YouTube Ignorance
We’re not big on political favors here at Dolcefino media, but we did a legitimate one the other day for Angelina County Judge Keith Wright. After all, we’ve been investigating his poor performance on fixing the county roads.
How were we thanked? With an attack by one of his best buddies with the help of the local chamber of commerce paper, The Lufkin Daily News. We were attacked. We responded.
YouTube Ignorance
“We all know that people say all kinds of crazy stuff on social media. Outrageous things, sometimes outright lies. We call it the First Amendment, but we’ve uncovered a case of social media ignorance so horrific that it’s making headlines in the land of the killer potholes,” Wayne Dolcefino told the camera.
It’s gotten so bad that firefighters are worried their fire truck might actually flip over on one of Angelina County’s road minefields.
A postal worker doesn’t think he can deliver the mail when that kind of stuff happens.
Your elected officials are failing you. And that’s why we aired one for the Road the other day because of broken promises.
Take the Angelina County Judge, Keith Wright, who promised that 2024 would see a record number of new paved roads in the county.
“This next year, our goal is to build 40 miles of road,” County Judge Keith Wright said.
Try almost half of that. Only 24 miles of new road was done and that’s why so many people are complaining.
Bruce Green went to law school. He’s now an attorney, but he spent much of his recent career in Angelina County government, the right-hand guy to Angelina County Judge Keith Wright.
Green became Lufkin city manager after Wright left and became Angelina County judge.
And now he’s a Municipal Judge in Diboll, just south of Lufkin. I bet Wright helped him get that gig, too.
None of that has apparently taught Green how social media works, but the folks who run the Lufkin Daily News, they’re in the media business.
They know how social media works.
“The newspaper has its own Facebook page. So why would they let Mr. Green lie about us? We’ll tell you,” Dolcefino told the camera.
Here’s what happened.
Our One for the Road video detailed broken promises by the County Judge.
Frustrated Angelina County taxpayers deserve to know that their horrible complaints about the roads are often ignored for months.
Frustrated Angelina County taxpayers deserve to know that their horrible complaints about the roads are often ignored for months.
Angelina County Commissioners transferred hundreds of thousands of dollars out of the paving budget last year to do other things.
A real story affecting tens of thousands of people who live in Angelina County. Don’t you wonder why the Lufkin Daily News hasn’t told you a word about it?
Tens of thousands of you watched that video on Facebook and the Dolcefino Media website, but less than a couple thousand watched it on YouTube.
Only nine people commented on the video on YouTube, but one of them posted an anonymous comment accusing the County Judge of sexual misconduct.
Wright was up in arms about that.
From his Angelina County email, he threatened me.
It sounded like a lawyer wrote it.
“And guess who told Wright what to say? Bruce Green. “The channel, that means us, has reached a new low by allowing an anonymous public posting about me personally in its comment section. That is libelous, disgusting, and cowardly,”
Maybe Bruce Green hasn’t learned about libel law.
“You can’t be held liable because some yahoo showed up in the comment section on a YouTube video, an anonymous yahoo at that, and said something crazy. Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act protects folks like you, as well as Facebook, YouTube, CNN, and things like that from the things that folks post in the comments,” Dolcefino Media Attorney Kelsey Galbraith said.
We hadn’t even looked at the comments on YouTube. We rarely do.
But, I’m a good guy. I don’t believe anyone should be accused of sexual misconduct on social media without the evidence to back it up. So, I told my folks to delete the comment.
In an email to the judge, I said, “I don’t think it’s a good practice to moderate generally, but I’ll do it for you,” Dolcefino said.
The Judge thanked me.
“I would appreciate it thanks,” said Judge Wright.
End of story, right? Nope.
Two days later, Green got to write his guest column in the paper, circulated to a much bigger audience that ever saw the comment in the first place on YouTube.
A little free media advice, Mr. Green and your buddy, the county judge: that was a dumb move.
Lines being crossed on the basis of anonymity, it blared.
Green spread the word throughout town that way.
“The comment accused the Judge Wright of immoral and criminal behavior that is too vile to contemplate,” Green wrote.
But then, the newspaper let Green say this, falsely accusing us of letting this anonymous person comment in the first place and attacking our journalism.
“…the Dolcefino Media representative who thought it appropriate to allow its publication to the world.”
“Hey guys, we don’t know about comments in advance on our social media pages. No media organization in this country knows, even if it’s a vile comment, stupid, crazy. We don’t know in advance. The Lufkin Daily News knows that,” Dolcefino told the camera.
They get comments on their Facebook page too.
Hey, even Elon Musk can’t stop someone from making a comment on X.
“It may be stupid, even vile. But think about the alternative not allowing anyone to make comments on our investigative stories. We won’t ever do that,” Dolcefino told the camera.
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