because I was new, or because I was black. I chose to think it was because I was new. Regardless, I inherited all the beats after that. My beat had always included the county courts, the local police departments, and any local news that developed, but after the mass exodus, I had new responsibilities. I covered the Redevelopment Authorities and the Planning Commissions for the city of Chester and the county of Delaware in Pennsylvania. ​

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This is when I first realized how broken the news media actually is. All governing bodies wield immense power through statutes like Eminent Domain. It is because of these powers people have an interest in decisions made by these bodies, and a right to know about them. So naturally, I wrote stories explaining the Twenty Year Development Plan for the city of Chester and it made the front page, momentarily. That's when it hit the fan. The minority community never understood or believed the truth when they heard it from me because it only showed up that one time in the morning edition. But by the afternoon, that baby was dead and buried. ​

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I went to Swarthmore College after that. I didn't want to be a part of what they were doing to all those people. It was not important news to the people that controlled media and destroyed the city of Chester, Pennsylvania. It taught me that because people believed the local newspaper was truthful, they never saw the bigger picture. Because the media is owned by money, it's main purpose has become selling the public false information.

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That is the news from their point of view. But the news looks a lot different from Our Perspective. We see a corrupt system destroying every shred of democracy that may yet exist in this our "land of the free and home of the brave." Forget about race. It's not about black and white, it's about rich and poor. Now that's Our Perspective!