What Happens When A Powerful Corporation Owns The Local News?
Consider This from NPR
NPR
4.2 • 6.2K Ratings
🗓️ 1 April 2024
⏱️ 14 minutes
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Summary
Energy giant Chevron is the biggest employer - and the biggest polluter in the California city. Chevron also owns the local news site. How does that impact the community there?
NPR's Mary Louise Kelly speaks with Folkenflik and Miranda Green, director of investigations for the news site Floodlight - about what happens when a major corporation owns the local news.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | For a lot of folks in the city of Richmond, California, the standard is the news site of choice. |
| 0:07.0 | A lot of people use a Richmond standard. |
| 0:10.0 | They do a really good job. |
| 0:11.0 | Two locals there, Jorge Zono who helps run his parents Mexican |
| 0:15.9 | restaurant and architect and former city mayor Tom Butt. Others in town though, like |
| 0:21.6 | Patricia Dornan, view the standard with caution. |
| 0:25.0 | As long as it doesn't have to do with Chevron, it's fine. |
| 0:28.0 | I don't read any of the articles about how wonderful their company is. |
| 0:31.0 | The standard is owned by the energy company Chevron, which is |
| 0:35.8 | Richmond's biggest employer and biggest taxpayer. Its refinery is also the city's largest polluter. |
| 0:43.0 | In 2021, a rupture at the Chevron refinery dumped nearly 800 gallons of diesel fuel into the San Francisco Bay, the standard did not cover that. |
| 0:55.2 | When black smoke filled the sky last November, the standard did not report on that either. |
| 1:00.5 | Denny Campanthong is a Richmond resident active in the Leotian immigrant community. |
| 1:05.6 | We don't know the full story but we know that you shouldn't breathe in the air or be outside for that matter. |
| 1:10.8 | Environmental activist Kat Ramos says residents have to rely on word-to-mouth |
| 1:16.0 | to know what's happening in their community. |
| 1:18.0 | In particular, because we have to deal with publications like the Richmond Standard |
| 1:22.0 | that are giving us the opposite of the truth. |
| 1:25.2 | Consider this in a volatile media landscape where local news outlets are shrinking or |
| 1:30.8 | disappearing altogether we take a look at what happens when a city's most powerful |
| 1:35.6 | company owns and influences the news. |
| 1:42.2 | From NPR, I'm Mary Louise Kelly. |
... |
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