Editor's Note. Ownership of TV stations in particular, but of all traditional media generally [newspapers & radio], has been greatly consolidated over the past 50 years due to changes made to ownership laws. The original ownership laws were instituted in the 1930's and 1940's when the people responsible for our government generally tried to represent the people who elected them. Starting in the 1980's, with Ronald Reagan, the ownership and regulatory frameworks began to be alterred, very much as was done in George Orwell's Animal Farm. And 'the pigs' have been deceiving us more and more, ever since. This section is going to delve into the past to provide you with a better understanding of how Presidents Reagan, Clinton, Bush Jr. and Trump have deregulated the media to the billionaire owners' and corrupt politicians' advantage. And how the consolidation of the mass media, most specifically broadcast [but to a lesser extent other traditional mass media], are now being used to dupe, deceive, exploit and victimize the rest of us without our knowing because what they are doing isn't reported on the 'mainstream' media outlets. We also include things you can do to start doing a better job of informing yourself and wean yourself off relying on the billionaires for your view of policy, pols and the rest of life. This will be a mix of looking back and current snapshots and snippets to heighten your awareness of what they're not telling you ... etc.

Local & National [Primarily Web] News Sources we Currently Trust

Updated 8.20.25 v. 7.7.25 Update / Opinion / Work in Progress

We've entered The Disinformation Age. Much of the mass media is controlled by billionaires, especially TV assets. They changed the FCC laws so they are no longer required to behave ethically, accurately and so the billionaire press does what it does best, pursues profits regardless of community collateral damage. They're only sharing information that they want you to know. They omit key facts they don't want you to know or even entirely ignore important stories that may embarass their billionaire friends. They try to manipulate viewers' perceptions in order to get them to vote for candidates representing the billionaires' interests, and provide open mics to the candidates their choice - not fact checked - even when these pols are making numerous false or misleading statements.

Trusted Web News Sources - Gotham Buzz

Updated 8.20.25 v. 6.20.25 _ Currently Recommended News Sources to Help You Wean Yourself from Servile Dependence on Billioniare TV News.

For local NYC / NYS news we currently find ourselves using The City, Politico, Axios, Vox, Wikipedia, the Gotham Gazette, Gothamist and City & State. Also NPR and PBS. Note that we will continue to revisit this section and continue developing this list of local, state and national news sources sometime in the not-too-distant future.

For national news we find ourselves using many of the above sources, as well as Mother Jones, Wired, the Atlantic, the New Yorker, the browser Firefox curates a fair news offering, finance.yahoo.com is good for business news, and moderated social media outlets like BSky.app has an intelligent, highly skilled audience that does a fair job of identifying key news reports. The search engines are also useful for fact checking and doing further research into issues, people and other things. Collectively these news sources should enable you to effectively do your civic duty to inform yourself about people and issues before voting.

The NON-Billionaire TV News that we currently find reliable, includes left-leaning Democracy Now [on FNX & CUNY TV], PBS News Hour, and PBS Documentaries are also very informative. The Washington Post and New York Times are still fairly reliable, but sadly, not as implicitly as I found them to be in the past. Both the NYT and Wapo have undergone ownership / top management changes within the past six years. And the new management teams' values appear to differ from their predecessors, so pay attention to editorial changes / impacts.

I no longer find any of the Network TV News outlets to be even remotely close to being sufficiently informative. And far, far too often I find them to be misleading and parlayers of false information. I doubt they ever were really up to the job, but back in the day, they used the newspaper reporting to help keep them informed. Here again, newspaper journalism may not be dead, but it's very financially challenged and isn't remotely close to what it once was due to constained financials. But that said, you can still pick up a few leads from TV News, which you can then use to more fully inform yourself, by doing further research on the internet.

• CLICK here to view our list of trusted news sources on the web for local politics and news in NYC and for national politics and news in the USA.

Why are TV Networks Real Journalists 'Resigning' en Masse?

CBS Late Show with Stephen Colbert to be Discontinued

July 17, 2025 /

There are those of us who believe their narrative for closing Stephen Colbert is false. They said for financial reasons, and yet Colbert leads in his time period and was the only one in that time period to post a gain from Q1 to Q2 2025. Billionaire Larry Ellison and his son are Trump supporters and Colbert is a Trump critic. As the Ellison's want Trump to approve their huge merger / takeover, it is believed by some that they are appeasing Trump so his FCC will approve the deal.

Billionaires Ellison and Rupert Murdoch are also reportedly interested in taking over Tik Tok, which is why it hasn't been shut down even after Congress passed a law closing it because it was believed to represent a foreign threat [China].

CBS Anchor Nora O'Donnell 'Resigns'

A year ago, in June of 2024, Nora O'Donnell announced that she would be leaving the network anchor post after the 2024 election. At the time the Ellisons were deeply engaged in negotiations to acquire CBS.

NBC Anchor Lester Holt 'Resigns'

In February of 2025 NBC Anchor, Lester Holt, announced he would be resigning.

Disney / ABC Settles Lawsuit with Trump

In early 2025 they settled. $15 million.

Paramount / CBS Settles Lawsuit with Trump

July 2, 2025. $16 million.

CNN Wins Lawsuit vs Trump

2023. Considered frivolous like the two above?

Why Isn't Network TV News Covering the Trump? / Epstein Files like they Covered the P. Diddy Case?

In Nearly Four Years has Eric Adams done Anything to Rein in Landlord Harassment & Slumlord Millionaires? Have Privately Controlled TV News Networks Spread & Amplified another seemingly Trump Epstein Big Lie? Why Did Trump Have to Travel to Scotland to Find out that the Palestinians are Starving in Gaza?

August 1, 2025 / NYC Politics & Government / NYC Social Issues / Gotham Buzz NYC.

Eric Adams has Succeeded in Helping Billionaires Build Luxury Housing, but He has Failed to Stop Landlord Harassments of NYC Tenants & the Alleged Cheating of Black & Brown Homeowers out of Their Properties via Deed Theft - Documented in Film Slumlord Millionaire and in an OpEd by FEC NYCHA Tenants

News Analysis, Opinion & Insight. This story is not likely to show up on your TV screen in a timely fashion, because real news stories and real news insights rarely do. And too often, by the time they do, it's far too late to make a difference.

This is the trailer to a recent film that came out regarding landlord harassment in NYC, as well as about black and brown homeowner deed theft - neither of which Eric Adams appears to have done much about, during his nearly four years in office as NYC Mayor - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LuuBlQJh86M

If you find the trailer interesting enough, you can watch the full one hour and 22 minute long film on PBS until 8.26.25 - at which time it expires. Viewing the film now is free, but it is preceded by two short PBS promos before the film begins - https://www.pbs.org/video/slumlord-millionaire-3sgi7g/

Eric Adams claims to be a pro housing Mayor. It is true that he's been very supportive of housing projects by billionaires and international investors. But Adams has not advocated much - if at all [eg. the Rent Guidelines Board rent increases during his one term in office] - for tenants. And he's not been a champion of the black and brown people to whom he tells what now seems his phony personal housing insecurity story. You know, the one about him bringing his clothes to school as a child for fear of eviction. This story wouldn't be the first nor the only lie he has publicly told New Yorkers. And Adams appears to be helping multi-billionaire real estate developer Stephen Ross move FEC NYCHA tenants out of their homes, so that Ross can grab even more NYC land than he already has.

But don't take my word for it.

• CLICK here to read the rest of our report about Eric Adams doing nothing to rein in Landlord Harassment & Slumlord Millionaires? Billionaire controlled TV News Networks Spread & Amplify what seems another Trump Epstein Big Lie and Why Did Trump Have to Travel to Scotland to Find out that the Palestinians are Starving in Gaza?

Rupert Murdoch is Beating his Manipulative Mass Media War Drums Again

The 94 Year Old, Life-Long War Monger, is Again Pushing the U.S. to get into Another Mid East War - this time with Iran - because Wars Generate Higher Profits for the Billionaire's TV & Print News Outlets

June 20, 2025 / NYC Neighborhoods / U.S. Politics Media & UN News / News Analysis & Opinion / Gotham Buzz NYC.

Murdoch may be guilty of inciting numerous wars, but it's the American people who must pay for them ...

... with the lives of their loved ones, increased public debt, and the loss of friends and allies around the world, because of the incredible abuse of American power made by this generation, repeated over and over again. Murdoch never admits nor pays for his mistakes.

Was Murdoch's visit to the Trump Oval Office in Winter of 2025, shortly after Trump won the election, to get Trump moving on a War with Iran?

Once again, the Murdoch Ministry of Mass Manipulation is providing their audiences with distorted reports about what's happening in the Middle East, to pressure another American president [in this case Trump] into taking America into another war in the Middle East again. At least twice before, the Murdoch Ministry of propaganda convinced enough of the Fox News fools - by which I mean people who don't augment what 'news' they obtain from the Murdoch Ministry of Mass Manipulation with non-Murdoch news sources. Murdoch controls Fox News, the NY Post, the Wall St. Journal, the London Times, the Sun [also U.K.] and the Australian. All Murdoch controlled entities appear to report stories about people and issues pretty much the same way - which is to report them in whatever way Rupert Murdoch orders.

Murdoch Mass Media Beat the War Drums for both Iraq & Afghanistan using False & Distorted Narratives

Murdoch famously uses the same old tired rhetoric, that this will be a 'just' war and it's really a war on terror, even though it is not. It's really a war for higher ratings and more newspaper sales.

Note that the Lachlan Murdoch visit to Netanyahu in Israel was in January 2024.

These above mentioned narratives are the same as those used by Murdoch mass media to get us to go to war in Iraq and Afghanistan. In Iraq it was 'Weapons of Mass Destruction' that were never found [remember that?], in Afghanistan it was more of the same fear mongering about terrorism. Now it's Iranian Nukes that - that like the WMD - don't currently exist. Notice that ONLY Fox News polls show Americans favoring going to war with Iran, when nobody else's polls do. Not even the Times of Israel. Now that's a coincidence, isn't it?

• CLICK here to read the rest of our report on Rupert Murdoch's manipulative use of mass media to incite the U.S. to get into multiple wars in the Mid East with or for Israel.

Why Isn't TV News Talking About the Real Reason for American Budget Deficits & Debt?

Which are the Huge Republican Tax Cuts for Billionaires that Started with Ronald Reagan in the 1980's, Continued with George W. Bush in the 00's and got a Huge Third Boost from Trump in 2017

February 14, 2025 / NYC Neighborhoods / NYC Things To Do Events / News Analysis & Opinion / Gotham Buzz NYC. This report was first published embedded in the WTD.

Why aren't the billionaire controlled TV networks talking about WHY Trump is cutting so many people and other resources from the federal government? Why are they aiding and abetting the unsubstantiated, and hence to date false, narratives that Trump and Musk are cutting fat, bureaucracy and corruption.

Why are they failing to inform the nation that a lot of the federal government programs that are being cut are dedicated to helping people stay healthy and safe, elevate themselves, and achieve the American Dream? The priority targeted departments that Trump / Musk are trying to cut enable Americans to stay healthy, get a good education and avoid being ripped off by nefarious financial institutions. These categories appear to be the priority targeted cuts announced so far.

To date Trump has signed and announced nearly 100 Executive Orders - some of which appear to be illegal - and are being contested in the courts. Among the Executive Orders are some, that are cutting programs designed to help people stay healthy, get a good education and avoid abuse by financial firms. Here are just a few of them.

Trump announced that the U.S. is exiting from the World Health Organization [WHO - helps manage global disease breakouts], cuttingthe budgets of the National Institute of Health [NIH - health / scientific research] and cutting the Center for Disease Control [CDC], without doing some sort of in-depth analysis first. Trump announced he's cutting most of the Department of Education. And he's announced he's going to try to cut the entire Consumer Financial Protection Bureau [CFPB].

As we saw in this last election, TV News fails to do an effective job of informing / educating Americans. In the election they failed to inform Americans about the state of the economy [good] and currently they are failing to inform Americans as to why these federal agencies and departments perform important functions that help keep America the promised land, by protecting our collective health, investing in our nation's education / future and protecting consumers from financial abuse.

TV Network News doesn't say a single word about why Trump / Musk are REALLY cutting so many federal government services so quickly.

• CLICK here for the answer to the question above as well as for the rest of our report on Why isn't TV News Talking About the Real Reason for American Budget Deficits & Debt?

The Brain-Dead, Kiddie-Hosted, TV News

They Televise Musk Giving Out Millions of Dollars & None Ask Why

October 31, 2024 / U.S. Government & Politics / News Analysis & Opinion / Gotham Buzz.

Background Regarding the Crumbling News Foundation, Upon which TV News Once Relied

If you've been reading my work, especially in recent times, you'll notice how increasingly frustrated I have become with TV News. If you want to know why America doesn't seem quite right, it's because the TV folks rarely seem to do any real reporting. In times gone by, the real reporting was done by the journalists working for the newspapers, and then the TV newspeople essentially rewrote and then reread the newspaper journalists' work on air.

Newspapers have been decimated by the search engines, specifically Google, undermining the newspaper business models, by using newspapers' content to create a really wonderful apparatus - internet search. But the problem is that the technologists reap most of the advertising revenue, and virtually all of the profit, so that most newspapers can scarcely afford to do much real news anymore, because their staffs are being cut, and they can't invest in real journalism, which costs money.

Fast Forward to the State of Modern TV News Rooms Today

TV News used to generate much larger audiences, and hence ratings and revenue, than they do today. This is because most folks are spending far more time on their cell phones or on their computers, and thus watching far less TV. Part of the reason is the new technologies, but ...

But the other part of the equation is that the content on TV has growing incredibly old and stale. You can probably find as much content on TV today that was created in the 1950's, 1960's, 1970's, 1980's and 1990's as you can find content created in the first quarter century of this millenium. And moreover, most of the content created for TV in this millenium are those super cheap-to-produce games shows, that some segment of the population has the time, interest and / or boredom to watch. And a lot of the rest of the content produced today is either hospital or law enforcement shows, which really narrows the field in terms of viewing options, if you're interested in anything else.

Back to TV News. If you read our reporting on government and politics the past few months, or over the years, we are constantly in pursuit of the back story. Unfortunately, TV News which reaches a far larger audience than we do, make their living reciting headlines, which is not the same as reporting the news. This brings me to telling you why I'm writing this report.

The Real Swamp & The Real Story of Trump and Musk & Why They 'Need' to Win

Musk Didn't Think Trump was the 'Right Guy' in 2016 & Trump Called Musk a "Bullsh@t Artist"

It takes one to know one.

Back then, they were both right. But things have changed. At present both have a common interest in social media and in that business their respective fortunes seem somewhat aligned, as they are both seek to attract the white uneducated males in our country, to whom they have been feeding misinformation and propaganda, as if it were real news. And while financially, that business model doesn't appear to be working, perhaps they can make it work by getting Trump elected.

• CLICK here to read the rest of our report on what seems Putin's role in why Elon Musk is trying to help Trump win election 2024.

Time to Re-Think TV News

Analyzing 'The Trump TV News Show' in the Context of the 1998 Film 'The Truman Show'

October 21, 2024 vs 10.21.24 / NYC Government & Politics / DRAFT - News Analysis & Opinion / Gotham Buzz NYC.

I almost cannot stand to watch TV News anymore.  It's like spending a half hour or more listening to well-dressed simpletons say nothing of note - let alone impart important news informing me about what's really going on in the world around us. 

TV News Today - The Bucket is Half Empty

The TV News teleprompter readers show endless rounds of accident, crime and sports videos.  They intersperse the conversation by sensationalizing celebrity nonsense, in an effort to cross-promote their networks' other offerings. Thus, oftentimes what we're really watching are infommercials for the networks' TV shows and movies or the celebrities who have worked on them, promoting them.

Thankfully that has not gone unnoticed.  Only 23% of Americans trust TV News, which is about a loss of the trust of about three quarters of Americans vs years gone by.

VERIFY STAT ABOVE - it's either dead on or approximate

Is it a wonder that trust has fallen so steeply, when candidates vying for the highest office in the land, know that they can lie unchallenged to the entire nation, live on national TV, as we saw in both the CNN Presidential Debate in June and the CBS News Vice Presidential Debate in October? 

But what's worse, is that this is not the worst of it.

TV News Orgs & Anchors are as Savvy as Kindergarteners [kids, no offense intended]

For example, in the only presidential debate between Kamala Harris and the Donald, Trump sent all of the TV networks off on a fool's errand into Springfield, Ohio looking for non-existent Haitian immigrants who Trump said were eating the cats and dogs in that town. 

Thus, after the debate was over, TV News - instead of talking about the issues facing the nation, which had been discussed during that debate - they spent the next few days broadcasting time-wasting, sensationalized, ratings-grabbing headlines - about a non-existent story. 

In the process TV News almost completely ignored the news portion of the debate, including that Harris completely trounced Trump in the debate. Hence Donald Trump prevailed again, in manipulating the TV News networks, which are staffed by teams of well paid, highly gullible, dupes.

Even to this day nobody - or virtually nobody - has acknowledged that they were all played for fools, and sent on a fools errand.  The day has passed when TV News was staffed by seasoned anchors, who knew a thing or two about the real world. The TV News anchors today appear to think and act like pre-K school children [hey kids, no offense intended], who Donald Trump manipulates and distracts from what's important, like an uncle distracts his nieces and nephews from his sleight of hand 'magic' tricks.

So, the post-debate conversation wasn't about the serious issues facing the nation, for the most part it didn't contextualize the debate, and ultimately it wasn't informative.  Instead, what we saw, is just how ridiculous and incompetent the folks are, to whom we've entrusted one of the most significant conduits of the nation's information system.  Instead of calling them TV Anchormen [conveying that they once had gravitas], they should be called the TV Feathermen [conveying that they are shallow, lightweight information sources]. And in the interest of gender equality, the same generally holds true for the females in those roles.

Why aren't we talking about this - https://www.project2025.org

• CLICK here to read the rest of our report about Time to Re-Think TV News.

* Picketing for the One Day Strike at the New York Times didn't Last a Day

How Not to do a Strike?

December 13, 2022 / NYC Business News / Midtown Manhattan / News Analysis & Opinion / Manhattan Buzz NYC / 386. 

Early last week I caught wind that there was an impending strike coming to the New York Times.  It was a snippet of a news story, but seemed important, given the prominence and influence of the Times. The Times is one of the two most prestigious papers in the nation along with the Washington Post, and one of a small number of such influential newspapers in the world.

NYT Strike on Thursday, December 8, 2022

So, when I heard that the strike was actually happening on Thursday late afternoon, I dropped everything and headed down to the New York Times office building in Midtown Manhattan.  I had a hunch that the strikers would be disbanding - if not gone - by the time the TV news ended at 7 pm. 

It turns out I was right, as I arrived right around 7 pm and there wasn't a striker in sight.  I walked completely around the block, covering all street exits of the Times office building, including 8th Avenue and 40th and 41st Streets. The strikers had been there, just not for a very long time.

I asked several people coming out of the building about the strike.  Most of them shrugged me off, in a surly sort of manner.  One of them responded telling me that the strikers were there in the afternoon, marching along 8th Avenue.  But, as mentioned, there wasn't a striker in sight, and no trace that they had been there.  Unless they had slipped into Wolfgang's Steakhouse for drinks and dinner [see photo below].

The photo above right was taken outside of the Times office building in Midtown Manhattan around 7 pm on December 8, 2022 - the day of the one day strike. The picketing appears not to have lasted the day.

A reported 1,100 members of the News Guild of New York gave up a days pay, to stage the one day walk out on Thursday, December 8th.  The union represents 1,450 NYT employees, of which 1270 are newsroom personnel, according to the Wall St. Journal.  Based on the coverage I saw by other news organizations of the strike, far fewer folks picketed on Thursday, than the number of those who didn't show up for work and gave up the day of pay. My guesstimate of the number who picketed was in the low hundred(s).

• CLICK here to read our report about the New York Times News Guild Strike of December 2022.