We know that a lot of our Disclosure readers are familiar with the offensive website, topix.com, because we get a lot of referrers from it.
(A referrer is the website off which a reader jumps to go to a subsequent site, usually via a link, but sometimes via a google search if there’s no link. We see those on the backside of our site info here, and on our analytics. So we know pretty much where the traffic is coming from…and some of it is from topix…for which we won’t provide a link, because some of the biggest news conglomerates—corporate media—are part owners in it, which tells you why we don’t like it, as we oppose large corporate news organizations, since their goal is to drive smaller, independently-owned news orgs out of business.)
One of the main reasons we oppose topix is their forum, which is unmoderated and on which small town people with equally-small-town mentalities spew the most vile, vulgar filth imaginable.
Interestingly, when this kind of filth is spewed about such public officials as, say, a police officer or a legislator, those posts magically disappear; we’ve learned that in the instance of Marion police officer Jessie Thompson last year, then-police chief John Eibeck exerted his authority, sending messages to topix to remove said posts, despite the fact that they were true pieces of information about Thompson’s former pump, Brittney Lane. Likewise, pretty much anything that shows up about Rep. John Bradley also disappears almost immediately, likely because of Bradley or someone on his behalf doing the same thing.
But what about people who aren’t public officials (about whom, incidentally, taxpayers CAN and SHOULD input criticism, as it is their right to do)? Private individuals who don’t take a taxpayer-supported paycheck, and thus aren’t subject to errant criticism?
Well, there are some schools of thought on that, many of which include the premise that during a high-profile legal case, those involved in the case, who aren’t public officials but make themselves a part of it by ongoing appearances in many media outlets, are also subject to the same criticisms…for as long as the case is going on. Others say that those ones, once they make themselves a pseudo-celebrity, are there for the duration, and their antics are still fair game for critique, long after the issue is over in court.
Such is the case with Jan Burno of Lansing, Illinois.
Burno made a spectacle of herself at every turn during the murder trial of her nephew Terry Payton in Paris, Illinois. She appeared to lack the common sense that should apply when attending hearings for the boy, and made a complete ass of herself on television, as well as in very public criticism of Disclosure‘s coverage of the murder of Payton’s mother/Burno’s sister, Kathie Payton, when we first began coverage in the summer of 2012.
And that criticism, we’ve been told by her own family members, was issued on none other than the topix forums for Paris. And if you’ve been among the number of people who have gotten onto topix and has slung whatever filth occurs to you about whomever you wish, you might want to reconsider your actions, as there are remedies for such action, and the most unlikely of people are assisting in those remedies, whether they realize it or not.
Without giving it away any further, we encourage you to check out this Read the Lead for the October 2014 edition of Disclosure, Toxic topix: Woman who encourages others to attack the truth sues website:
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Jan Burno
EDGAR/COOK COs.—The woman whose antics and histrionics during her nephew Terry Payton’s murder trial caused people to question her sanity is continuing along that same path with a recent Cook County lawsuit against a major news organization.
Jan Payton Burno (now going by Mills, in this particular case) has filed a Law case in Cook County against a number of internet service providers as well as Topix LLC (the corporation responsible for topix.com) in an effort to find out who’s been saying bad things about her.
The major problem with the lawsuit, however, is that according to friends and family of Burno, she’s the one who was endlessly harassing people of Edgar County in the days after the death of her sister, Kathie Payton, at the hands of Kathie’s son Terry in mid-2011.
And further, the unintended consequences of the lawsuit could prove that that’s exactly what’s happened…and could drag others into the case, including people from all points of Disclosure’s readership, from Effingham County to Williamson County and everywhere in between, and might provide enough information to uncover exactly who’s been saying what about whom for several years now on the unmoderated, slander-filled forum.
What it is and how it’s abused
Topix was begun as a news aggregate source in 2006 by some private individuals and it quickly got out of control as the unmoderated forums were exactly that—unmoderated, meaning anyone could say anything he or she wanted, without oversight, and without recourse to the slandered party—and advertising revenue on the site was enough to interest three of the main news corporations in the world (McClatchy, Gannett and Tribune Company) into making purchase of the company. The three corporations (which among them control a vast majority of America’s “local” newspapers and radio stations) now have controlling interest in the unmoderated forums, and this serves to give it a significant amount of power to “control” the kind of “news” the site actually posts…and to offset litigation over the forum and the kinds of hideous remarks people leave on it.
While topix has been successfully sued in the past over slander, in that particular case, the people who were being slandered were not active participants in the digital warfare, a fact that was proven in court. In other words, the Leshers, a couple from Texas, were slandered in over 1,700 comments on the forum, but they didn’t get on there and slander back.
In the situation with Burno, it appears that’s not exactly the case. Her own friends and family members have contacted Disclosure to advise that she herself was the main instigator of negative commentary, beginning in the days after Terry Payton, then 16, killed his mother in an incident in Paris in June of 2011. Burno, who was never close to her alcoholic sister, railed against Terry Payton and anyone who supported him, on topix, on televised videos, and in person at any opportunity.
Roping in others to help slander
In 2012, when Disclosure Heartland was being formed and was covering the Payton hearings, Burno’s wrath turned toward the paper and the garbage she posted about owners Jack and Angela Howser and then-adjunct publisher Michael Kleen was unbelievably vile.
That continued to include private individuals John Kraft and Kirk Allen of the not-for-profit organization Edgar County Watchdogs (now Illinois Leaks) as well as anyone associated with them. Since that time, Burno’s family and friends have reported that she has recruited a number of other “Disclosure-haters” in order to deliver slander along the lines of alleging illicit drug use, child sex offenses and other criminal activity among the above….
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To read the rest of this article (and to enlighten yourself as to what the far-reaching ramifications of this subject really are), click the headline link above the excerpt if you have an online membership to the e-Edition; if you don’t, click this link right here and go right to the sign-up page, where you can read almost ALL of the articles we’ve ever produced for the e-Edition (much of 2012 has been archived, and will be available at a separate signup, so get clicking if you want to read 2013). Or, if you’d rather hold a hard copy in your hands, they’re still available at our many vendors across southeastern Illinois, including in the Heartland, John Kraft’s Heirloom Videography in Paris, Y-Knot Stop in Vermilion, Lucas Grocery Too in Oakland and Country Junction in Kansas. Hurry….this one is off stands in a WEEK, replaced by the awesome Election Edition 2014…don’t miss out!