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Post by LS on Oct 11, 2004 15:56:49 GMT -5
Excerpt from article "Kerry Fights Back" by Paul Alexander www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/_/id/6539090?pageid=rs.Politics&pageregion=single4"In late september, I spent a week on the Kerry plane. Unlike the 2000 Bush plane, which became notorious for its party atmosphere -- margaritas flowed at the end of the day and affairs among the press corps were widely rumored -- the feeling on the Kerry plane is professional and businesslike. It soon became apparent that many members of Kerry's traveling press make no attempt to hide their open dislike of the candidate. The morning after Kerry had addressed the Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute gala on the evening of September 15th, two members of the press corps were talking on a campaign bus. "That event was stupid," one said, referring to the previous night's occasion -- one of the largest Hispanic galas of its type. "A waste of time," the other said.
Other reporters were just as dismissive. Kerry had gotten a series of impassioned standing ovations during his speech. But when Elisabeth Bumiller described the event in the New York Times, she said, referring to a moment when Kerry spoke an entire paragraph in flawless Spanish, "Kerry's audience . . . listened in startled silence, then broke out into cheers and applause when he made his way through [the paragraph]."
But to report on these events accurately would mean you had to say something unqualified and positive about Kerry. This is something his traveling press corps has been -- and still is -- loath to do. On the evening of September 21st, outside an auditorium in Orlando, where inside more than 7,500 people were screaming wildly as Kerry spoke, Candy Crowley stood next to the venue and reported on CNN that Kerry was "trying . . . to rev up the crowd." The implication was unmistakable: Kerry's supporters in Florida were resistant, even standoffish. Just to make sure Crowley was able to get away with downplaying the event as she was, CNN never showed a wide shot of the large, cheering crowd.
As a result of the media bias against Kerry, there is an unmistakable disconnect between what you see on the trail when you travel with him and the way he is depicted in the media. On Mike McCurry's first trips on the plane, the Thursday and Friday after Labor Day, he immediately identified the animosity that existed between Kerry and the press corps. Specifically, the traveling press were mad because Kerry had not given a press conference since August 9th, five days into the SBVT controversy. McCurry realized he needed to fix the problem at once."________________________________________ Bush Ad Surfaces As News Story on SchoolsBy BEN FELLER WASHINGTON (AP) - The Bush administration has promoted its education law with a video that comes across as a news story but fails to make clear the reporter involved was paid with taxpayer money. The government used a similar approach this year in promoting the new Medicare law and drew a rebuke from the investigative arm of Congress, which found the videos amounted to propaganda in violation of federal law. The Education Department also has paid for rankings of newspaper coverage of the No Child Left Behind law, a centerpiece of the president's domestic agenda. Points are awarded for stories that say President Bush and the Republican Party are strong on education, among other factors. The news ratings also rank individual reporters on how they cover the law, based on the points system set up by Ketchum, a public relations firm hired by the government. The video and documents emerged through a Freedom of Information Act request by People for the American Way, a liberal group that contends the department is spending public money on a political agenda. The group sought details on a $700,000 contract Ketchum received in 2003 from the Education Department. One service the company provided was a video news release geared for television stations. The video includes a news story that features Education Secretary Rod Paige and promotes tutoring now offered under law. The story ends with the voice of a woman saying, ``In Washington, I'm Karen Ryan reporting.'' It does not identify the government as the source of the report. It also fails to make clear the person purporting to be a reporter was someone hired for the promotional video. Those are the same features - including the voice of Karen Ryan - that were prominent in videos the Health and Human Services Department used to promote the Medicare law and were judged covert propaganda by the Government Accountability Office in May. The Education Department's video uses ``the same exact mode of operation,'' said Nancy Keenan, education policy director at People for the American Way. The video encourages students to take advantage of tutoring and says that families give the idea an ``A-plus.'' ``It's basically propaganda, not general information about a program,'' she said. ``And it's portraying to the American public, via a video news release, that it's news.'' The Education Department says the video was clearly marked as being a product of the agency when it was given to TV stations. Still, since the GAO report came out, the department has stopped using the narration-styled video news releases, spokeswoman Susan Aspey said. Aspey defended the video as a way to help people understand the law's offer of tutoring. ``Frankly, one has to wonder about the motives of those who are against informing parents that they have options,'' she said. At least one television station in New York used the package in 2003, substituting its own reporter for the voiceover but following the script and video provided by the department. The department, in turn, put the text of that station's story on its Web site. Government press offices play a key role in sharing information and pitching story ideas, but sending out videos featuring ``pretend'' news reports is wrong, said Al Tompkins, who teaches broadcast reporting at the Poynter Institute, a school for journalists. ``Let the alert be loud and clear: Don't use this stuff,'' Tompkins said. The Public Relations Society of America advises its nearly 20,000 members not to use the word ``reporting'' in its video news releases if the narrator is not a reporter. The GAO declined comment on the Education Department's video and its similarities to the Medicare video. Both promote laws that the administration has highlighted during Bush's re-election campaign as successes despite debate about how they are being implemented. In ranking newspaper coverage of No Child Left Behind, Ketchum developed a 100-point scale. Stories got five points each for positive messages, such as mentions that the law gives choices to parents and holds schools accountable. Five points also went to stories that send a message that ``The Bush Administration/the GOP is committed to education.'' Stories lost five points for negative messages, including claims that the law is not adequately funded or is too tough on states. The news review for the department also rated education reporters, giving higher scores to their stories if they were deemed positive. ``The government should spend money that benefits the people. How did this benefit the people?'' Tompkins said about the ratings of reporters. In one period, for example, Ketchum rated reporters at USA Today and at newspapers in Atlanta; Cleveland and Columbus, Ohio; Harrisburg, Pa.; Louisville, Ky.; Portland, Ore.; Minneapolis; and Salt Lake City. Asked if the ratings influenced how the department treats certain reporters, Aspey said: ``We treat all reporters fairly, because that's our job.''
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Post by LS on Oct 11, 2004 16:00:43 GMT -5
Anti-Kerry Film Sparks DNC Response Sinclair Broadcast Group orders its 62 stations to show movie next week; DNC files FEC complaint. October 11, 2004 By Katie Benner NEW YORK (CNN) - Sinclair Broadcast Group, owner of the largest chain of television stations in the nation, plans to air a documentary that accuses Sen. John Kerry of betraying American prisoners during the Vietnam War, a newspaper reported Monday.
The reported plan prompted the Democratic National Committee to file a complaint against Sinclair with the Federal Election Commission.
Sinclair has ordered all 62 of its stations to air "Stolen Honor: Wounds That Never Heal" without commercials in prime-time next week, the Washington Post reported, just two weeks before the Nov. 2 election. Sinclair's television group, which includes affiliates of all the major networks, reaches nearly a quarter of all U.S. television households, according to the company's Web site. A dozen of Sinclair's stations are in the critical swing states of Ohio, Florida, Iowa and Wisconsin.
Affiliates owned by the major television networks reach a larger percentage of U.S. homes because they are in the largest markets.
Calls to Sinclair by CNN/Money were not returned Monday.
This is the first time the DNC has filed a legal motion against a media organization, said group spokesman Jano Cabrera. Earlier this year, said a DNC statement, Sinclair-owned stations refused to air DNC ads criticizing President Bush.
The complaint to be filed with the FEC states it is inappropriate for the Sinclair Broadcasting Group to air partisan propaganda in the last 10 days of an election campaign, said Cabrera.
No one from the FEC was available to comment on the DNC complaint.
"We have received thousands of e-mails, people outraged by the very idea a company like Sinclair would direct stations to air a partisan film," said Wes Boyd, founder of political watchdog MoveOn.org.
"If they do air a partisan film, we'll challenge the FCC and the licenses of the local stations that broadcast the film because local stations have a responsibility to the community to air real news, not partisan messages," said Boyd.
The company made news in April when it ordered seven of its ABC-affiliated stations not to air a "Nightline" segment that featured a reading of the names of U.S. soldiers killed in Iraq; a Sinclair executive called that broadcast "contrary to the public interest."
Campaign Violation?
A Bush campaign spokesman said the camp has nothing to do with Sinclair Broadcasting, the anti-Kerry film or Sinclair's plan to air the film just before this year's tight election.
Sinclair executives have shown support for the Bush campaign. Sinclair CEO David Smith contributed the legal limit of $2,000 Bush-Cheney 2004, and vice president Frederick Smith gave $175,000 to the RNC and maxed out his Bush-Cheney contribution.
FEC records show that two other top level Sinclair executives gave the maximum amount they could to Bush-Cheney.
Sinclair executives have given nearly $68,000 in political contributions, 97 percent of it going to Republicans, since the beginning of the year, according to the Los Angeles Times.
Media Matters for America, a liberal watchdog group, has written a letter to Sinclair asking the company to cancel reported plans to air the film between now and the Nov. 2 election. The Post reports the movie is about Kerry's antiwar testimony to Congress in 1971 and was produced independently of Sinclair.
"Sinclair's plan to air anti-Kerry propaganda before the election is an abuse of the public airwaves for what appears to be partisan political purposes," Media Matters CEO David Brock said in the letter.
The letter warned Sinclair that its plan could constitute a violation of broadcast regulations requiring equal time for political candidates, as well as the McCain-Feingold campaign finance law, the group said.
Federal campaign finance law states it is illegal for a corporation to contribute anything of value to a federal campaign or a national political committee, including broadcast communications, said Cabrera.
Kerry's team said Sinclair was clearly trying to manipulate the outcome of the election because of the broadcaster's ties to the Bush administration.
"This is another example of President Bush's powerful corporate friends doing his dirty work," said Chad Clanton, a spokesman with the Kerry campaign.
"They know Kerry (will not bow) to their corporate interests, so they're willing to break journalistic principles to try and stop him."
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Roland
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Post by Roland on Oct 12, 2004 23:19:59 GMT -5
It's all very disturbing. The media has always supposed to have been the final check and balance and it simply can't be trusted to do that job anymore. The Sinclair debacle may be the final straw, and let's all hope they are not allowed to get away with it. I've gotten several emails forwarded to me today that says they are welcoming public comment. For those who'd like to give it to them ;D here's their email address. comments@sbgi.net
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Post by LS on Oct 14, 2004 16:40:41 GMT -5
FCC Won't Stop Airing of Anti-Kerry FilmBy JENNIFER C. KERR WASHINGTON (AP) - The Federal Communications Commission won't intervene to stop a broadcast company's plans to air a critical documentary about John Kerry's anti-Vietnam War activities on dozens of TV stations, the agency's chairman said Thursday. "Don't look to us to block the airing of a program,'' Michael Powell told reporters. "I don't know of any precedent in which the commission could do that.'' Eighteen senators, all Democrats, wrote to Powell this week and asked him to investigate Sinclair Broadcast Group's plan to run the program, "Stolen Honor: Wounds That Never Heal,'' two weeks before the Nov. 2 election. Powell said there are no federal rules that would allow the agency to prevent the program. "I think that would be an absolute disservice to the First Amendment and I think it would be unconstitutional if we attempted to do so,'' he said. He said he would consider the senators' concerns but added that they may not amount to a formal complaint, which could trigger an investigation. FCC rules require that a program air before a formal complaint can be considered. Sinclair, based outside Baltimore, has asked its 62 television stations - many of them in competitive states in the presidential election - to pre-empt regular programming to run the documentary. It chronicles Kerry's 1971 testimony before Congress and links him to activist and actress Jane Fonda. It includes interviews with Vietnam prisoners of war and their wives who claim Kerry's testimony demeaned them and led their captors to hold them longer. In the letter to Powell, the senators - led by Dianne Feinstein of California - asked the FCC to determine whether the airing of the anti-Kerry program is a "proper use of public airwaves'' and to investigate whether it would violate rules requiring equal air time for candidates. Separately, the Democratic National Committee filed a complaint with the Federal Election Commission on Tuesday contending that Sinclair's airing of the film should be considered an illegal in-kind contribution to President Bush's campaign. __________________________________________ Who's Powell kidding?? Of course there are laws against this- they're regular 'free' public access broadcast channels- in which case 'equal time' is mandatory if they air it...and at this point in time- that's in violation of the McCain-Feingold campaign law. Bush's gotta go...and Powell's gotta go right behind him- he's headed the most corrupt FCC commission in history!! I'll one up ya Roland ...yeah- definitely email Sinclair directly- but also sign the petition too...every little bit will help. Stop Sinclair Broadcast GroupBetween October 21 and 24, Sinclair Broadcast Group will force the local television stations it owns and operates to preempt regular network broadcasts and devote one hour to an anti-John Kerry documentary. Please sign the petition below and help us get to 100,000 signatures by Friday. "We, the undersigned, respectfully request that Sinclair Broadcast Group not air the documentary Stolen Honor. We believe that it is inappropriate and unfair to air partisan propaganda in the last 10 days of an election campaign. We will make our position known to Sinclair, its advertisers, and any affiliated organizations." www.stopsinclair.org/index.phpWhat is Stolen Honor?According to its creators, Stolen Honor is a "documentary" claiming to "expos[e] John Kerry's record of betrayal." The film is funded by a group of conservative activists. Sources: www.stolenhonor.com
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Roland
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Post by Roland on Oct 14, 2004 22:59:55 GMT -5
Unconscionable! I'd already sent my email to Sinclair and to my Congressional representatives, but I signed the petition too. Now I'll follow that up with one to Powell!
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Post by LS on Oct 14, 2004 23:15:33 GMT -5
Yeah...obviously Sinclair is lying through it's teeth when it claims on it's website that the 'documentary' hasn't even been filmed yet. Really?? Then how come it's already being offered 'for sale' or 'pay-per-view' on the stolenhonor website?? moveon.org & pac has lots of that kind of stuff on their websites- but it's not broadcast on TV...so unless they're willing to broadcast that stuff too- then let that so-called 'documentary' stay on the web where people who want to see it can pay if they want to see it- just like all the other partisan stuff.
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snizz
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I'm sure I'd be more upset if I weren't quite so heavily sedated
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Post by snizz on Oct 16, 2004 1:31:30 GMT -5
And how fast would Sinclair block their stations from showing "Going Upriver" if one of the networks decided to show it? Has there been any word yet on whether they made a decision to take Paul Alexander up on his offer and show his "Brothers In Arms"? The troops are rallying and from the feedback I've gotten, I'm confident that the treachery of this dozen or so swifties isn't going to be forgotten or forgiven and they'll get exactly what they've got coming to them. What goes around always come around in the end. It says a helluva lot about the guy they're backing though, that the handbook of dirty tricks is his only chance, since he has no record to rely on to get him there. You're right Red, Powell has to be thrown out. He doesn't even attempt hiding his biased agenda. After this election is over, there's going to have to be some big changes made. It's clear the Fairness Doctrine has to be put back in place and the loopholes in the McCain-Feingold campaign reforms have to be closed.
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Roland
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Robert Johnson King of the Delta Blues
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Post by Roland on Oct 25, 2004 22:41:49 GMT -5
And how fast would Sinclair block their stations from showing "Going Upriver" if one of the networks decided to show it? Has there been any word yet on whether they made a decision to take Paul Alexander up on his offer and show his "Brothers In Arms"? They were largely defanged. In case you hadn't heard, they retreated on their original plan and it wound up being an hour program that supposedly presented both sides of the "story," although they spent a good portion of it whining about a vocal minority trying to infringe on their 1st amendment right by trying to block the program. The problem is, no one was trying to block the program, they were demanding equal time so that both sides were fairly represented. The shareholders were enraged by what Sinclair was trying to do and filed lawsuits, their stock dropped and is still dropping, they lost most of their advertisers, many of whom said they wouldn't advertise on any of their stations, some until after the election. The special only ran on 40 stations and during the program, most of the stations only had a single advertiser buy time. The Baltimore Sun ran a good editorial over the weekend saying that the program that did air was completely uninformative, without any value and asked Sinclair if, in the end, it was really worth upsetting it's shareholders, seeing it's stock and revenues plunge and further sullying it's reputation over. That's a lot to ask for and I'd fathom a guess if we see any changes, it would all depend who wins the election.
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snizz
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I'm sure I'd be more upset if I weren't quite so heavily sedated
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Post by snizz on Oct 26, 2004 16:29:41 GMT -5
That's a lot to ask for and I'd fathom a guess if we see any changes, it would all depend who wins the election. I'd say you're probably right on that count. Yea I've had my eye on Sinclair's shenanigans. It looks like that s--t's not over yet and more of them are trying to pull the same stunt. Broadcaster Donates $325,000 Of Free Air Time To GOPBy TOM CHORNEAU October 26, 2004 SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) - One of the state's biggest broadcasters has given 13 Republican county committees $325,000 worth of free air time to promote candidates on its radio and television stations throughout California. Pappas Telecasting Cos., which calls itself the largest privately held broadcast firm in the nation, made the donations earlier this month. Democrats complain the offer unfairly benefits GOP candidates in violation of federal law. An attorney representing Democratic Assemblywoman Nicole Parra, who is seeking re-election in a close race against Republican Dean Gardner, sent a letter Saturday to Pappas demanding equal time. Karen Getman, Parra's lawyer, also complained that campaign finance records do not clearly indicate how the time is being used. "That's one of the things that is so nefarious about this,'' said Getman, a former chairwoman of the state's Fair Political Practices Commission. A spokesman for Pappas said the Federal Communications Commission has reviewed the donations and determined that they do not trigger provisions of federal law that require broadcasters to give all candidates equal broadcast time. The FCC did not respond to calls placed after hours Monday. Michael Angelos, company spokesman, said the donations are being given to county committees and not directly to any candidate. "The donations allow central committees to direct campaign ads to any candidate they wish,'' he said. Angelos said the company's CEO, Harry J. Pappas, decided to make the contributions that reflect his political views. The company owns 28 stations in 11 states and operates in most of California's major markets, according to the company's Web site. Gardner is the only candidate who has taken advantage of the gift, said his spokesman, Tim Clark. He said the campaign did not ask a lot of questions about where the donation was coming from. "We are in a tough fight,'' Clark said. ``We said we would take anything we can get our hands on.'' The dispute follows the uproar over reports that Sinclair Broadcast Group Inc. planned to require all 62 of its stations to air a program including documentary footage critical of John Kerry's opposition to the Vietnam War. The program that eventually aired last week devoted nearly as much coverage to the controversy as the documentary itself.
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Roland
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Post by Roland on Oct 26, 2004 22:56:56 GMT -5
Now I'm getting extremely pissed off! "A spokesman for Pappas said the Federal Communications Commission has reviewed the donations and determined that they do not trigger provisions of federal law that require broadcasters to give all candidates equal broadcast time.
The FCC did not respond to calls placed after hours Monday."It doesn't trigger any provisions of federal law? The following is from their own website! BROADCAST PROGRAMMING: BASIC LAW AND POLICY Retention of Material Broadcast. We generally do not require stations to keep the material they broadcast. However, there are limited exceptions to this policy for personal attacks and political editorials. Personal Attacks. Personal attacks occur when, during the presentation of views on a controversial issue of public importance, someone attacks the honesty, character, integrity, or like personal qualities of an identified person or group. No more than a week after a personal attack, the station must transmit the following three things to the person or group attacked: (1) notification of the date, time, and identification of the broadcast; (2) a tape, script or accurate summary of the attack; and (3) an offer of a reasonable opportunity to respond on the air. Political Editorials. A political editorial is when a station endorses or opposes a legally qualified candidate(s) during a broadcast of its own opinion. (The opinions of other people broadcast over the station are referred to as "comments" or "commentary"). Whether a statement of opinion is an editorial or a commentary will usually be made clear at the beginning of the statement. Within 24 hours after the editorial, the station must transmit the following three things to the other qualified candidate(s) for the same office, or to the candidate(s) that were opposed: (1) notification of the date and time of the editorial; (2) a script or tape of the editorial; and (3) an offer of a reasonable opportunity for the candidate or a spokesperson for the candidate to respond on the air. BROADCAST PROGRAMMING: LAW AND POLICY ON SPECIFIC KINDS OF PROGRAMMING Broadcast Journalism. Under the First Amendment and the Communications Act, the FCC cannot tell stations how to select material for news programs, and we cannot prohibit the broadcasting of an opinion on any subject. We also do not review anyone's qualifications to gather, edit, announce, or comment on the news; these decisions are the station's responsibility.Political Broadcasting. Broadcasts by Candidates for Public Office. When a qualified candidate for public office has been permitted to use a station, the Communications Act requires the station to "afford equal opportunities to all other such candidates for that office." The Act also states that the station "shall have no power of censorship over the material broadcast" by the candidate. We do not consider either of the following two categories as a "use" that is covered by this rule: * An appearance by a legally qualified candidate on a bona fide newscast, interview or documentary (if the appearance of the candidate is incidental to the presentation of the subject covered by the documentary); or * on-the-spot coverage of a bona fide news event (including political conventions and related incidental activities). Political Editorials. Within 24 hours of airing an editorial where the station itself either supports or opposes a candidate for public office, it must transmit the following three things to the other qualified candidate(s) for the same office or to the candidate who was opposed in the editorial: (1) notification of the date and the time of the editorial; (2) a script or tape of the editorial; and (3) an offer of a reasonable opportunity for the candidate or a spokesperson for the candidate to respond on the air.
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snizz
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I'm sure I'd be more upset if I weren't quite so heavily sedated
Posts: 322
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Post by snizz on Oct 30, 2004 22:07:47 GMT -5
I know Roland, who were they trying to kid? The laws are there in black and white, so why'd Congress have to order the FCC investigate immediately? And what do you know? To their great surprise they discovered Pappas is in violation.
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Post by LS on Feb 3, 2005 0:58:10 GMT -5
Wake up, Maggie Another conservative columnist is clueless in pay-to-sway scandal
Errol Louis January 28, 2005 After years of complaining of a vast left-wing media conspiracy, the conservatives turn out to be running their own racket. The Bush administration's pay-to-sway scandal continues to spread like an oil slick. The latest disclosure is that nationally syndicated columnist Maggie Gallagher received more than $21,000 as a government consultant on White House pro-marriage initiatives without informing her readers of the payments in columns that lavishly praised the programs.
As conservatives wipe the egg off their faces, they might rethink their habit of knee-jerk media-bashing.
The Gallagher gaffe comes close on the heels of the revelation that another columnist, Armstrong Williams, got $241,000 from the Department of Education to talk up the administration's No Child Left Behind policy without informing readers he was bought and paid for.
Williams and Gallagher are both prominent voices in a conservative movement that has spent decades ritualistically excoriating the so-called liberal media as biased and unethical. The scorn now raining down on the dynamic duo is the inevitable result of hurling rocks from inside a glass house.
Here's an excerpt from a 1996 column by Williams, published a few days before the presidential election. "We should be aware of the spin the press puts on issues that could potentially affect us all." He went on: "Let us not allow ourselves to be blinded by the cheapening of morality and integrity paraded every day in the press."
Reading those words today, Williams' lecture about morality and integrity in media reads like the punchline of a joke. Gallagher, whose column appears locally in the New York Post, has been equally amusing of late.
As part of her $21,500 contract from the Department of Health and Human Services, she wrote agency pamphlets, trained staffers and ghost-authored a pro-marriage magazine article that appeared under the name of a department official. She later hyped the same program, calling Bush a "genius" in one column and dismissing criticism of the marriage initiative as "nonsense."
At first, Gallagher - who says she was a Bush partisan long before taking the money - seemed clueless about the ethical lines she had crossed.
"Did I violate journalistic ethics by not disclosing it? I don't know. You tell me," she said to Howard Kurtz, the Washington Post writer who exposed the deception. In her own column this week, Gallagher apologized to readers: "I should have disclosed a government contract when I later wrote about the Bush marriage initiative. I would have, if I had remembered it."
Nobody's buying that last bit. This may be flush times for right-wing rent-a-hacks, but few would forget about a $21,000 check with their name on it.
The White House has retreated into damage-control mode, with Bush publicly ordering his aides to end the unethical - and some say illegal - practice of using government dollars to purchase the service of columnists. "I expect my cabinet secretaries to make sure that that practice doesn't go forward," Bush said at his press conference this week. "Our agenda ought to be able to stand on its own two feet."
But apparently it can't. House Democrats have released procurement data showing the administration paid over $88 million to public relations firms last year, more than double the amount the Clinton administration spent in its final year. Senate Dems have introduced a bill that would curb the practice.
Dismayed conservatives are calling on other pundits to step forward before they get caught like Williams and Gallagher. Don't count on it. Up to now, life has been pretty sweet in the administration's Leave No Shill Behind program.
_______________________________________
Third Columnist Was Paid by Bush Agency
By SIOBHAN McDONOUGH
January 28, 2005
WASHINGTON (AP) - The Department of Health and Human Services said Friday that a third conservative columnist was paid to assist in promoting a Bush administration policy.
Columnist Mike McManus received $10,000 to train marriage counselors as part of the agency's initiative promoting marriage to build strong families, said Wade Horn, assistant secretary for children and families.
The disclosure came as the Government Accountability Office sent a letter to the Education Department on Friday asking for all materials related to its contract dealings with a prominent conservative media commentator.
That department, through a contract with the public relations firm Ketchum, hired commentator Armstrong Williams to produce ads that featured former Education Secretary Rod Paige and promoted President Bush's No Child Left Behind law. The contract also committed Williams, who is black, to provide media access for Paige and to persuade other black journalists to talk about the law.
Federal law bans the use of public money on propaganda.
The Education Department received the GAO's letter and is reviewing it, said department spokeswoman Susan Aspey. ``Secretary Spelling has made it very clear she is getting to the bottom of this.''
Margaret Spellings started this week, replacing Paige.
In a letter to Sens. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., and Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, dated Friday, Spellings wrote, ``At this point, what I can say is that at a minimum, there were errors of judgments at the Department, and I am diligently working to get to the bottom of it all.''
The lawmakers are the chairman and the ranking member of a panel that oversees education spending, and their subcommittee is looking into the matter.
Spellings also said the department has directed Ketchum to stop all work under the contract.
Earlier this week, Bush ordered his Cabinet secretaries not to hire columnists to promote administration agendas. The declaration was prompted by reports that Williams and another columnist, Maggie Gallagher, had been paid by the administration.
All three columnists failed to disclose to their readers their relationships with the administration.
Health and Human Services' Horn stressed McManus was not paid to write favorably to about the administration. Still, he said, HHS has now implemented a rule to prohibit the use of outside consultants or contractors who have any connection with the press.
``There's a growing misperception that taxpayers' money is being used to pay columnists to use their position in the media to portray the administration in a positive light,'' Horn said. ``I felt a compelling need to draw a bright line in order to restore the public's confidence that we are not doing that.''
McManus was hired by the Lewin Group, which had a contract with HHS to support community-based programs. As co-founder and president of the nonprofit group Marriage Savers, his expertise was applied to help the community-based programs to build ``the capacity to develop healthy marriage initiatives,'' Horn said.
The Institute for Youth Development, which got a grant from HHS, also is paying Marriage Savers $49,000 to offer guidance to unmarried couples who are having children, Horn said.
McManus has written supportively about the HHS marriage initiative in many of his columns since the consulting work began in January 2003.
McManus' weekly column appears in about 50 newspapers. He would not comment Friday but said he planned to issue a statement.
HHS spokesman Bill Pierce said he was unaware of any other columnists or commentators who were being paid to do work for the department.
Determining who is considered a journalist isn't always easy, Horn said.
``Oftentimes they will be experts in an area, write op-eds, be a media personality, write columns,'' he said. ``The question really is: Is it legitimate for the government to draw upon that?''
Gallagher apologized this week to readers for not disclosing a $21,500 contract with HHS to help create materials promoting the marriage initiative.
The Education Department paid Williams $240,000 to produce television and radio ads promoting the No Child Left Behind Act. Williams has apologized and called it a mistake in judgment not to disclose that the administration was paying him.
Sens. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., and Frank Lautenberg, D-N.J., had requested the GAO to expand a continuing inquiry into the matter.
``The issue here isn't just whether a journalist violated ethics, but whether the Bush Administration broke the law,'' Lautenberg said Friday. ``If the GAO finds that the payment to Armstrong Williams was an illegal use of taxpayer dollars, then the money should be returned and Education Department officials should be held accountable.''
USA Today first reported the McManus contract Friday.
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Post by LS on Feb 3, 2005 1:02:12 GMT -5
Baltimore Sun in Court Over Reporter BanBy GRETCHEN PARKER BALTIMORE (AP) - A judge deciding whether Gov. Robert Ehrlich can bar his staff from talking to two journalists said Friday that the governor has the right to choose whom he associates with, but that the writers should have as much access to state government as other citizens. U.S. District Judge William Quarles peppered attorneys for the state and The (Baltimore) Sun with questions at a hearing but said he needed more information before he could issue a ruling. Ehrlich in November directed his staff and at least 19 state agencies to stop talking, returning calls and giving information to Sun writers David Nitkin and Michael Olesker. The governor's office accuses them of bias and inaccuracies. The Sun, Nitkin and Olesker sued, saying Ehrlich doesn't have the right to decide who can report on state government. The newspaper is asking Quarles to lift the ban temporarily until a decision on the suit is rendered. Quarles said he is closely considering a 1998 decision by a 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond, Va., that said a Baltimore police spokesman did not have a First Amendment obligation to give a freelance reporter information. Sun attorneys have said the case does not apply because it did not involve a senior government official ordering subordinates, but the judge said Friday that he can't ignore the decision. Quarles pointed out that the newspaper continues to cover state government, and that other reporters are allowed access to Ehrlich, his aides and other state offices. The Sun has a constitutionally protected right to cover government, Quarles said, but it does not have a right to stipulate that it be covered by certain reporters. Charles Tobin, an attorney for The Sun, argued that the governor also does not have the right to choose those reporters. ``If he has the ability to do this in this instance, there really is no limit to his ability to pick and choose (which reporters) to talk to,'' Tobin said. ``That's tremendously damaging to the public interest that they're defending.'' Quarles expressed concern about whether the governor could deny government access to citizens who express unpopular opinions. He added, however, that Ehrlich ``must have some zone in which he can say, `Look, we just don't talk to these people.''' Quarles asked the attorney general's office to give him a definition next week clarifying who is prohibited from communicating with Nitkin and Olesker. The governor's office has made allegations that articles written by Nitkin, The Sun's State House bureau chief, are biased or incorrect but have not offered a list of factual errors. Aides maintain that a column of Olesker's falsely implied that he attended a legislative hearing. The ban was levied as the paper ran a series of articles examining the Ehrlich administration's handling of state land sales. Newspaper attorneys have argued that the ban is the governor's retaliation against the paper. ___________________________________ First Amendment No Big Deal, Students SayBy BEN FELLER WASHINGTON (AP) - The way many high school students see it, government censorship of newspapers may not be a bad thing, and flag burning is hardly protected free speech. It turns out the First Amendment is a second-rate issue to many of those nearing their own adult independence, according to a study of high school attitudes released Monday. The original amendment to the Constitution is the cornerstone of the way of life in the United States, promising citizens the freedoms of religion, speech, press and assembly. Yet, when told of the exact text of the First Amendment, more than one in three high school students said it goes ``too far'' in the rights it guarantees. Only half of the students said newspapers should be allowed to publish freely without government approval of stories. ``These results are not only disturbing; they are dangerous,'' said Hodding Carter III, president of the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, which sponsored the $1 million study. ``Ignorance about the basics of this free society is a danger to our nation's future.'' The students are even more restrictive in their views than their elders, the study says. When asked whether people should be allowed to express unpopular views, 97 percent of teachers and 99 percent of school principals said yes. Only 83 percent of students did. The results reflected indifference, with almost three in four students saying they took the First Amendment for granted or didn't know how they felt about it. It was also clear that many students do not understand what is protected by the bedrock of the Bill of Rights. Three in four students said flag burning is illegal. It's not. About half the students said the government can restrict any indecent material on the Internet. It can't. ``Schools don't do enough to teach the First Amendment. Students often don't know the rights it protects,'' Linda Puntney, executive director of the Journalism Education Association, said in the report. ``This all comes at a time when there is decreasing passion for much of anything. And, you have to be passionate about the First Amendment.'' The partners in the project, including organizations of newspaper editors and radio and television news directors, share a clear advocacy for First Amendment issues. Federal and state officials, meanwhile, have bemoaned a lack of knowledge of U.S. civics and history among young people. Sen. Robert Byrd, D-W.Va., has even pushed through a mandate that schools must teach about the Constitution on Sept. 17, the date it was signed in 1787. The survey, conducted by researchers at the University of Connecticut, is billed as the largest of its kind. More than 100,000 students, nearly 8,000 teachers and more than 500 administrators at 544 public and private high schools took part in early 2004. The study suggests that students embrace First Amendment freedoms if they are taught about them and given a chance to practice them, but schools don't make the matter a priority. Students who take part in school media activities, such as a student newspapers or TV production, are much more likely to support expression of unpopular views, for example. About nine in 10 principals said it is important for all students to learn some journalism skills, but most administrators say a lack of money limits their media offerings. More than one in five schools offer no student media opportunities; of the high schools that do not offer student newspapers, 40 percent have eliminated them in the last five years. ``The last 15 years have not been a golden era for student media,'' said Warren Watson, director of the J-Ideas project at Ball State University in Indiana. ``Programs are under siege or dying from neglect. Many students do not get the opportunity to practice our basic freedoms.'' On the Net: Future of the First Amendment report: www.firstamendmentfuture.org/
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Post by Roughneck on Feb 17, 2005 17:33:41 GMT -5
When the ranking Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee, Rep. Ike Skelton (Mo.), asked about the number of insurgents in Iraq, the secretary said, "I am not going to give you a number for it because it's not my business to do intelligent work." (He presumably meant to say "intelligence.") Ultimately, Rumsfeld admitted he had estimates at his fingertips. "I've got two in front of me," he said. I couldn't agree more! ;D And I suppose we've all by now read about yet another journalist in the white House pocket...
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Post by LS on Feb 17, 2005 22:24:47 GMT -5
Beyond 'Fair and Balanced' Sinclair, the pro-Bush broadcaster, is waging war on the "cheese-eating surrender monkeys"
By ERIC KLINENBERG Last year, when conservative commentator Armstrong Williams took $240,000 in payoffs from the Bush administration to promote its education policies in the media, he needed to reach a national television audience to satisfy the terms of his lucrative deal. Fortunately for Williams, he was good friends with David Smith, the CEO of Sinclair Broadcast Group, the nation's largest owner of television stations.
Although Smith says he didn't know Williams was on the take, he liked the pundit's pro-Bush views and was eager to hand him plum assignments at Sinclair. While on the Bush payroll, Williams did an interview for Sinclair with then Education Secretary Rod Paige, the man responsible for funneling him taxpayer money to secure such prime-time exposure. He also interviewed Majority Whip Tom DeLay, and even got an hour on camera with Vice President Dick Cheney, who rarely speaks to the media. "Sinclair brought me stuff that I did not have -- real numbers, where you can get the speaker of the house or the VP," Williams tells Rolling Stone. "On Sinclair, I was talking to millions of viewers a night."
Even before the payoffs became public, the news staff at Sinclair was horrified. The producer who edited the interview Williams did with Paige calls it "the worst piece of TV I've ever been associated with. You've seen softballs from Larry King? Well, this was softer. I told my boss it didn't even deserve to be broadcast, but they kept pushing me to put more of it on tape. In retrospect, it was so clearly propaganda."
The Federal Communications Commission is investigating the cash-for-coverage deal, and other media outlets have severed their ties to Williams. But not Sinclair. Smith leaves open the possibility of putting the commentator back on the air, dismissing the entire controversy as "foolish." Williams, for his part, is confident that Sinclair will have him back. "David Smith has stood beside me as a friend," he says. "I'm not too concerned about my relationship with Sinclair, if you know what I mean."
In the firmament of right-wing media outlets, Sinclair stands somewhere to the right of Fox News. Its archconservative politics may not be served up with Fox's raw-meat bite, but what Sinclair lacks in flash, it makes up for in unabashed cheerleading for the Bush administration. It sent a team to Iraq to report "good news" about the war and forced each of its sixty-two stations to broadcast a pledge of support for Bush. Last April, it refused to air a Nightline special listing the name of every American soldier killed in Iraq, and it gave national exposure to Stolen Honor, a documentary attacking John Kerry, just weeks before the election. And each night, Sinclair requires all of its stations to air an editorial segment called "The Point," in which company vice president Mark Hyman rails against the "angry left" and "clueless academia," dismisses peace activists as "wack jobs," calls the French "cheese-eating surrender monkeys" and supports a host of right-wing initiatives, from a national sales tax to privatizing Medicare.
Because Sinclair broadcasts mostly in out-of-the-way markets, beyond the glare of the national media, no one much noticed until recently. But within the company, current and former employees have long known that there is a fine line between ideology and coercion. Jon Leiberman, once Sinclair's Washington bureau chief, says Smith and other executives were intent on airing "propaganda meant to sway the election." An ex-producer says he was ordered not to report "any bad news out of Iraq -- no dead servicemen, no reports on how much we're spending, nothing." And a producer Sinclair sent to Iraq to report on the war calls the resulting coverage "pro-Bush."
"You weren't reporting news," says the producer, who spoke on the condition of anonymity. "You were reporting a political agenda that came down to you from the top of the food chain."
At Sinclair, the top of the food chain is David Smith. An imposing man with a pink complexion and a confrontational manner, Smith comes across like an overgrown frat boy who suddenly struck it rich. His father, Julian Sinclair Smith, launched the family's first television station in 1971, and in the last decade, David and his three brothers have expanded the operation into a broadcast empire with access to four in one American households. During a daylong tour of Sinclair's headquarters, on the outskirts of Baltimore, Smith repeatedly boasts about his wealth ("I bet you wish you were my son," he tells me. "It would put you in a different financial bracket") and proudly shows off his travel photographs, which are mounted and displayed in the hallways of Sinclair's five-story office building. He makes no secret of his support for Bush and describes Sinclair as one of the only bastions of objectivity in American journalism.
"We're in the center," Smith insists, sitting in his fifth-floor executive suite. "Ninety-nine-point-nine percent of the media is left of center. Paula Zahn or Peter Jennings or anybody who is attempting to pass himself off as reporting news -- they're not telling the whole story. Dan Rather wants you to believe that Saddam Hussein is a nice guy! There are two companies doing truly balanced news today: Sinclair and Fox."
Smith had some experience in the media when he took over the company from his father -- but it wasn't the kind of work most conservatives would appreciate. In the 1970s, he was a partner in a business called Cine Processors, which made bootleg copies of porn films in the basement of a building owned by another of his father's companies, the Commercial Radio Institute. "We had the film-processing lab in operation for, like, a year," recalls David Williams, Smith's partner at Cine. "The first film we copied was Deep Throat, which had just opened in New York and was not available anywhere else." According to Williams, Cine got involved with the mob and was busted by the police. "How David got control of the family company after that, I don't know," he says. "He was just a big egotist. He wanted attention."
Smith's media connections came in handy in 1996, when he was arrested on suspicion of soliciting a prostitute who, police said, performed "an unnatural and perverted sex act on him" in a Mercedes owned by Sinclair. Charged with a misdemeanor sex offense, Smith cut an unusual deal: In lieu of doing community service, he ordered Sinclair to broadcast reports publicizing local drug programs. "The judge was outraged," former Sinclair reporter LuAnne Canipe told Salon. "He said, 'How can employees do community service for their boss?' "
Smith was equally creative when it came to skirting federal rules that forbid broadcasters from controlling two television stations in the same market. The scheme was simple: Smith's mother, Carolyn, and Sinclair employee Edwin Edwards would buy a station in a market where the company already owned an outlet, and then promptly turn control of the new operation over to Sinclair. In 2001, the FCC ruled that the broadcaster had violated federal ownership laws and slapped it with a $40,000 fine -- but allowed Sinclair to keep the stations. Today the company owns or operates affiliates of every major network in twenty states -- including two stations in Las Vegas, Milwaukee, Columbus, Ohio, and Pittsburgh.
"Sinclair is the most aggressive broadcaster in trying to increase the number of stations it controls," says Andrew Jay Schwartzman, president of the Media Access Project, a nonprofit law firm in Washington, D.C. "They figured out how to be a very big fish in some pretty small ponds."
Most of the illegal deals involved Smith's mother, Carolyn -- but she does not appear to be very involved in running the vast network of stations she owns. As I am meeting with Mark Hyman, the vice president who produces Sinclair's evening editorial, the elderly Smith strolls into Hyman's office on her walker and delivers the mail.
"Mrs. Smith is amazing," Hyman tells me. "She's here every day sorting the mail. If you touch it before her, you're in big trouble."
Hyman, a former Navy intelligence officer whose walls are covered with drawings of battleships, shows off the Sinclair operation with the pride of a new parent. Local news is the most lucrative part of the business -- in a typical market, it accounts for a third of all ad revenue -- and Sinclair has come up with a novel way to make it even more profitable. First, the company slashes news staffs at its local affiliates to as few as fifteen employees, compared to as many as eighty at its competitors. Then it produces programs at its headquarters, called News Central, that are designed to look like local news. As we tour the studios, Hyman calls my attention to the anchor desk and backdrops, which have been created to match those at Sinclair affiliates. That way, when the company's on-air personalities sit in Baltimore and banter with local anchors, viewers think the broadcasts are taking place in their hometown. "There's no indication that these pieces are coming from News Central in Maryland, no disclaimer," says Josh Silver, executive director of Free Press, a media-reform group based in Northampton, Massachusetts.
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