City Hall in Valley was the location for what was billed as a "2024 Chambers County Candidate Forum" by the Greater Valley Area Chamber of Commerce which was held during the early evening hours of Thursday, February 29th of 2024. Organized by the GVACC, candidates running for the Chambers County Board of Education, Probate Court Judge and School District Superintendent were present to answer questions related to the concerns of voters. GVACC Executive Director Carrie Wood greeted the crowd by stating;
"I am Carrie Wood, the Executive Director of the Greater Valley Area Chamber of Commerce. Thank you for joining us. Thank you to our Chamber premier sponsors, listed here on the banner. We appreciate our partnership and special sponsor tonight, Core Marketing Group, for the amazing livestream for tonight's forum. Also, thank you to Valley Times News for sharing the forum via their facebook page. There will be no other livestreaming or videoing during the event."
"At this time I would like to introduce Daniel Evans. Daniel is the publisher, president and editor of the Valley Times-News and will be serving as our moderator this evening."
These proceedings may all appear to be boilerplate transactional mediocrity, however, for the sake of context let's back up for a moment in order to understand the events that transpired before the video stream went live because you most certainly know that the revolution will not be televised. Gator Kincaid is a citizen journalist from Valley who for the past several years has built up a large online following through his facebook live streams of public events in Chambers County and Lee County as well. Gator, as his loyal fans know him, makes it possible for area residents who are unable to attend important happenings in person to still experience some of the action and stay in touch with local news, politics, sports, education and everything else that the corporate media so often fails to cover in a timely and adequate manner if at all.
Equipped with only his smartphone, a small tripod and a microphone, Gator has consistently brought these local events via livestream to folks who are sitting at home, out on the road or at work so that they don't miss out on what matters most to them. As Gator was setting up his phone to livestream the public forum inside the Valley City Hall chamber, GVACC Executive Director Carrie Wood approached him and declared that he was prohibited from streaming the event as the Valley Times-News had obtained exclusive rights to broadcast it.
Thoroughly perplexed at being denied his First Amendment right as a citizen journalist to livestream the event on public property, Gator exited the building and began sharing details of the bizarre circumstances with his followers through a series of posts to his highly popular Gator Media facebook page. Scores of angry and upset comments piled up on his posts, reflecting years of frustration boiling over among area residents at the lack of transparency and accountability that they have suffered through at the hands of local government which has been aided and abetted by craven accomplices in the snooze media. Here is a sampling of what some Chambers County residents had to say when weighing in on the matter;
"As soon as "The Valley Times News" vitrtually abandoned the Valley they became irrelevant to locals recieving news in a timely manner. They were the heart of parents that could not get off work to attend their sons or daughters sporting events etc. I have no problem with them charging for you to read their paper online because they charged for the physical newspaper. Now they are a dying breed, because the format they chose to use is leaving them behind. It has brought to life the live stream news as it happens! Most people last night did not know they could go to the Valley Times News Site and watch it live as it happened, because they can't see the news paper unless they subscribe! I would have thought the GVACC would have announed this beforehand so people could have prepared to watch instead of scrambleing at the last minute for a way to watch, what is very important to their childs future."
"Just chambers county for ya, They do what they want ,when they want, how they want! No one should never be excluded from what is public to the ppl no matter what! Gator u have a right to be upset a lot of count on u beetv for news and things going on in the surrounding communities daily. Valley Time News is a thing of the past anyways."
"Why didn’t someone from the city get involved! No one cares about the VTN they are always a day later."
"They are scared. You've gone into print. They are barely holding on as it is."
"Sounds like a CNN tactic."
"It’s unacceptable period! GVACC not cool!!! Not cool at all!!"
"What in the world!!! It’s a public forum. What happened to freedom of the press!! It’s at City hall !! This is not right !"
"this is messed up Seems like people are already making it the way they want it and that’s wrong The people are not being heard and that shows with the new mascot they never voted for but yet it was selected as the winner!!"
"ALL of our local media and any other media that wanted to to have been able to be there with cameras rolling !!! So I see even more that it’s really not about what the people want … this whole thing has been very eye opening."
"So the GVACC gave VTN an exclusive at a public forum held at city hall…Is this not illegal? #FreedomOfThePress"
"No it’s not Legal but Remember you are in Chambers Country."
"a lot goes on is not legal here."
"ITS CALLED CHAMBERS COUNTY CONTROL!!"
"apparently The Valley Times-News has the exclusive. I’m sure the Chamber will have a lot to answer for about this."
"I want to watch too. Why in the world would they give exclusive video rights to a PUBLIC forum??"
"That is absolute BS - ESPECIALLY considering it being held in a PUBLIC BUILDING - I would ask to see their contract with the city officials under the freedom of information act."
"I usually stay out of politics arguments. This is reminding me of some back hall handshakes and deals being made. I believe someone should only serve for 8 years and then be removed."
"Vote all of them out in the next election."
"Show them the public is watching."
"Behind closed door action keeping the media out. Gator along with other media should have been allowed."
"They are all crooks."
In theory, the GVACC is chartered with the intent of promoting businesses from Chambers County. Livestreaming privileges for the event were gifted to Core Marketing Group who are located in LaGrange, Georgia. Not only is that a different county, it is a different state as well. Valley Times-News is purportedly a "local" media outlet, however, with just a bit of examination one will discover that they are not what they claim to be. In 2017, the Valley Times-News was sold to Boone Newsmedia, Inc. who according to their official website own and operate "91 newspapers along with websites, shopping guides and magazines in communities in Alabama, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Virginia, North Carolina, Ohio, Tennessee and Texas."
One can't help but savor the irony of the local Chamber of Commerce sending business not only outside of the county but outside of the state at the expense of local businesses. Fortunately for GVACC Executive Director Wood, her poorly advertised event only drew Gator to cover it. If some of the other truly local media outlets such as BeeTV or the LaFayette Sun had showed up to livestream the event as well which they regularly do, this authoritarian fiasco could have cascaded into an even more shambolic spectacle. Faced with the proposition of Wood and her cohorts at the Valley Times-News continuing to organize events while excluding local journalists from livestreaming them in order to offer preferential treatment to their anointed media conglomerate of choice, Chambers County may be entering into a highly contentious breakdown of what had been business as usual up until to this point.
Why tear apart a business community and a county over such trivial personal interests? Could it be establishment censorship rearing its ugly head over fears that local residents may express their discontent regarding the Chambers County School District saddling taxpayers with one-hundred million dollars in debt to build a new high school in Valley? Are the GVACC simply control freaks who obsess over a need to stifle media messages that don't adhere to their fickle whims? Is the Valley Times-News an outdated dinosaur of the legacy media who are simply unable to stay in their lane and have resorted to desperate backroom deals just to remain afloat?
Truth be told, the building that the Valley Times-News has occupied for over fifty years is up for sale and there has been no announcement of where their new office will supposedly be located. In reality, the newspaper is being managed from the offices of the LaGrange Daily News, yet another Boone Newsmedia owned publication with the same cookie cutter layout in both its print and digital formats. Churn has been high at the Valley Times-News since they were bought up by a big media conglomerate. They don't hire people from Chambers County, instead bringing them in from either out of town or often out of state. Their reporters work the local beat for a few years and then move off to greener pastures in other far flung places, never to be heard from again. Dear readers, do take care of who you get your news from. They just might be for sale.
How is live streaming an event a first amendment right?