I don't know what a "Gannett" is. Help me.

Do you know? I don't, and I used to work for one. This one in fact.

We have this thing in Brevard County  Florida. It's called a "Gannett". I don't know what it is. Perhaps you have one too.

It claims to be a newspaper but it's not. It just sits there like a sphinx that charges extortionately for advertising. Our Gannett goes by the name "Florida Today." How about yours?

Often what it produces as far as "news" is rather fluffy and light. What now comes out of this Gannett more often than not, was once called "infotainment," or "advertorial," or "evergreen," which meant it could run at any time. These are kisses to the community that seldom inform. They seldom give us information we can use to club corrupt officials over the head with. Which is what newspapering used to be all about, keeping those officials in check.

Back in my day, there were a dozen charming insults for these "journalistic" offerings which are designed to break up the news copy. Now the news copy, if it makes it out of this Gannett at all, is bobbing out in a sea of "evergreen". A little man in a boat shouting to us a mile from shore on a windy day.

What's that he saying? See him waving there?

Wave back. Smile. Go back to sleep.

You see, at our local Gannett, they've run all the investigative newspaper reporters out and silenced the remainder. How about yours?

Public opinion? I've heard it spoken of in other parts of the state. But we here in Brevard County have had all of that taken away from us, you see. Gannett says it's all for the best. A thing of the past, "opinion". Soon the very word itself will be illegal. Just now it's unfashionable; dirty, to be stifled with contracts of legal gibberish that no one can read.

What's that? I'm a liar? Really?

Below you will find a link to the Magna Carta of "terms of use" Faustian contracts.

I ran into this document after I was attempting to post a comment to the Gannett concerning an all-expenses paid trip to Israel taken by our governor and our local politician Senator Mike Haripopolos.

Unsatisfied in insulting us by taking this trip that likely won't result in anything more than fake-job fanfare and spread sheet pointing, Mikey has to also go the extra and write to us from the road so we are sure to get good and angry. And our Gannett is here to help pave the way for that anger.

I found it odd Mike would be posting about God so early in his missives. I thought he'd leave it till late in the game; not make us swallow so much crap right out of the gate.

No. Let the irony commence immediately.

Our Gannett makes it so that one must sign onto Facebook first, before one is permitted to comment to online ditties such as a strangely self serving piece by Senator Mike in the form of Israel diaries. But the filtering and moderation doesn't stop there.

No. I can't even see what the other writers are saying about Mike's missives just now, and I know those comments are good. I just know they are scathing! As they should be!

Hush children. No. Gannett knows best. Gannett mind rapes you with the rage of knowing you're paying for this hypocrite to bob his head at the Western Wall, then jot down his empty headed little gibberish about God. And there you are, left in your own room of rage, stewing in the knowledge that your comment has just been sent to a moderator's hell with the others. And no one will see those words.

The Gannett will wait, and wait, and wait before posting them until everyone has moved on with their day, until we've had enough and moved on. The comments will then be dissolved electronically.

Why? Why do this?

Well it's a Gannett, after all, children. It doesn't do anything. It feigns its own industry. It smothered up the market of news ages ago. Like Walmart, it categorically killed off, or swallowed up the competition. When another would raise its head above the blades of grass, the Gannett merely lowered its advertising rates and wiped those silly competitors out in a week.

So we, like the muffled hog-tied victim have to sit here and take it from our Gannett when they offer us brain droppings from ethically challenged Mike Haridopolos, phoning in his sanctimony from Israel, on a trip we all paid for.

Thanks Gannett. Thanks a yahoo.

Kindly read the Magna Carta of all "terms of use" contracts offered by our Gannett.