The Sea Coast Echo Tackles Immigration, Spreads Disinformation from Hate Group

If Facebook is good for one thing that would be the dissemination of fake news, such as the viral fake news story about the Pope endorsing Trump in 2016, which was written by teenagers in Macedonia before being lapped up by millions of Trump supporters in the U.S. as the gospel truth.

Where you don’t expect to see it is in the local paper but sure enough last week the Sea Coast Echo ran, “Report: Illegal immigration costs taxpayers $116 billion annually; Californians, Texans, Floridians pay the most” which was a collaborative effort between a anti immigration organization founded by a white supremacist that has been classified as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center called the Federation for American Immigration Reform and a right wing propaganda outlet now known as Center Square aka the Franklin Center for Government and Public Integrity.

The links in the above paragraph took me all of 10 seconds to find using google. The next one took me 3 seconds:

4 myths about how immigrants affect the U.S. economy ~ PBS Newshour

Myth #1: Immigrants take more from the U.S. government than they contribute

Fact: Immigrants contribute more in tax revenue than they take in government benefits

A 2017 report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine found immigration “has an overall positive impact on the long-run economic growth in the U.S.”

I figure the reason the Nation’s dysfunctional immigration system has not been reformed despite two attempts over the past 12 years is because there is so much misinformation out there that people accept as the gospel truth, including the whopper that the immigrants that come here are mooches and freeloaders when such is not the case.

The Echo does a fine job reporting on local issues. Maybe they should stick to that and leave the national topics alone.

How the New Media rolls: Watch and learn boys and girls.

Rule number 1 here at Slabbed New Media is “attribute and source”. Rule #2 here at Slabbed New Media is “See rule #1”. I mention this because there is a sleazy underbelly to this biz where for profit entities ignore copy write. Slabbed has a creative commons license that is plainly displayed on the right sidebar. Anyone can freely use the work from this blog provided they attribute the source and agree to redistribute the work in a share and share alike manner. It is a very low bar indeed.

I mention this because yesterday evening the Sea Coast Echo put the following story up on their website regarding the unfolding scandal at the Bay Waveland School Board involving the purchase of the old Bay Tech building. I do not see Slabbed New Media attributed anywhere in that story. This is not the first time the Echo has ripped off Slabbed.

That said Geoff Belcher’s piece is worth the read because he nabbed quotes from Mary Bunch, Avra O’Dwyer and School Board Attorney Ronnie Artigues.  He frames the story as a controversy between realtors, which could not be farther from the truth as I’ve heard from the local Hancock County Alliance for Good Government and those folks are hopping mad.  I thought it was strange he did not have any quotes from the victim, Mr Bill Washburn, who has indicated to Slabbed he has retained counsel in this matter.  Finally I detect a wee bit of ass covering at the Echo, which misreported the seller originally despite the fact it was a public record both at the courthouse and at the school district.  Worth noting is the Echo’s major digital banner advertiser appears to be John McDonald Realty and School Board President Sherry Ponder is married to the editor of the Echo, who evidently didn’t run a spell check on the story before publishing it.

Worth remembering is the following article which Jr. linked a few months ago on Slabbed about a small town in North Carolina with an established, sold out local paper and an upstart that actually reported accurate news.  The internet killed the gatekeeper years ago but in some corners of small town America that message has not yet sunk in.  I’m going to let the documents tell this story because the devil is in the details as we’ll continue to follow the money.