U Didn't Hear This On The News Indie Media

What we are and Why we do what we do:

Welcome to the indie news blog U Didn't Hear This On The News! Your honest source for the important news you won't hear on mainstream reports! We pride ourselves in reporting on stories the mainstream media missed, or just chose not to report on. Often the best, and most important stories that impact you are not told, in lieu of what we call "advertising reporting" on stories like the new iPad. Or just because someone paid the mainstream outlets to do a biased report or keep something out altogether. We think this stinks and is NOT why news was created in the 1st place. We don't think is fair to readers to try to bias their opinion, not provide them with all of the facts, and produce very biased reporting. Have you ever asked yourself if there is another side to a story you hear on the news, or do you just adopt the same point of view they try to present and push on you? Research shows you DO believe everything you hear in the news and readily adopt the views presented to you, which is why this kind of reporting is so dangerours. 

Often political agendas get in the way of gettting the full story, as most mainstream media outlets are owned by a relatively few rich people who gladly accept money in exchange for reporting on a story in a biased manner or just leaving it out all together. We don't feel this allows readers to form their own opinion based on having all of the facts. No wonder why so many laws get passed right under our nose! People gladly accepted the Patriot Act after 9/11 when the media made us all scared as hell about being attacked and how it would keep us safe. Most reports didn't even mention what this would do to our civil liberties that America was founded on. If we don't fight for our own freedoms that our country is all about, then what will we fight for? Now years later people are finally starting to wake up to all of the many freedoms we took for granted that we traded in exchange for a false sense of security. It is now more likely that you will become a victim of the Patriot Act's restrictive way, than actually be protected by it, causing a national uproar to get rid of it. Why didn't we think about this 1st and fight against it being adopted in the 1st place? 

Because the media hyped it up and convinced you that it was the right thing to do, and failed to inform younger readers what they would be forever giving up and how it would change America forever. We are no longer a free country where people are free to do what they want and form their own opinions of important issues because now you are just told what to think. But most don't even realize this is happening. Instead of asking questions they feel that if it's good enough to be reported on television, then it MUST be true We are here to tell you that is is NOT true, You mainstream media isn't even close to being unbiased anymore. You are being told what to think and believe every time you listen to a mainstream media report or open the newspaper! It is the easiest form of control that exists. After all media news reporting was originally based on the principals of honesty, telling both sides of the story, fact checking, etc. But it isn't anymore and hasn't been for a very long time now. 

People all seem to think they are in charge of their own lives and are educated voters, and make informed decisions. But the truth is you don't know what you don't know until it's too late. It's about time that we now lower the guard of our egos and get real with ourselves. WE ARE NOT BEING INFORMED ADEQUATELY ANYMORE so NONE of us can claim to know the WHOLE story on anything until we take the time to independantly research BOTH sides of EVERY issue and story BEFORE FORMING ANY OPINION AT ALL. Because you WON'T hear it on the news unless you are listening to one of the growing number of indie outlets. Yet we ademently defend our uninformed opinions like we know everything, when in truth all we know is what we are told to know and think. If you don't think this is the case with you, you are either naive, or have your ego too heavily guarded to be able to admit to to yourself. Or you are one like us. We are the new generation of media who took on the responsibility to tell the truth at all costs. To not get caught up in the biased ways of reporting in the mainstream media. To help make a difference and change the world back to one that is TRULY free, and honest and upholds the very foundations of freedom our country was founded upon! We were once naive too and thought everything we heard on the news was accuracte, and unbiased, and had to get real with ourselves too. 

We didn't want to be thought of as "conspiracy theorists," but the more we learned in media school, the more sickened we became. We realized that if the people knew half of what they weren't being told they would quickly realize there aren't many real conspiracy theories. There is only the whole truth, and then what little we are told. Unless you are taking the time to research every story you hear on the news before forming your opinion of if that accused theif is really such a bad person, then you are merely just adopting what the news report told you about how bad that person was! Ask yourself, when was the last time you heard the alleged theif or criminal tell their side of the story in the report? Or did you just hear "a home in SE was vandelized yesterday by someone considered to be highly dangerous and armed. Here is a composite sketch of the theif and you are aksed to call this number if you have any information." Right? You then just assume this person must be one scary monster and go about your day. I am going to share a story like this that just may drive this point home for you, if you are still among those feeling too "rational" and/or guarded to admit this is usually the case.

How often did you hear about the whole Police shooting innocent people issue in the media lately? If you are in our area, probably a lot! How many reports just made the protesters look scary and violent for merely peacefully protesting against police brutality with a legal permit? TONS every day! How many minutes did they give making the police look good as opposed to telling the stories about the families who lost a loved one due to the police brutality? An UNBIASED reporter would give EQUAL time to both sides of this issue, yet all we seemed to hear was how the police were justified, and then dozens of reports on all the petty crime that they were solving each day and how valuable they were in the wake of the protests, and how many interviews with protesters did you hear? I heard 1 single 3 second comment from a protester and a dozen stories about how they feared the protesters would become violent, how much crime we had, and everything possible to make the police look good and the protesters bad. None were given the same 5 minute story about the loved ones they lost, yet the police officer who had his burger spit in got a whole 5 minutes as the top story 3 times a day for 3 days!!! WTH is going on here? Any guesses? 

We heard hardly anything about the people who were killed, their lives, and those stories at the heart of the issue. We heard how the WHOLE town was afraid the "peaceful" nonviolent protests would turn violent, or a bunch of whiney stories about what has happened in the lives of an officer who got his burger spit on, but when it came down to reporting on the actual shootings, they took up about 30 seconds, while 5 whole minutes for 3 days straight was given to the spit burger story! Then after the committees voted on the police brutality issue the other day, we just stopped hearing whiney stories about officers altogether! WTH? Can you say "agenda?" 

Then after some loud booms were heard throughout the city, and some claim all the way to California and Idaho, the police were quick to find a supposed pipe bomb sank in thick mud off the bridge within 24 hours, showing their extreme value to society (and a bunch of other crap stories given waaay too much time), while local geological reports confirmed the loud booms were actually quake booms, yet we heard NOTHING in the news about this danger. Quake booms often preceed a long overdue quake in fault area, which is of extreme importance to citizens here, yet no warnings were given. 

Then AFTER the police committees voted to hold the police bureau accountable, the stories of spit burgers, exploiting protesters, and pipe bombs stopped. 2 days later new reports followed of "new breaking geological reports" warning people to prepare for a quake in the near future! A bunch of our writers and supporters flooded every local station about how the pipe bomb explination was bunk and they were very OBVIOUSLY ignoring the quake boom story, and how we knew that no mere pipe bomb could be heard all the way through 3 states! We told them they needed to start telling the truth or we'd boycott their news reports altogether. It worked. Never underestimate the power of the "Pushback!" For weeks we heard NOTHING but advertising reports about how revolutionary the iPad would be, and every single little story of car theft, break ins, and other crimes the police don't even bother to respond to anymore. . . but of course they used the recent crime spree to try to show just how valuable the police bureau was to our safety and to deflect the recent shootings and brutality reports. 

Also another very miraculous thing happened the very day of the committee votes. Someone tipped the news channels off about a NEW case of police brutality on top of the 2 recent shootings by police, and the 3 last year, and the 3 or 4 the year before that! Someone tipped off the news channels the day of the vote which the media could NOT ignore. A child had been beaten and tazed by an officer, and it was covered up brilliantly. The officer didn't put that he had slapped, beat and tazed the kid in any of his reports, and blew the situation way out of purportion in his report, which turned out to be a very minimal issue not requiring much force and DEFINITELY NOT A TAZER!  

One of the deceased as a result of the police brutality happened to be a friend of mine, which is why I was personally up in arms about how these news channels were handling their obligation to responsible unbiased reporting. He was a cousin of a friend. He was a college student and worked at his family's appliance business and was not of a caucasion race. . . which seems to be VERY prevelent in the majority of these "accidental shootings." His story is very tragic and was never reported the proper way in the news, leading the gentleman's family to sue the police and media over the way he was portrayed. I'll share his story just to give you an idea of what is going on with our police bureau and why people are crying for reform. I won't give his name or identifying details out of respect for their family, and am only sharing this story to illustrate how the media twists things, and often doesn't give the whole story. I just happen to know the details of this one the best since I knew him. 


First the story that appeared in the news, just for the contrast. The news reported that a man had been killed by an officer after an officer had seen a "crazed naked man" running down the street toward him hysterical. The reports said the officer felt threatened by an obviously seriously mentally ill man running after him screaming, and had no choice but to taze the man, which resulted unintentionally in his death. They then reported that they suspected the man to be hopped up on drugs which is why the "slight tazing" resulted in the man's death, as a normal person getting tazed wouldn't normally die. This report followed just after a couple of other shooting and tazing stories that were int eh media. Now by this report most people initially felt that the police officer only tazed the "drugged mentally ill man" because be obviously felt "his life was in danger" and the made it appear as if the officer was convinced he was being attacked and acted in self defense, so the community outpouring of sympathy for the emotionally distraught officer soon followed. He cried in the reports saying how bad he felt to have accidentally killed the man, but that he was being attacked by a mentally ill, drugged, naked, crazed individual. By this most people would have let the officer off the hook under this story.


Now for the other side of the story from his family with all details the media left out. Onviously the media had NOT interviewed the family or other sources who knew and ONLY reported what the local police bureau needed them to say so they could get their side out. My friend was on his way to work to at their family's used appliance store one afternoon slightly late after having run out of gas. I happened to support the store they owned, and had just recently purchased many of my appliances their, and have been very happy with them all! I was even referring neighbors to their store, because the quality and honesty of their business really impressed me. A girlfriend of mine had referred me there, because the family who owned the used appliance store were her cousins, and she knew I had just moved and needed new everything. She also knew I was big on quality. 

They impressed me with the time they spent showing me umpteem million different washers and dryers, the lack of pushy salesmen, their honesty, and the overall quality of things. They only took the best appliances, and offered free delivery, and disclosed everything to me. It went way beyond my expectations for a small used store, and really proved to me the honesty and morals of the family that ran the store. I never knew at the time that a few months later I would be hearing about them in the news in the worst light possible. The guy who was killed later, had been polite, honest, and totally NOT on drugs! He must have spent about 3 hours or more with me on several return trips taking measurements, color matching, pulling huge appliances from the back room to show me, and offering to help customize a refurbished washer if I couldn't find the right one on the showroom. Talk about impressive and being really dedicated to his work!

So this same nice gentleman driving to work that afternoon, still had one of those red emergency gas cans in his back seat that was mostly empty. He was smoking a cigarette and flicked the ashes out of his window, but one of the sparks of ash flew back into the rear car window, instead of flying away from the car, which ignited the empty gas can. The car became engulfed in flames on the road and his clothes and body as well. Suffering 3rd degree burns, and the flames obscuring his view, he had no choice but to swerve off to  the side of the road roll out of the vehicle, strip all of his clothes off and was in agony! Anyone in his situation would have done the same thing. Naked and with his flesh literally melted off of his body and in a frantic bloody mess, he noticed an officer down the street. So he attempted to get the officers attention and began running as fast as he could down the street to flag him down, so desperate for help with his naked body burned from head to toe. 

Anyone who has suffered 3rd degree burns will tell you that there is no pain that can EVER compare to burns this severe! He was hurt so badly and had inhaled so much smoke from the fire, he couldn't even speak and was just making muffled screams and choked gasps. He was very obviously distressed and terrified in his attempt to articulate what had happened, just as the car exploded. Once he reached the officer, he grabbed onto him about to collapse, his heartrate severely elevated from the injuries to his body. Severe burns causes the body to go into shock and often either causes the body to shut down or into overdrive. The officer, not taking a second to asses the situation, the flaming vehicle, the burned young man, grabbed his tazer and tazed my friend. Had the officer taken half a second to look behind him, he might have noticed the flaming car and seen the bloody burns all over my friend's body before reaching for a weapon. 

The officer said he acted instinctively to what he thought was someone attacking him. It seems pretty apparent that there is NO way the officer could not have noticed a car on fire or the injuries of the victim. Accident or not, obviously the officer made the wrong judgment call and chose to taze the man, which with his elevated heartrate resulted in his immediate death. Now accidents happen, but to not at least fess up to that in the wake of the devistated family who not only lost their youngest son, but had to hear the most horrible dishonest reports through the entire grieving process that portrayed the officer as the victim must have been more painful than I could ever imagine.

Now ask yourself if this true version of the story direct from the witnesses and family sounds VERY different and totally changes the 1st impression you had of the "drug crazed mentally ill man" who 'attacked an officer?" Of course it does. It just goes to show how different this story could have been had the media taken the time to get the rest of the story, and not just report the first thing to police tell them too. I wonder how much of our tax dollars is also going to what appears to be a brilliant PR team for hte police to pay for the kind of reports the want in the media. This is soooo apparent, that it's scary. Because when a "accidental shooting/tazing death" gets all of 30 seconds of media airtime like the one above, and is highly skewed at that, but EVERY SINGLE MINOR crime story that the police don't even bother to respond to anymore (and just send out a form for the victim to fill out and back) gets reported with 3-5 minutes of intense reporting and adding up to several a day all of the sudden as soon as the police get a little heat for their actions. THIS IS NOT UNBIASED REPORTING! We NEVER heard about 20 car break-ins a day over the gruesome death of someone at police hands! The best the family ever got from the media was a small 45 second update weeks after the fact. The media reported only something to the effect that "The autopsy reports turned up no evidence of drugs in the victim's system, and now coroners and detectives are investigating the possibility that the victim had been badly burned which may have accounted for an elevated heartrate, resulting in his death when the officer tazed him. But the police bureau is defending the officer's actions stating that there is no way the officer could have known the victim's heartrate was elevated enough, that tazing the crazed man would have resulted in his death. It turns out that the victim may have been trying to get help after his car caught on fire, but the police bureau said that victim said nothing about any fires when he approached the officer and was so out of control that the officer felt his life was in danger and had no choice but to taze the man, as his hysterical screaming was incoherant." How sick is that? The family told me that they were never once asked for a statement or for their side of the story and even this minor update still made the officer look justified in his actions, and was suffering horrible mental distress as a result of the "negative press" he felt he was apparently getting!

Whatever the case, it is apparent that after similar stories like this have been happening more and more often in our police department in the past couple years, that the philosophy of "shoot first, and ask questions later" is resulting in too many unnecessary deaths. And instead of our police chief and bureau coming clean with the obvious fact that our officers need some better training to learn how to better asses crisis incidents BEFORE acting. They just continue to maintain that they train the officers to use force "if they believe their life is in danger,' and will uphold this to protect officers. Oh c'mon, ANY TIME and officer is on duty, by the very nature of their job they are placing their life on the line, and one wants to feel safe if the need to call teh police for help. 

It is CRUCIAL that police MUST LEARN THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN A LIFETHREATENING SITUATION AND A CRISIS SITUATION THAT DOES NOT REQUIRE FORCE! There is NO way that ANY officer could convince me that a 6 year old little boy would require ANY FORCE AT ALL. If an officer doesn't know enough to tell that an upset, but small unarmed child doesn't require deadly force then let's pray to God that this man never becomes a parent. Most parents can easily tell the difference. According to that story, the family even TOLD the officer that the child shouldn't require any force. You don't TAZE a little kid merely shouting insults, Geesh! Who is training these officers. I once worked at a lock down facility for mentally disturbed children 6-12 years olds. We had to go through specialized P.A.R.T. training to learn how to quickly asses any situation with the kids there, to know when we just needed to move out of the way, give a time out, restrain, or fear for our lives. We got hit, kicked, and punched daily and were NEVER allowed to use deadly or harmful force EVEN IF we felt they might kill us! No mechanical restraints (meaning using handcuffs, blankets, restraining devices were allowed. We could ONLY restrain with our bodies and ONLY with 2 staff people. I mean what happened to the days of just putting an out of control person in a Full Nelson and cuffing them then calling for backup? Had the officer even done this in the incident with my deceased friend to give him enough time to asses the situation, it would have been more justified and appropriate! 

*IT IS POSSIBLE TO KNOW THE DIFFERENCE AND IT IS POSSIBLE TO EVEN KNOW HOW TO EVADE AND RESTRAIN SOMEONE WHO SNEAK ATTACKS YOU FROM BEHIND WITHOUT HURTING ANYONE! If a minimum wage college student at a children's facility can learn this with highly dangerous mentally ill (and often very strong and large) kids, then we can definitely expect our officers to have the SAME if not BETTER training. One would think the police have an obligation to know these things due to the nature of their work. Not EVERYONE is a highly dangerous armed criminal who's gonna shoot! While it's important to have the training to be prepared, one doesn't need to be trigger happy 24/7 to stay alive as an officer. I know 2 police officers, and NONE of them have ever said they felt hte need to shoot first and ask questions later on the job. But 2 of them DID state that they WERE TOLD BY THEIR BUREAU that if they ever felt threatened to shoot to kill! I mean what ever happened to the warning shots in the foot to disarm at the very least? It's appalling. We learned at the children's facility how to just maneuver away from a punch or kick very easily from any direction, and also how to move the child's arms easily enough so as to restrain them with our body or pin them to the floor or wall with their own clothes, in a way that doesn't hurt anybody. And this was ALL we were allowed to do, then place them in the "safe room" if the kid didn't calm down within 5 minutes or was ACTUALLY verbally threatening to harm anyone or themselves after that 5 minutes. So I personally KNOW it's possible.

It became very clear that all the mainstream media was doing was just helping the police to look as good as possible because they were under fire. It was almost readily apparent to someone who's taken any media or mass communications classes in school, that these news channels were getting paid off to appear supportive to our dysfunctional police. They ONLY aired interviews with people who thought the protests were stupid, and supported the police decisions, when the overwhelming majority was crying out for our police to be just held accountable for their poor decisions that lead to the deaths of many good people. THIS IS NOT UNBIASED REPORTING when you don't show an EQUAL number of people on the other side too! This caused many of us new media students to become enraged and wonder just what we had gotten ourselves into. Now mind you, I am NOT saying that I think our police force is not a very valuable service to our society. I think props should be given to those officers who exercise good judgment when handling difficult situation. These officers put their life on the line to keep us safe, which I have the utmost respect for. But it should also be apparent after all of these facts, that there IS a BIG problem with our police department at the moment which needs to be addressed. Reform IS necessary. The police would get a LOT more support if they just came out and admitted it under the guise of caring about those who have died and with the intention of preventing future deaths and restoring the people's faith in them. Honesty resonates with people, and has a way of disarming even the most angery people. Had they acted even remotely as if they cared instead of hiring PR people to defend them and attempting the media circus to make them look like the victims, the people might have responded differently. The protests may have never happened and people may have just belived that the police department in good faith was going to deal with the problem. No big deal. Honesty and apologies go a long way to fixing a problem, but someone clearly misadvised them. THe only reason I could see for such an elaborate cover up, would be that they have even more worse things to hide they fear would come to light if people look into them further and this scares me. I was attacked and almost raped, and the man walked. There were 3 other victims too, and still he wasn't held accountable. What is going on and what is their exact relationship with the mainstream media? Obviously some mony is being exchanged for the media's invaluable services to the burearu!

IT IS POSSIBLE TO SUPPORT ALL OUR POLICE DO FOR US, FEEL THAT THEY ARE A VALUE TO OUR SOCIETY IN GENERAL, AND STILL BELIEVE THAT SOME REFORM IS NECESSARY! It ticks me off that the media doesn't portray it this way too as they are supposed to. It was originally the very notion behind news reporting and the fundamental ethics of being unbiased and not taking sides as a reporter or media outlet. It also doesn't make myself nor you a police-bashing evil citizen! It is possible to NOT have to chose one side or the other but to see BOTH sides of the situation. This is what the media is supposed to be helping us do. . . to make informed decisions in an unbiased manner. Not make us feel like bad people if we speak out about something like this.

It was like the 4th unnecessary death and/or injury resulting tasing from our police recently, and probably way more than that we just haven't heard. Our last police chief had been recently replaced too after a sex scandal within the bureau. Apparently the partner of the officer who tased the child couldn't handle knowing this and covering it up any longer, and the story broke on the day of the reform vote. The committee of course with all the protesting, shootings, and baaad history of our police department decided it was time to appoint a real reform committee to make some changes. All of the sudden all the good stories the mainstream media was reporting on the police to counter the protesting abruptly STOPPED! The big huge crime issue they said we had was easily solved by FINALLY arresting a couple of vagrant drug addicts in the area who the police seemed unable to find before, and the media quickly turned it's attention to advertising the new iPad. 


This is why we decided that we new media students would declare ourselves the "New Generation of Media" and agree to NEVER allow this continue. Many of us are now starting our own indie media outlets. Usually they don't get anywhere near the amount of readers and viewers as the mainstream ones owned by the few rich people who are happy to take money in exchange for biased reporting or advertising. But despite the vast majority of people knowing that their media is lying to them, still agree to watch/read, and this support the money making scheme of modern day mainstream media. It is no longer the media our grandparents grew up with. 


So we started U Didn't Hear This On The News to tell the other side of the story often left out of other "reports" and attempt to counteract the bias in the mainstream media. We cannot claim to be totally "unbiased" ourselves, as our mission is to help provide a balance and a place for people who sincerely want to hear the real story or need another perspective. People are sooo easily persuaded what to think and research has proved that no matter how people claim to be nonjudgmental and think for themselves, that we often adopt the exact same perspective of the reports we hear. If they bash someone like Tiger, we decide that we also hate Tiger Woods, even without hearing the other side of the story.


So just think next time you watch any mainstream media shows, you are supporting a for profit biased business that doesn't have your best interests at heart. You are providing more money to the people who pride themselves on telling you what to think. You WILL adopt their point of view and they know this. They know if they make you think a certain way about an issue that you won't go look into it further. So next time you want to get the latest news, think about supporting some of the local non-profit indie media outlets who is REALLY trying to make a difference! We are comprised of soley volunteer writers and reporters and will try our best to bring you the stories that really DO affect you. If it has to do with politics, national health care, local news, scandals that you won't hear anywhere else, then come to us for the truth! 

Thanks for reading and supporting our news report blog!
~Th3 R0y4l R0gu3 R3p0rt3r~

*We are also still looking for more reporters and investigative writers to submit, research and write stories on issues. If you have a good story idea, story tip, know about a story the news channels didn't tell the other side of the story on (no matter what that side is), then please send us your ideas, stories, writing samples and inquiries. If you looking to become a regular reporter, know that we cannot afford to pay any of our reporters. Please send us a sample story of your writing on an issue that is along the lines of the type of stuff we report on. 

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