Debbie Portillo Incident Proves the Brownsville Herald Controls, Censors the News to Protect City Puppetmasters

Maggie Ozuna

In the old Soviet Union, a governmental entity called Glavlit perused every article written by journalists before publication, controlling the flow of information to the general public.  The news was censored to protect a corrupt, oppressive political regime.

The Brownsville Herald, not actually a real newspaper in most senses of the word, controls the flow of information available to the public in a very similar way.  This and other blogs have documented how the Herald misses story after critical story, likely for financial reasons or simply out of cowardice.

After the story broke in the El Rrun Rrun detailing how Martin Sarkis had filed a complaint with the Brownsville Police Department with respect to Deborah Portillo, like Sarkis, a Candidate for City Commission, District 3, indicating that she had violated the state Election Code by receiving campaign contributions from corporations, a friend of mine, Maggie Ozuna(not to be confused with the recently indicted politiquera Margarita Ozuna) told me she had called the Herald to see if they had run the story:

"Jim, I looked through two day's editions and couldn't find anything on the Portillo election code violation.  That is why I called the Brownsville Herald.  I was told initially that they knew nothing about it, then they connected me with a reporter who said that what Portillo did was an "honest mistake," but that she would get back to me.  I waited all day for the reporter's call, finally calling the paper back around 5:00 PM, but the phone was just allowed to ring with no response.  I had even give them the case number, but it's obvious they don't want to touch the story."

Brownsville Herald editor, Ryan Henry, is not even subtle enough or clever enough to hide their prejudicial

Ryan Henry

news control. It's not that they won't touch missteps by local political candidates because they recently published a story detailing overdue county taxes for Martin Sarkis and Letty Perez-Garzoria, not a felony in any jurisdiction.(Sarkis is said to owe $800, a substantial part of which he disputes.  Garzoria is said to owe $325.18 and was reported by the tax office as making payments.)  To run with the tax story while purposely overlooking the third degree felony charge levied against Deborah Portillo is shabby, inept journalism.

Mean Mister Brownsville had this comment recently on the cherrypicking of stories by the Brownsville Herald in a story published April 28, 2013:

Ironically, while the Brownsville Herald rightfully publishes a story about two candidates owing back taxes, the daily has not come close to touching one story after another critically affecting the city:  The Herald completely whiffed on the Fly Frontera Airline scam nearly perpetrated by convicted RICO felon Carlos Quintanilla, whitewashed the egomaniacal mismanagement of UTB by Juliet Garcia, looked the other way on Tony Martinez' use of his law partner to broker a sweetheart real estate deal for his friend Abraham Galonsky, by overpaying for an older downtown building, continues to ignore the hundreds of thousands of taxpayer dollars that flow into the do-nothing scam United Brownsville, not to mention the control of the city being shifted to that unaccountable body.  The dropping of a $14,300,000 lawsuit by BISD against  insurer Healthsmart for overcharges remains one of the biggest local stories, deeply affecting the education of local students, yet ignored by the town's so-called newspaper.  

The story that aroused the Herald's investigative prowess just happens to involve two candidates running AGAINST the autocratic Tony Martinez and who dare to oppose funding the phony United Brownsville.  While the story is meritorious, the Herald's obvious cherrypicking of stories does not serve the community well.  

The Brownsville Herald is doing exactly what Glavlit did in the former U.S.S.R., controlling the news to protect a regime, in this case the shadowy unelected operatives who try to control Brownsville using a sham entity called United Brownsville.  Perhaps the local newspaper should be renamed the United Brownsville Herald.

Debbie Portillo

To not run the story on Debby Portillo's election code violation is inexcusable.  Even if the Herald were to editorialize the story by saying what Portillo did was an 'honest mistake," the story was news.  When a publication intentionally covers up news, it is not a newspaper.