“WE ARE THE TOWN SQUARE OF NEW MEDIA”
by Sharon Rondeau
(May 1, 2013) — On April 26, The Post & Email published the first part of an interview with entrepreneur Ruth Bryant White, who has launched an innovative media enterprise, Breaking News Journal (BNJ), which will include movies, a television station with varied programming, print media, and live streaming news from a variety of sources.
BNJ has already launched a radio program on BlogTalkRadio and interviewed The Post & Email on two successive Tuesdays.
Ruth and a team of concerned Americans have become particularly involved in raising awareness of the federal “Common Core” educational standards which are in the process of being implemented in schools across the country, with full rollout scheduled for the 2013-2014 school year. In our previous interview, Ruth stated that her goal is to have parents withdraw their children from public school to avoid the “re-education” she believes it will force upon students, unbeknownst to their busy working parents.
Several congressmen have raised concerns about the federal government dictating the new educational curriculum to the states, although supporters of Common Core deny that such a mandate exists.
Common Core standards include “problem-based learning” and learning how to “demonstrate understanding of the organization and basic features of print” (page 169). Subjects contained in Common Core are “English language arts” and “math.” Increasing proficiency in reading is a stated goal of the Common Core curriculum.
Yahoo! News reported on April 30, 2013 that the Common Core standards could initiate a “big transformation” in what children learn in school, that the curriculum is backed by “deep-pocketed philanthropy” with a link to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, and that “the big wigs at the National Governors Association,” which was created by Obama helped to design the “new reform effort.”
A detractor of Common Core believes that it “is ultimately an experiment funded by corporate education reformers such as the Gates Foundation.…”
The official Common Core website states that the standards are not federally-mandated and contain the following:
- Classic myths and stories from around the world;
- America’s Founding Documents;
- Foundational American literature: and
- Shakespeare.
The remaining crucial decisions about what content should be taught are left to state and local determination. In addition to content coverage, the Common Core State Standards require that students systematically acquire knowledge in literature and other disciplines through reading, writing, speaking, and listening.
In Mathematics, the Common Core State Standards lay a solid foundation in:
- whole numbers;
- addition;
- subtraction;
- multiplication;
- division:
- fractions; and
- decimals.
Taken together, these elements support a student’s ability to learn and apply more demanding math concepts and procedures. The middle school and high school standards call on students to practice applying mathematical ways of thinking to real world issues and challenges; they prepare students to think and reason mathematically.
Some parent groups disagree that Common Core will be an improvement over existing state and local educational curricula and maintain that the U.S. Department of Education pushed its implementation through the promise of funding from the Race to the Top initiative, which was included in the 2009 “Recovery Act.” Sen. Charles Grassley of Iowa believes that the promise of federal funding has “clouded the picture” and has asked that the program be defunded in order “to restore state decision-making and accountability with respect to state academic content standards.”
The cost of the program’s implementation has also been criticized.
Secretary of Education Arne Duncan stated that Race to the Top is operated with “integrity and transparency.” “As with any federal program, Congress spells out the overall goals, but the Department establishes regulations and guidance,” Duncan wrote.
The following is the conclusion of our interview with Ruth Bryant White, during which she invites every reader and every American to take part in her new initiative to produce the news and programming they wish to see which is not currently provided by cable news, network stations, and print media outlets.
SR: You have a division which will be producing movies and another for television programming. Will there be other divisions doing other things?
RBW: We’ll be distributing information every time we get something on Common Core. There will also be live-streaming of events. Let’s say you were doing something and you wanted everybody to know about it: we would contact producers in your area, or if you had a camera set up, we would send you the Breaking News Journal embedded code to set up your camera and computer, and we’d be able to say, “OK, Sharon Rondeau of The Post & Email is going to be doing a special presentation live at 7:00 p.m. EST, 4:00 PST on Breaking News Journal,” and people could go to the live TV page. It’s already there so people can see it. You could also see the last investors’ meeting I did.
SR: What is involved in producing a movie or television show?
RBW: Since I was a Hollywood producer, I just love doing it. What you’re doing is producing. You’re presenting something, because every time a person goes to your site, there’s something new. You’re producing information. The difference with what I do is for us, we have to have scripts, line producers; you have to have the financiers to make sure everyone is paid; you have to have the food set up. You’ve been recording for 12 hours, and you have to keep re-shooting and re-shooting…and getting the money. That’s the only real difference. I’m an executive producer, so it’s my job at BNJ to make sure that there are funds for everyone to produce his or her project.
SR: How difficult is that to do, especially in this economy?
RBW: Well, actually, there are a lot of people with money out there. You’re seeing programs and projects that came out that are so stupid I can’t believe they were produced. There’s a lot of money out there; we’re just tapping into the sources. I’m going to investors. Our attorney has sent a package to several well-known Hollywood producers. Right now, we’ve had 20 investors; five of them said they could fund us for $30,000,000 to get all of our projects done.
SR: Is that because they feel a new kind of media is needed?
RBW: Oh, yes. With a few of them, we’re just waiting for them to get the money in the bank, and we’re ready to rock and roll on that!
SR: So you had the skills to find these people.
RBW: I compiled a group of people who were already producing their own programs and created for women, even though we had some men involved, Project Red Slipper, a group of lady producers who make their own films and videos already. Whether it’s radio, TV, or feature films, they’re already out there; you can already see their work. So I asked them to come on board BNJ because they have information that needs to get out to sources other than those they’re reaching. So I said, “Would you come on board so we can launch the BNJ TV channel?” When I said “TV channel,” everyone said, “I want to be a part!” So we’re going to produce children’s programming, teen programming, animation, investigative reporting, food and cooking programs, travel programs, indoor/outdoor programs…as a matter of fact, another leading producer’s people are planning on developing a TV show for the Breaking News Journal Channel.
SR: It sounds as if you’re going to do everything that cable news channels do, plus more.
RBW: There’s something else, too, to that. All of the broadcast and cable channels have a time frame such that one program starts at 7:00; somebody else comes on at 8:00, etc. With the system we’re going to be using, you can go on and see the same program ten times if you want to, and it doesn’t have to be exactly 30 minutes; it doesn’t have to be exactly an hour. Something I am adamant is about is that I do not want interruptions. We can do commercials at the beginning or at the end, but I don’t want the program itself interrupted. So we’re going to be doing something totally different with this.
SR: How many of the projects are in the works or have been launched?
RBW: All of them are in the works, but they can’t go any farther until we get the funding. Everyone is talking to all of their production staffs.
SR: How many people are involved at this point?
RBW: With the producers and their staffs, we’re talking over 100 people. Different departments do different things. The reality programs might have a staff of about 10-15 people for each genre and each episode. We’re going to low-ball it and figure $100,000 per show so that all of the producers, people working on the set, wardrobe people, decorators and everybody will get paid. These are all the things you have to have on the sets. But you can also have a set in your garage; it doesn’t matter to us where you want to do your program. I want you and everybody who’s a part of the Breaking New Journal SWAT Team to have his own program, whatever kind they want…we’re talking about “The Post & Email TV” program! (Laughs)
SR: I’ve been on TV a couple of times as a musician.
RBW: We could do that. You have an orchestra you play with, right?
SR: Yes, several.
RBW: Can you imagine doing two shows: one for The Post & Email and one following Sharon Rondeau as she goes in concert. It would be so much fun!
SR: So, for instance, The Post & Email could present installments of the “Walter Fitzpatrick saga” and the corruption in eastern Tennessee.
RBW: Absolutely! Whatever you want to call it. That’s the freedom that you have. You don’t have that on broadcast or cable news. Somebody asked me, “Oh, it’s going to be like Oprah?” and I said, “No, we are the Rupert Murdoch, William Randolph Hearst and the Ted Turner of new media. That’s who we are. We are the town square of new media.
SR: That is very exciting, because the local media in eastern Tennessee do not perform investigative journalism. The newspaper editor and reporters have been intimidated by the local sheriff’s office and are afraid for their lives.
RBW: Not only that; you have to understand this is on a deeper level. They’re not only scared; you’re talking about people who are being paid by George Soros. George Soros has his money everywhere. I have never seen anybody talk as crazy as they talk. I used to listen to Chris Matthews a long time ago. He was a little bit coherent then, but now, you don’t even understand what he’s talking about.
SR: It’s propagandizing.
RBW: Yes, and when you have somebody paying your check, you decide that you want to follow man instead of God, or money instead of God, you have made a decision. These guys have made a decision to sell their soul to the devil; I can’t explain it any differently.
SR: How did you go about finding investors?
RBW: I spent three months going through investors: those who said, “We’re going to fund you with all of the information that we have about what you’re doing,” and I sent everything over to my entertainment attorney. He said, “OK, this is the way we’re going to do it: have all the investors, if they’re really legit, putting their money in an escrow account so that we can see it and then get our productions teams doing what they have to do.” I decided that I am going to wait, and I tell every prospective investor who contacts me to contact my attorney, get an escrow account and put the money in, and I’ll let the financiers hold the purse strings as long as we can distribute the money, have the producers do what they need to do, and everybody can get paid.
SR: There’s been so much dissatisfaction with the mainstream media that it would seem people would shut them off once BNF is fully launched.
RBW: That’s the whole strategy. This is the real “No Child Left Behind” program (laughs).
SR: It sounds as if there would be a lot of educational programs for children.
RBW: Yes, there will be all kinds of programs. I’m from Colorado, and I’m not used to people trying to keep children back from learning. We did everything. In my high school, we built planes, we renovated homes; we had business classes in high school and learned how to balance a checkbook. What high school teaches you that now?
There are a couple of words I do not use and I don’t like anybody to use them around me. Those are “African-American” and “minority.” It’s so hard for people to understand because they’re conditioned. They’re not even conscious of what they’re saying; it’s part of their being. We just have to change that, the same way we have to change ourselves and learn the Word of God and learn how He wants us to live and conduct our lives. We always have to be ready to learn.
SR: Do you think that a problem with today’s media is a lowering of standards, such as with the language they allow?
RBW: It just started happening within the last few years where you started hearing people saying all kinds of crazy things. I’m going to tell you a story: I was a guest on Bill O’Reilly‘s show in 2006, and he was talking about single moms from the inner city and how their kids get into trouble, and I told him that almost every inner-city mother I knew had children who went to college; they were not in gangs; they were not drug dealers. And he said, “Well the Centers for Disease Control…” and I said, “Oh, so now we’re diseased…” and it totally knocked him off of his game.
After the program aired, Juliet Huddy, who used to have a live show, asked, “Could you stay over and do my show in the morning?” and I said, “Sure, we’ll do it.” So I was in the makeup chair the next morning and Bill O’Reilly’s producer came down. He said, “I had to find you…I’m not even supposed to be over here, but I had to come down and let you know what happened.” And I thought, “Well, what happened?” He said, “We got so much email from people who want to know about you and want to hear more about what you have to say. We’ve never had this much of a response from anybody who’s been on our program. We’re getting emails from everywhere.” So I said, “Can I have the emails?” and he said, “Because of privacy reasons, we can’t give you the emails, but we can tell people about you, right?” So I thought, “OK, there’s no way we won’t be on Bill O’Reilly’s program again after this.” Well, he never contacted us again. This also helped to spur the Breaking News Journal. We said, “Wait a minute. If we have something that the people want to hear, and you’re not providing it for them, then this is up close and personal.”
I got a chance to see a couple of people. There was a guy who had a radio program down in Texas…
SR: Michael Gallagher?
RBW: Yes. He was in the Green Room with us, and my husband said, “You know, you really should have my wife on your program.” He looked at my husband and me as if I was crazy. The same thing with the lady who used to co-host O’Reilly’s radio program…Lis Wiehl. She wouldn’t even speak to me, and we were both in makeup chairs.
When I judge somebody, I look at how they are behind the camera.
SR: Is it that they saw you as competition?
RBW: I guess.
SR: And Bill OReilly never asked you back?
RBW: Never.
SR: And did you do Juliet Huddy’s show?
RBW: I did. It was successful, too. It was only a few months after that that her show was canceled. Don’t forget: with this Common Core thing, if they want to re-educate your children, they don’t want someone on who is going to be giving the answers to what the problems are. Rupert Murdoch is a part of this Common Core thing. I didn’t realize it then back in 2006, but I knew that there was a problem. So now it’s all starting to make sense. My husband and I did everything from E! Entertainment during the O.J. Simpson trial to CNN. What happened during the trial was that the producers asked us to come on. It was the day that they asked Mark Fuhrman to come on and they said that he was racist and against interracial couples. OJ and Nicole Simpson were an interracial couple, and my husband and I are an interracial couple. So they had us come on, and I said, “Steve, she’s going to want us to trash Mark Fuhrman. But we have a strategy for her.” So we got on the air, live, and she said, “What do you think about what Mark Fuhrman thinks about interracial couples?” and I said, “I don’t care what Mark Fuhrman thinks of interracial couples as long as he didn’t plant the glove.” She couldn’t even finish the interview. What else could she do?
We shut people down. I debated David Duke of the Grand Dragon of the KKK, and I told him, “We might be third cousins once removed,” and that shut him up. I don’t have time for the nonsense. I don’t need to argue with him all day long.
SR: And arguing doesn’t get the news out to the American people.
RBW: Everybody says the same thing. Do you remember a couple of weeks ago Sean Hannity had a group of black “conservatives” on his show?
SR: Yes.
RBW: One of them and I go back almost 30 years. When I was running for president, she thought that becuase she was the only game in town, she did not even want to support my candidacy. Sean Hannity is on the board of one of the guest’s organization into which my husband put money, and this man was a racist against my own husband. I know what I’m talking about, and these guys know that Steve and I are on the scene.
Did you see the video of the black conservative of the Tea Party Express in 2010? I had on a big yellow hat. It was me, Stacy Swimp, the head of Agenda 21, Mychal Massie, Alan Keyes, Herman Cain; all of us were speakers. Only three of us were presidential candidates. It was held at the National Press Club. A well-known black columnist was supposed to be there, and she never showed up. She knew I was going to be there and she never showed up. When I was speaking at the 912 Projects rally in Washington, DC, she was supposed to be there. She didn’t call and say why she wasn’t coming; she just never showed up.
SR: Would you say that the problems with the media have to do with personal egos? Is it all about people who don’t want to be outshined by someone else?
RBW: Yes, by somebody who knows what they’re talking about. Somebody who’s doing other things besides having face time on somebody’s program. I’m not a person where you’ll see my face all over the place; I’m out doing things. I don’t have to have a speaker’s fee. I’d like a speaker’s fee, but I don’t have to do that because I was doing speaking before any of these guys even knew what public speaking was. My husband and I were on the talk show circuit before they even knew there was a talk show circuit. We’ve been in the media since the 1980s.
When they have their show, look at who they’re reaching: only the choir. These guys are being paid to be consultants or pundits or whatever you want to call it, so they’re fulfilling their slot, but they don’t know what they’re talking about. The regular person is getting shut out of what’s really going on all the way around. And that’s another thing, too: if they are not talking about the solution, I don’t want to hear what you have to say.
I don’t say, “This is what we need to do;” I say, “This is what’s going on; get on board. Here’s the solution.” Just as when we were having our conference calls, we all are doing things. We are all people who are doing things. “We just go this out; we just reached some business people about this; I just reached my congressperson about this…” These are all the things we are all doing.
SR: There is a lot of frustration out there when people read about the problems in America; they read about the corruption but don’t know what to do. Another thing is that people often don’t know the difference between editorial and news, and I think the mainstream media has distorted it on purpose. Everything has become an opinion, but where are the facts?
RBW: Of course. Hello???? So that’s the whole point. What does Satan do? He comes to steal and kill and destroy. He comes to distract you. All of these things are distractions, and I don’t have time to be distracted.
SR: What is coming up next with BNJ?
RBW: I’m hoping to have a celebrity I’ve been in touch with on Breaking News Journal soon. This is my goal: to totally feel Hollywood, the Academy Awards and the Emmys with all projects that Breaking News Journal is launching. They will have no choice but to notice what is going on. It will make them mad and angry, but by the time they realize what is going on, we will have already taken over (laughs). They can’t stop this train.
SR: Do you have any last thoughts that you’d like to add about what you’ll be doing with Breaking News Journal?
RBW: All I would say is that everybody who is on any kind of site – I’m asking everybody who is part of The Post & Email and everybody who is a member of anything else: come on board and help Sharon and I with The Post & Email and Breaking News Journal and make sure that your friends are aware of what’s going on. Like us on Facebook, follow us on Twitter, and become our friends so that we can spread information out. It’s only through the people that we’re going to get this information out. I just got an email from a Fortune 500 company businessman who is going to meet with his congressperson who is just asking for the Common Core program information.
SR: People can do lots of things.
RBW: They can go to their school boards; they can sit in on meetings. We had our reporter in Arizona who went in alone to the boards to say that as a small businessperson, he would be mandated to have unisex bathrooms. He was outmanned by the people who were there, but then it was heard by the state representative, who said, “We’re not going to allow this to happen.” So one person can make a difference. If a person goes to the board of education and says, “This is what Common Core is; I’m going to let all you parents know…”
Here is another thing we’re just finding out: in order for the Girl Scouts to get their badges, they’re going to have to be indoctrinated by Common Core, not on regular things such as cooking or helping an old lady across the street. They have a whole agenda to re-educate our children, and this is bad news for our kids, and we cannot allow this to happen. So we’re going to be getting that information out.
SR: Think of what could happen if everyone did something.
RBW: We can. We will. We are. Already we’re making a change. People are getting furious and upset about it. On Wednesday, Larry goes before another large group in Ohio. He spoke before 450 people on Friday night about Common Core.
SR: Do you have any closing thoughts on
RBW: If people want to sponsor, be a donor, or be a shareholder in Breaking News Journal – we are offering shares at $150/share and are offering up to 35% ownership in the BNJ Entities – we value BNJ, all of its entities, all the live-streaming and feature films at over $300,000,000.
SR: How would someone buy shares?
RBW: If they want to donate, just click on the Donate button and say how much you are giving. It’s all public information, but you can remain anonymous. You can designate that for The Post & Email’s show or that they want to invest in Breaking News Journal generally. We don’t care if it’s $5.00; we’re asking millions of people: Donate $5.00 so that we can get in production. If we have millions of people donating $5.00, we would have $3,000,000. We could get a lot of programs going with that. Just go to BreakingNewsJournal.net, click on the red slipper, and we’re in business!
I don’t want to leave anything up to investors. Time is of the essence as far as I see. We want to have information out there. We’re working on so many different angles to get the funding we need to get into operation. With your readers, we would appreciate it, and I know God is in this, and I thank you, Sharon, for taking the time to interview me.
If people in your readership have ideas for shows that they think should be out there, they will be invested in this. A lot of people have very good ideas; there are so many talented people out there who would never get this opportunity to launch a TV show with them in mind if it were anyone else. It promotes variety, and variety is the spice of life!!
A lot of them are on Facebook all day long, and we want everybody to become our friends on Facebook. All of their hundreds of thousands of friends can start going there and posting things. That way, all of the information can get out there. I’m telling you: we are going to be what I said we’re going to be.
SR: With your expertise, we can bring all of America into this.
RBW: That’s what it’s all about: bringing back the American spirit.
SR: And you don’t have a certain location; you’re everywhere.
RBW: We’ll operate on those levels, but we’ll be just as humble as apple pie. We’re there for the heartland, because this is theirs. I look at this as being their community.
SR: If people want real information, they have to have a stake in it.
RBW: Exactly. If they want to see things stop, that’s what they’re going to have to do. If they really want to see things change, support something that is in operation that can change things. We’re going to change this world. I’ve never started anything that I don’t complete.
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Editor’s Note: To follow BNJ on Twitter, click here.