[Peace-discuss] Fwd: [SRRTAC-L:10528] FWD: Copordinated Action on the Fifth Estate
Al Kagan
akagan at uiuc.edu
Sat Mar 29 16:53:27 CST 2003
>Date: Fri, 28 Mar 2003 15:13:20 -0800
>From: Mary Rushfield <mrushfield at surfside.net>
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>To: SRRT Action Council <srrtac-l at ala.org>
>Subject: [SRRTAC-L:10528] FWD: Copordinated Action on the Fifth Estate
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> >From the peace coalitions, please pass along and act. Excuse if
>duplication.
>
>
>MEDIA CHALLENGE! is co-sponsored by: Projects4Peace, ICUJP (Interfaith
>Communities United for Justice and Peace), Neighbors for Peace and
>Justice, Coalition for World Peace, Global Guardianship Initiative, Code
>Pink for Peace, Peace on the Beach, Peace Warriors, LA International
>A.N.S.W.E.R., Not in Our Name and Global Women's Strike.
>
>FWD from Ted Williams
>Email: tedewilliams at earthlink.net
>
>
>Three Week Action Plan : March 24, 2003 - April 11, 2003
>
>One Call a Day to Democratize Media - an action from Peace Coalitions
>
>
>It is time to take on the television companies! PLEASE READ BELOW AND
>ACT AND ALSO EMAIL TO YOUR CONTACTS.
>
>Support for a war and for police state actions by tens of millions of
>Americans can be directly traced to the misinformation, lack of
>information and wildly unbalanced commentary they get from General
>Electric (NBC), News Corp. (Fox), Disney (ABC), AOL-Time Warner(CNN) and
>Viacom (CBS). PBS is little better. Fifty-eight percent of the public
>gets its information solely from these sources; 85% are influenced by
>them. No wonder we are at war.
>
>If democracy is to have any true meaning, it must be based on a
>well-informed public. These companies must be compelled to
>provide real journalism and commentary balance. Their roles as
>propaganda arms of the Administration must end.
>
>We a coalition of peace groups encourage you to join the focused mass
>phone-in to the TV News bosses. Every day for the next three weeks call
>the national news chiefs listed below (also separately call their
>national and local newsrooms). As war proceeds, ask for:
>
>
>Balanced coverage including images, interviews and reports of civilian
>casualties and other war impacts.
>Equal time for anti-war experts and worldwide leaders and coverage of
>the many events beyond the rallies, including, military families and
>members who oppose the war.
>Prominent challenges to the Administration's credibility. The broadcast
>media needs to hear that they have no credibility because they have not
>reported the false claims and lies already exposed by the print media.
>(Factual details below)
>
>
>For the next three weeks we urge you to call one Network each day on the
>following schedule (addresses are further below): Call the news chief
>or, if you can't get through, call the switchboard and ask for the
>newsroom. Even better, call them both. Keep the calls pouring in to the
>newsrooms. Calls are greatly more effective than emails.
>
>Monday: ABC NEWS CHIEF David Westin. 212.456.6200. fax:
>212.456.4292..
>ABC SWITCHBOARD (ASK FOR NEWSROOM) 212.456.6813 NEWSROOM fax
>212.456.2795
>
>Tuesday: MSNBC AND NBC. MSNBC NEWS CHIEF Mark Effron. 201.583.510.
>fax: 201.583.5199 mark.effron at msnbc.com. MSNBC SWITCHBOARD (ASK FOR
>NEWSROOM) 201.583.5000 fax: 201.583.5590
>
>NBC NEWS CHIEF Neil Shapiro. 212.664.4773. fax: 212.664.2264[
>neal.shapiro at nbc.com. NBC SWITCHBOARD (ASK
>FOR NEWSROOM) 212.664.4444. fax: 201.583.5453
>
>Wednesday: CBS NEWS CHIEF Andrew Hayward. 212.975.7825. fax:
>212.975.7429. mg3 at cbsnews.com CBS SWITCHBOARD
>(ASK FOR NEWSROOM) 212.975.4321 fax: 212.975.1893
>
>Thursday: CNN NEWS CHIEF Walter Isaacson. 404.827.5111. fax:
>404.827.4215. walter.isaacson at cnn.com CNN
>SWITCHBOARD (ASK FOR NEWSROOM). 404.827.1500. cnnfutures at cnn.com
>
>PBS FACTUAL PROGRAMMING CHIEF Sandy Heberer
>703.739.5036.
>PBS SWITCHBOARD (ASK FOR NEWSROOM) 212.708.3000
>
>Friday: FOX NEWS CHIEF: John Moody. 212.301.8560. fax: 212.398.8726.
>john.moody at foxnews.com FOX SWITCHBOARD (ASK
>FOR NEWSROOM) 212.575.4670. fax: 212.301.8274
>
>Besides the daily calls, WHENEVER YOU SEE OR HEAR BIASED COVERAGE, CALL
>THE NEWS CHIEFS AND/OR NEWSROOMS AND INSIST ON RESPONSIBLE, IN-DEPTH
>JOURNALISM. There is plenty every day to call about. Calls are best
>because they must halt misinforming the public while they deal with you.
>If you cannot reach policy makers, then fax or e-mail.
>
>On April 12, 2003, Media Challenge! will issue an enhanced action plan
>to ensure that TV provides the coverage Americans deserve!
>
>
>MEDIA CHALLENGE! is co-sponsored by: Projects4Peace, ICUJP (Interfaith
>Communities United for Justice and Peace), Neighbors for Peace and
>Justice, Coalition for World Peace, Global Guardianship Initiative, Code
>Pink for Peace, Peace on the Beach, Peace Warriors, LA International
>A.N.S.W.E.R., Not in Our Name and Global Women's Strike.
>
>
>NETWORK NEWS EXECUTIVES ADDRESSES
>
>ABC News President: David Westin
>
>77 W. 6th Street
>
>New York, NY 10023
>
>----------------------------------------------
>
>NBC News President: Neil Shapiro
>
>30 Rockefeller Plaza
>
>New York, NY 10112
>
>----------------------------------------------------------
>
>MSNBC V.P. Live News Programming: Mark Effron
>
>One MSNBC Plaza
>
>Secaucus, NJ 07094
>-------------------------------------------
>CBS News President: Andrew Hayward
>524 W. 57th Street
>
>New York, NY 10019
>
>---------------------------------------
>
>CNN News President: Walter Isaacson
>
>1 CNN Center
>
>Atlanta, GA 30303
>
>_________________________
>
>FOX News Channel Sr. V.P. News Editorial: John Moody
>
>1211 Avenue of the Americas
>
>New York, NY 10036
>
>_____________________________
>PBS FACTUAL PROGRAMMING CHIEF Sandy Heberer
>
>1320 Braddock Place
>
>Alexandria, VA 22314 ______________________________
>The Case Against TV and Radio News - What every peace supporter should
>know and tell the executives.
>
>In speaking to news chiefs, insist that information refuting
>administration statements be mentioned every time the administration
>claim is mentioned. Prominent should be these facts:
>
>
>When a newscaster reports US claims it is at war over Iraq's alleged
>weapons of mass destruction, the report must also state the essential
>role of key neo-conservatives in pushing a three-decade old agenda that
>predates Iraqi chemical/biological weaponry and which sees the U.S.
>first taking Iraq, then moving into Iran and Syria in order to control
>the Mideast and its oil power. That policy was openly codified in the
>formation in 1997 of a new and highly activist right-wing organization,
>The Project for a New American Century, which counts as key members most
>of the administration's top national security figures. Americans need to
>be reminded of this hourly.
>Evidence of Administration lying to the public must be prominently and
>repeatedly mentioned. The evidence should include the following:
>
>*** Knowing use by the Administration of a forged document - alleged
>evidence of Iraqi attempts to acquire nuclear materials from Niger -- to
>obtain Congressional authority to go to war. Senator Jay Rockefeller (W.
>Va) has now demanded an FBI investigation of this deceit and Rep. Henry
>Waxman (LA) has written the President demanding an explanation of "this
>breach of the highest order."
>
>
>
>***Reports by the Philadelphia Inquirer and New York Times that
>intelligence analysts were under intense pressure by the Administration
>to "cook the books" on Iraq.
>
>
>
>***The resignations of State Dept. diplomat John Kiesling protesting
>that "we have not seen such systematic distortion of intelligence, such
>systematic manipulation of American opinion, since the war in Vietnam."
>
>
>
>***Newsweek's disclosure that the Administration's most oft-cited best
>source of intelligence about Iraq's pre-1991 weapons of mass
>destruction, Saddam Hussein's late son-in-law, told UN inspectors and
>the CIA in 1995 that Iraq's biological and chemical weapons had been
>destroyed after the war - information not reported to the American
>public by Bush, Cheney or Powell in public statements referring to the
>son-in-law.
>
>
>
>***The fact that virtually every statement Secretary of State Powell
>made to the UN in his famous "evidence" case against Iraq has now been
>refuted in the print media. British newspapers, for example, exposed
>that much of the information was not drawn from intelligence sources but
>from a years old doctoral study by a student who got most of his
>information from the Internet. The LA Times revealed that the alleged Al
>Qaeda base in Iraq was actually in territory not controlled by Iraq but
>overseen by US Kurdish allies and that the administration had refused to
>tell Congress why it had not "taken it out."
>
>The Mid-East financial dealings of the Bush family, Vice President
>Cheney and Defense Secretary Rumsfeld and the new no-bid contracts to
>rebuild Iraq being given to their business associates. Cheney flatly
>lied during the election when he said he had no business dealings with
>Iraq.
>
>The price we pay for war and the military buildup must also daily be
>moved front and center. This includes major budget
>cuts in poverty, health, housing, transportation and other programs.
>Civil liberties and government spying must also be
>headlined regularly.
>
>Currently, many stories crucial for the public to know are uncovered by
>independent and foreign journalists or by the
>print media and never see the light of day in TV newsrooms. This must
>change. For example, the networks have not informed the public in depth
>on the U.S. role in putting Saddam Hussein in power and on U.S.
>assistance in helping him acquire biological weapons and use chemical
>weapons. They avoid the President's personal religious beliefs and close
>ties to fundamentalists seeking "apocalypse" in the Mideast - in other
>words, the very real question of whether the President is a closet
>religious fanatic.
>
>They have kept from the public how the U.S. government misled Saudi
>Arabia in 1991 on the threat to its borders from
>Iraq and then lied about babies being slaughtered by Iraq. These are
>clearly stories that, if referred to as regularly as
>TV cites Saddam Hussein's history, might shape public opinion in
>directions other than the war promoting in which TV engages.
>
>Reforms are essential to reverse TV's abuse of its power with the public
>and its undermining of our democracy.
>
>
>
>
>
>---
>[This E-mail scanned for viruses by SURFSIDE INTERNET]
--
Al Kagan
African Studies Bibliographer and Professor of Library Administration
Africana Unit, Room 328
University of Illinois Library
1408 W. Gregory Drive
Urbana, IL 61801, USA
tel. 217-333-6519
fax. 217-333-2214
e-mail. akagan at uiuc.edu
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