Power Companies Caught Paying Local News Outlets For Glowing Coveragefrom the the-best-ass-kissing-money-can-buy deptBack in 2016 we noted how U.S. power utilities like Florida Power & Light created entirely fake consumer groups to try and derail legislation that would have brought more competition to market.And it worked because U.S. local news has been so eviscerated there’s not a whole lot of ethical guardrails or competent local reporters left in many (especially marginalized) communities:“The reduction in just the size of the press corps covering state government has created a vacuum that I think tends to be filled by people who have agendas beyond serving the public interest,” says former Miami Herald executive editor Tom Fiedler.Most of the reporters and editors either deny these relationships existed (despite email and other evidence presented by NPR), or try to flimsily justify the dodgy behavior by claiming to be a “free market based” news outlet:“The Capitolist stands by the accuracy of every story it has published and openly acknowledges that we bring a center-right, pro-free market editorial viewpoint to our work,” Burgess writes in response to questions from NPR and Floodlight.So instead of doing things like shoring up media regulatory oversight, trying to find creative new funding sources, or developing firewalled public funding options for local reporting, in many instances we’ve just ceded the entire local news industry to charlatans.Filed Under: astroturf, corruption, journalism, local news, media, media consolidation, pink slime, propagandaCompanies: florida power and light, matrix llcCompanies: florida power and light, matrix llcComments on “Power Companies Caught Paying Local News Outlets For Glowing Coverage”I am very, very sure this counts as “censorship”, but the usual suspects won’t call it censorship, but “the free market doing its thing”."