Author Topic: Power Of The Tube  (Read 1304 times)

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Online Elderberry

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Power Of The Tube
« on: February 06, 2019, 12:30:28 am »
The Aging Rebel 2/5/2019

Last month, a federal arbitrator named Charlotte Gold ruled that Hillsborough County in Florida was justified in firing a firefighter named Clinton Neal Walker because he was an out in good standings former member of the American Outlaws Association’s St. Petersburg, Florida chapter and because he placed “the interests of a friend and mentor – an individual who continued a strong relationship with a motorcycle gang – over and above those of law enforcement.”

The truth is that Walker was fired in January 2018 because he had joined the Outlaws at the invitation of a (now) retired Hillsborough Fire Captain named James Costa and a local reporter for Tampa television station WFTS named Jarrod Holbrook sensationalized Walker and Costa’s membership in a motorcycle club and insisted, in repeated television reports, that local officials do something about the danger to the general public that, Holbrook insisted, the two men posed.

Newz

Holbrook broadcast his reports in 2016 and 2017. They were a sort of television parody of investigative journalism. Holbrook was identified by WFTS as an “I-Team investigator.” He told his audience that “The I-Team found there’s been a recent string of violence among local motorcycle clubs” and that “Law enforcement classifies some of those clubs as criminal gangs and criminal enterprises. Florida law enforcement agencies including right here in Tampa Bay are on high alert.”

“The Department of Justice officially lists seven major motorcycle gangs as ‘criminal enterprises’ nationwide,” Holbrook said. “The Outlaws and Pagans top that list and frequent national headlines with their involvement in drug trafficking, arson and even organized murder. Both of these notorious MCs have members who live on salaries paid for by the taxpayers of Tampa Bay.”

Holbrook singled out Costa, Walker and a Pasco County Fire Captain and Pagans Motorcycle Club chapter president Glen Buzze as examples of men who lived “on salaries paid for by the taxpayers of Tampa Bay.”

Sweeps

The initial reports were in May 2016, a so-called “sweeps month,” and were blatantly intended to improve the television stations ratings more than inform the public to an actual injustice or danger.

More: http://www.agingrebel.com/17381