When Media and Platforms Silence Us, We Make Our Own
- Sharisse Stephenson
- Nov 17, 2025
- 2 min read
📰 Silenced Twice: How Media, Press Releases, and Social Platforms Protect Institutions Instead of Patients
When you’re fighting a system that’s denying you care, benefits, or basic dignity, you think the hardest part will be the corporation itself. You imagine once the truth is out, the world will see.
But what you don’t expect is to be silenced all over again — by the very systems that are supposed to give you a voice.
⚖️ The Stories That Don’t Get Covered
Mainstream journalists love a neat, tidy headline.
They’ll run a front-page story about a patient losing dentures in a hospital — but ignore the people who lost their lives after being denied care.
They’ll highlight “workplace wellness” events — but not the psychological injury that comes from retaliation when a doctor or nurse asks for accommodations.
If it’s uncomfortable, systemic, or points a finger at power, they look away.
💻 Press Releases: Sanitized Until They’re Worthless
Press release services promise reach — Google News, Yahoo, Bing — but only if you play by their rules.
You can’t name names if it’s negative.
You can’t reference court rulings that called insurers “arbitrary and capricious.”
You can’t even describe retaliation or ADA violations if it implicates a large institution.
They want celebration, not accountability
.They want marketing, not truth.
📱 Social Media: The Algorithm’s Blindfold
Try telling the truth on Instagram, X, or TikTok — and watch your reach vanish.
Accounts are throttled, content is flagged, and “community guidelines” become another form of censorship.
Corporations have a megaphone.
Survivors get a muzzle.
💔 The Human Cost of Silence
This isn’t about ego or attention. It’s about isolation.
When stories of harm are buried, survivors feel erased all over again.
Silence retraumatizes.
It protects power.
And it allows injustice to keep cycling quietly — behind closed doors, under the glow of PR awards and “Top Workplace” banners.
🔥 Why I Won’t Stop
That’s why I built my own platform.
If journalists won’t cover it, I will.
If press wires sanitize it, I’ll publish it here
If algorithms suppress it, we’ll amplify it together.
Because this isn’t about clicks or headlines.
It’s about lives, careers, and the basic right to be heard.
🕊️ Rising From Silence
Even decades ago, people saw this coming. In 1988, a cartoon depicted corporate control pressing down on journalists who wanted to tell the truth.
They said they’d “love to cover unions” — but didn’t.
Now, it’s retaliation survivors. Physicians. Disabled workers. Veterans.
That’s why the Phoenix Advocacy Network exists — to make sure the stories that institutions try to bury rise again.
Because if corporate media won’t name names, we will.
If social media throttles us, we’ll rise again — louder.
Because a Phoenix always rises.
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