You know how important a court case is by the way the media enforces a blackout

I "like" a fair number of pages and entities on Facebook. I was actually going to mention the source of the post here, but Facebook is like a river. One moment you see a bottle in the river, the next moment it's gone. It's gone.

Wait. I found it. I had the presence of mind to share it so it's on my profile page. The source of the post is Occupy Monsanto. I "like" them, so l follow them when they post. Their post points to this article here.

So let me re-start by saying that I found an interesting story about a class action lawsuit filed in state court in California. The lawsuit names Monsanto as defendant and alleges that Monsanto falsely advertised that its product, RoundUp, does not target enzymes present in humans. In fact, the lawsuit alleges that the active ingredients in RoundUp target enzymes that happen to be present in our gut bacteria.

Once you start interfering with the gut, a fair number of health problems can ensue because if you can't digest food properly, you can't assimilate the nutrition you need for the growth and maintenance of your body. The lawsuit even makes a connection between autism and glyphosphate, something that I've mentioned before on this blog.

What I find so interesting is that I did a search on the case number, "Case No: BC 578 942" just to see what would come up. I found only 7 hits on Google search. Of them, only one was a newspaper, a local newspaper in Seattle. There were no major media outlets to speak of. The rest were not even relevant.

After reading all of that, I am reminded of films depicting the dogged reporter trying to get the story out, but his editor won't run the story. So he has to go somewhere else to get it published. That somewhere else is the internet. The internet makes "leaks" possible. The internet makes it easy to go "worldwide" with a story. The internet has no gatekeeper. The internet is information and information loves to be free - it has a natural tendency to propagate, just like light.

The fact that not even the LA Times is running this story is instructive. The lawsuit was filed in LA and the attorneys that filed the lawsuit have contacted many major news outlets including the LA Times about their work and no one even took a bite. Not even the Huffington Post. The lawsuit was filed on April 20th, so I would expect that the major media would have had plenty of time to read the pleadings and figure out if the story was worth publishing.

My guess is, advertising revenue is at stake here and the major media are ready and willing to remind us that we didn't buy the newspaper. The advertisers did. I recall a term I read of a long time ago: "newshole". That's the hole in ever page where the story is surrounded by advertising. You didn't buy a paper for 50 cents. That's a token of your appreciation. The paper, and all the news in it is supported by advertising dollars. Advertisers have enormous sway over the contents of the paper and they have proved it once again with this blackout.

I guess when 6 media giants own all of the major media outlets, they are entitled to a blackout when one of their biggest advertisers, with perhaps one of the greatest legal teams assembled, might come calling with a cease and desist letter.