by Martin Armstrong
The Trusted News Initiative (TNI) was founded in 2019 and its goal is to push only the accepted narrative ending both free speech and real independent journalism. TNI actually violated the Sherman Antitrust Act and should be criminally charged for its deliberate destruction of our society and the censoring of any news that was warning about the vaccine side effects.
TNI includes companies such as Google, Facebook, BBC, YouTube, Twitter, the New York Times, Microsoft, and Reuters. It also includes all of the companies owned by these companies, and therefore, it has destroyed independent journalism no different than the Stalin control of media in Communist Russia. To this group, freedom of speech means they have the freedom to censor whatever they disagree with. So tell your children to forget journalism as a career. They will be reduced to a mindless propaganda machine.
Everything from ABC, NBC, CBS, PBS, CNN, and Fox News indeed trickle down to your local news affiliates despite the fact that they are supposed to be independent stations. The newspapers engaged in this monopoly of news are USA Today, the Washington Post, and even the Kansas City Star. Of all of the countless mainstream television channels in the USA, they are ALL owned by only SIX companies! Time Warner, Viacom, CBS, Disney, National Amusements, and News Corp. By uniting in this monopoly TNI for news, this is really criminal activity as if they were producing a car. What is the difference because it is news content?
In 1983, there were more than 50 companies that owned our television channel’s media content. The crime took place with the Telecommunications Act of 1996, during which the FCC removed restrictions on how many news outlets an owner could own thereby legalizing a monopoly in news. Telecommunications Act of 1996, was purported to bring more competition to the telephone market for both local and long distance service. Fine, it ended AT&T monopoly, but it allowed a monopoly in news to take shape.
It was passed by Congress in January 1996 and signed into law by none other than Bill Clinton in February 1996. It permitted firms that served competitive local markets to enter the long-distance market, and it attempted to implement a single layer of regulation at the federal level. Additional provisions of the act removed restrictions on media ownership and resulted in immediate consolidation within that segment of the industry. Yet another provision provided guidelines for Internet indecency and prohibited sending indecent or obscene communications to minors via the Internet (see Communications Decency Act, sponsored by Republican Tom Bliley). The Supreme Court, however, later ruled that the provision was unconstitutional under the First Amendment. Another significant provision protected Internet service providers from liability for the content of third parties on their service.
Here we had legislation that was supposed to create competition and instead created a monopoly. Today, we have fewer television media channels compared to what was available in 1983. And there were more than 50 companies who owned those outlets then versus now just SIX!
