Jack of Harts

The firefight between the Texas State Guard and “certain undisclosed elements of the United States Armed Forces” in Dallas, Texas had many consequences over the next few hours, days, and weeks. Hasty camera footage from a local news helicopter broadcast it live all over the networks, and more stable cameras from the ground followed within minutes as the newsies competed to get their spin on the news out as quickly as possible. Most of the mainstream networks supported the President, but widespread support for Texas covered the secondary networks and social media. Mainstream networks banned the full and unedited video that showed the federal forces drawing first blood for “violating community standards,” while continuing to broadcast edited versions that implied Texas shot the incoming helicopters down first. They escalated to muting or banning accounts that promoted the full video within days, and a public that had been increasingly distrustful of the mainstream media for decades found other ways to communicate. The President finally Nationalized control of the networks in order to keep the “most seditious elements of the irredeemable parts of society from broadcasting their traitorous diatribes.” Local networks all over America cut ties with the national networks at that point, and the large public media that had brought the United States together for a century shattered into dozens of smaller pieces that would never again broadcast the same news to all American citizens.