Stop the presses!
Republicans blast press at MPA convention
by Don Corrigan

The rotten-egg smell of reprisal was in the air at a Sept. 24 session of the Missouri Press Association Convention (MPA), when a panel of state legislators attempted to give Missouri newspaper publishers a piece of their minds.

The three House Republicans on the five-member panel, Todd Smith (R-Sedalia), Bob Johnson (R-Lee's Summit) and Shannon Cooper (R-Clinton), lectured members of the Show-Me Fourth Estate on such matters as bias in reporting, the legislative process, continuing education, junkets and the Internet as a new outlet for posting of public notices over newspaper pages.

Among the points made by the lawmakers at the Lake of the Ozarks meeting:

-Newspapers purposely distorted their coverage of Medicaid cuts in the last statehouse session with the intent of making the majority party look thoughtless and cruel.

-Newspapers should not criticize legislators for not reading every bill that they pass because, after all, purveyors of print themselves only choose to editorialize about a handful of the many bills taken up by the General Assembly.

-Legislators are constantly learning about the world in which they live, whereas journalists "think they've learned everything they need to know in journalism school."

-Publishers are capitalists who like to play golf, go to cocktail parties and take boat trips-just like many state legislators-but publishers are hypocrites about it. They should stop criticizing legislators for their junkets.

-Missouri would not have to subsidize health care in the state quite so heavily, if publishers provided their employees with better salaries and medical coverage.

-State laws requiring county financial notices to be published in newspapers should be repealed in favor of posting the accountings of public money on less expensive Web sites.

Dalton Wright, publisher of the Lebanon Daily-Record, said it didn't bother him that the gloves were off in the match-up of Missouri legislators and state press members. He said he was troubled by "some of the knowledge gaps" in the charges that House members leveled, as well as the inference that retribution was in the works.

"It was very much in your face what they did," Wright said. "It hinted of retaliation. It was something more than a veiled threat. I think a lot of them really don't like the op-eds that went after them in the larger newspapers, but they'd just as soon sink the whole ship in this state.

"What's really sad is that at least 40 percent of the newspaper people in that room were Republicans, including me," Wright added. "I was embarrassed for them. I thought they did a pitiful job in their presentation, especially handling the issue of public notices."

Wright said Republican legislators seem eager to subtract county financial ads from newspaper advertising budgets, without understanding the impact, especially in rural areas.

"In the urban areas a lot of people are already on the Web, and it may be fine to put notices on the Internet," Wright said. "In rural areas, the Internet is not so readily available, and the cost for a year on the Internet is about $240 compared to as little as $25 a year for a weekly subscription to a country newspaper."

Wright said he was astounded when the legislators said folks who cannot afford the Internet should just go use a computer terminal at the public library. He said their answers ran contrary to the need for more transparency and openness in state government.

Whiff of retaliation
This is not the first time state legislators have made moves that appear to be retaliation for news media content that raises their hackles. In April 2004, House Republicans pushed an amendment aimed at the state's two biggest newspapers, which were at that time critical of statehouse actions.

Both weeklies and dailies across Missouri blasted Republicans in the statehouse after the April 2004 vote to prohibit the Kansas City Star and the St. Louis Post-Dispatch from purchasing-without paying sales tax-such items as newsprint, ink, computers, machinery and newspaper-production equipment. The effort to revoke the sales tax exemption was later dropped.

The amendment, sponsored by the late Rep. Richard Byrd (R-Kirkwood), appeared to especially target the Post, which published an April 11 (Sunday) editorial critical of Republicans in the House for broad cuts in Medicaid eligibility while at the same time the representatives got medical coverage paid for by state taxpayers.

"We interpret Byrd's action as a move to quiet those who question the lawmakers' actions, and that is taking politics too far," stated the Hannibal Courier-Post.

The Hannibal paper insisted that no one in the state was fooled by Byrd and other Republicans who insisted the move was planned long before the Post editorial and was not retaliatory.

"Rep. Byrd, and the other 73 Republicans that voted for the amendment, can plead innocence all they want, but the truth is blatantly obvious," stressed the Courier-Post. "The Missouri House is treading into very dangerous territory with this action. It should not be tolerated.

"It is time for the people of Missouri to raise their voices in an outcry ... Do not tamper with our freedom of speech," declared the Courier-Post. "Do not attempt to extract retribution when someone says something you do not like. That is an affront to every resident of this state and this country."

Holding a grudge
"What happened (at the MPA meeting) was uncalled for‚" said Jack Whitaker, publisher of the Hannibal Courier-Post. "But it's pent-up anger. Some legislators will never get over the Post-Dispatch publishing the faces and the names of legislators who are taking state-subsidized medical insurance, while they are cutting the medical care for other residents of the state."

At the Sept. 24 MPA meeting, GOP legislators said the state press was engaged in hysteria and exaggeration when it published articles claiming the House intended to take away wheelchairs and the oxygen tanks of the indigent.

"In the original legislation, they only put the wheelchairs and the oxygen back in to what they were proposing after the newspapers in the state squawked about it," Whitaker said.

Whitaker added that the legislators failed to mention at MPA that they kept cuts for subsidiary equipment needed to operate the oxygen tanks and wheelchairs-giving the axe to coverage of things like batteries and air tubes.

Whitaker also said the legislators were less than forthright about their motives and intentions to move government public notices from paid-newspaper ads to the Internet.

"I really take strong exception to legislators saying our newspapers are getting rich off of county public notices," Whittaker said. "It's just absurd to say that papers are getting rich off these. I know I don't charge the full rate. I take them on as a public service. I actually lose money on them."

Bill Miller, Sr., publisher of the Washington Missourian newspaper group, said the county financial notices are important to the bottom line for smaller, rural newspapers. He said legislation to cut these state publishing requirements has been popping up every year now in recent statehouse sessions.

"Fighting this legislation is just an every-year budget fight now for newspapers," Miller said. "It is a more heated fight right now. There's a general undercurrent that they don't like us in the legislature, and they don't like a lot of what we write about them."

Hank Waters, publisher of the Columbia Tribune, said the job of Missouri newspapers is to challenge the work of legislators, not to worry about whether the legislature likes them or what it might do.

"They came in saying they were going to paint us with a broad brush, and they did it," said Waters of the MPA meeting. "It got kind of rough, but I don't mind them letting it all hang out."

Nevertheless, Waters said he felt the legislators showed some critical misunderstandings about what they were talking about. He said it was ludicrous for them to take the MPA convention program and to talk about a golf outing, a boat trip on the Lake of the Ozarks and a cocktail party by press members.

"That's all irrelevant," said Waters. "We are a private operation, and if we want to waste our money on golf and a boat trip, well, that's our business."

Waters said it's great that lawmakers also like to take boat trips and golf junkets, but the difference is who is paying for them. It's legitimate to criticize those activities by legislators if the junkets are being put on the tab of taxpayers or being paid for by lobbyists courting votes.

Don Corrigan is a professor in the School of Communications at Webster University and also edits three weekly newspapers.

Soeteber fires back
by Don Corrigan

While Republican legislators took the Missouri press to task Sept. 24 for sins ranging from shoddy coverage to hypocrisy, one editor who fired back at the GOP gang was Ellen Soeteber, editor-in-chief of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

"You guys ought to go on the road with this comedy show," Soeteber said at one point during the panel session sponsored by the Missouri Press Association (MPA) at the Lodge of the Four Seasons in the Ozarks.

"I don't mind them criticizing us, but what really got to me was the hypocrisy," Soeteber said. "These legislators are saying that grandma in the Ozarks can just go to the library and use the Internet to look up state financial information.

"In the same breath, they were saying that it's too hard for their own staffs to put up information on the Web about their campaign finance records to comply with Ethics Commission requirements," Soeteber noted.

The three House Republicans on the five-member panel, Todd Smith (R-Sedalia), Bob Johnson (R-Lee's Summit) and Shannon Cooper (R-Clinton), berated MPA members for publishing erroneous accounts of what goes on in the statehouse.

"Part of their attack was how we are not doing our homework," Soeteber said. "Well, they make it hard for us to do our homework. If they'd put the information they are required to file in a place where it was easily accessible, maybe we could do our homework better."

While the Republicans at the MPA convention clearly stole the show, two Democrats also appeared on the panel: Jeff Harris (D-Columbia) and Wes Shoemyer (D-Clarence).

When asked by Bill Miller, Sr., of the Washington Missourian to rate the performance of Republican Gov. Matt Blunt on a scale of 1-10, GOP panelists had praise for Blunt's accelerating learning curve and came in with numbers ranging from 7-10.

"I can't use negative numbers?" asked Democrat Shoemyer. "I'd give him a zero, except he did have a son during his term, so I'd give him a 2."

Commentary:
A win for style over substance
by M.W. Guzy

When style clashes with substance, smart money bets on style. As members of a consumer culture, Americans are preoccupied with the newest fashion, the latest model, the current trend. Think you're immune? Dig out the photo album and notice how ridiculous everybody looked 30 years ago, wearing those silly clothes. That guy in the middle is you. Remember disco?

The national obsession with style directs our attention to the superficial, keeping us pleasantly out of touch with harsh reality. Ever notice how pharmaceutical ads never feature sick people? Disease is depressing. Better to portray attractive, healthy people enjoying the good life than a bunch of sickos with IVs in their elbows. Do the actors in the Viagra ads really look like they need it?

Relying on images conveyed in televised commercials, a visitor from outer space would conclude that the primary activity of the chronically ill is gardening, followed closely by hiking and tennis.

A stylistic earthquake shook 900 North Tucker last month in the form of a thorough design change in the layout of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. Journalism's answer to New Coke, this remodeling job was the latest attempt of the editorial staff to get people who don't like to read to subscribe to the newspaper. So far, it isn't working.

The format is intended to be easy on the eyes with lots of photos and illustrations, larger headlines, shorter articles and smaller print-a modification that should be especially popular with an aging readership. Particular emphasis will be given to local news and reader-involvement features, including a guy who's going to see how much beer he can drink for $20 at local night spots each week. (Free advice to this forlorn soul: Stay away from the ballpark.) The first edition looked like the bastard child of USA Today and the Potosi Daily Peeper.

Larger, color pictures of regular Post columnists accompany their work. I'm not sure who shot these but he or she obviously apprenticed at the Department of Revenue working in the driver's license photo division. Honestly, I know most of these people and they're really not that ugly in person.

This lighter, airy, upbeat, fun format is presumably going to lure the MTV crowd into once and for all forgetting about Kurt Cobain and taking up the joys of literacy. It will accomplish this formidable task by de-emphasizing writing and expanding graphics. Good luck …

In fairness to the Post, the paper is a business and, like any commercial enterprise, its primary objective is to make a profit. Because advertising rates increase when circulation grows, it makes sense that the people who run it want to sell as many copies as possible.

Unfortunately, as is the case nationwide, readership has steadily declined in recent years. Though the paper enjoys an absolute monopoly as the only major daily in town, people are simply reading less and becoming ever more dependant on the electronic media for information and entertainment.

Print editors in general would do well to stop accenting their weaknesses by playing to the competition's strength. In terms of visual seduction, ink can't compete with electrons. The effort to transform the Post into a cable news competitor is a bit like buying your maiden Aunt Tillie a bikini then hoping that she'll turn into Jenny McCarthy.

Which is not to say that newspapers are obsolete. The virtue of fast-paced, easy to digest electronic news is also its principle vice-there's little time for thoughtful analysis and insightful commentary. Time is money and it costs too much to critically mull both sides of an issue. Balanced discussion of a controversy usually consists of two mortal adversaries shouting slogans at each other under the watchful gaze of a biased moderator who will ultimately resolve the dispute by breaking for a deodorant commercial.

If newspapers are to stop the bleeding in their circulation departments, they have to supply what television cannot. Reader involvement is one dimension. The Post annually polls its readership to determine its preferences in comic strips.

Why not extend this democratic gesture to include which columnists the paper should carry?

Local reporting is another piece of the puzzle, but there's only so much space you can devote to the Oakville sewer district when troops are dying in Iraq and the majority leader of the House is being serially indicted.

It's not like there's a shortage of topics ripe for discussion. Right now, for instance, the government is spending billions to develop a fighter aircraft called the F-22 Raptor. Once operational, it will replace the currently peerless F-15 Eagle as America's premiere interceptor.

Programs like this contribute mightily to the federal budget deficit, which in turn leaves states and municipalities strapped for cash and thus less able to provide for public safety. Because of budgetary constraints, there are 103 fewer cops in St. Louis today than there were at the time of the Sept. 11 attacks. So, by building the Raptor to defend ourselves from people armed with box-cutters and homemade bombs, we help make ourselves less secure by reducing the number of first-responders available in the event of an actual emergency. Somebody at the Post may want to look into this matter.

Of course, reporting like this is not going to convert the pierced-nose crowd into men and women of letters. It may, however, maintain the current circulation and attract prodigal subscribers who left the paper disenchanted with its content, not its format. There's a name for people who buy newspapers-they're called readers.

M.W. Guzy is a retired city cop and a former columnist for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. He is currently the administrative assistant to the St. Louis Sheriff and teaches in the Department of Criminology & Criminal Justice at UMSL.

Photo finish: Photojournalists hall of fame caps careers
by Linda Golden

Jack Zehrt, 83, photographed the Constitution in the National Archives, baseball greats such as Nolan Ryan and Jackie Robinson, and Phil the Gorilla at the St. Louis Zoo. His photograph of the White House hung in the east wing for years. NASA purchased his work in astrophotography.

Zehrt's career has taken him to every state but North Dakota, and on Oct. 20, this Wildwood photographer will travel to Washington, Mo., to join seven other photojournalists as the first inductees into the Missouri Photojournalism Hall of Fame.

"I wasn't too keen on the idea to begin with," Zehrt said of his nomination to the Hall of Fame. "But then I got to thinking. I have over 100 framed photographs all over the house. They're not doing any good here, so now they'll be there."

Zehrt learned of his nomination from Bill Miller, Sr., the publisher and editor of the Washington Missourian, and Doug Crews, the executive director of the Missouri Press Association (MPA). Miller began the project for a photojournalism hall of fame two years ago.

"I thought for years we should do something to honor photojournalists. The MPA has a hall of fame for journalists, but photojournalists were not getting the recognition deserved to them," Miller said.

Miller started the project by getting endorsements to establish the hall of fame in Washington, Mo. He won the support of the Washington Chamber of Commerce, Downtown Washington, Inc., Washington's Core Restructuring Committee, the regional office of the Associated Press, the Missouri Press Foundation (MPF), the University of Missouri School of Journalism and the MPA. Representatives from most of these groups served on a committee with Miller that oversaw the project's development. MPA's Crews said his own involvement in the project included watching Miller.

"Bill Miller has been the driving force," Crews said. "He approached the MPA and MPF with the idea to start this, and it just took off. He's seen it through, and I can't say enough about him. We're just playing the support role in getting it off the ground."

After getting the necessary endorsements, Miller secured a location for the hall. The building, which was originally a theater, dates back to 1885. Since then, it has served as a Knights of Columbus hall and most recently, a fitness center.

"We had to make renovations like installing brighter lighting and painting the interior and exterior," Miller said. "We've got about 1,500 square feet, and the building has high windows that are good for displaying photos."

Miller said the location was temporary, and that he hoped to eventually seek grants from newspaper foundations to erect a building on property downtown owned by the Washington Missourian.

Once the hall had a home, the committee sent out information throughout the state announcing their acceptance of nominations to the hall of fame for photographers who made an impact on photojournalism in the state. Nominations had to include a packet of photographs.

"We received 13 nominations this first year," Miller said. "Those who didn't win this year will be considered in the future. We'll keep nominations for three years, and each year, we will seek nominations through the same process."

Of the first eight inductees selected this year, only three are still living. Zehrt and Bob Briggs, who both worked for the St. Louis Globe-Democrat, and Angus McDougall, of the Missouri School of Journalism, plan to attend the induction ceremony, Miller said.

The other inductees include Cliff and Vi Edom, also from the Missouri School of Journalism, Arthur Witman of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Charles Stacey of the Salem News and Betty Love of the Springfield Daily News. "Each inductee will be presented with a plaque," Miller said. "A representative of the family or organization will be present for those who have passed on."

The hall's first exhibition will include work by the eight photographers, but Miller emphasized that exhibitions would change frequently.

"We eventually hope to display Pulitzer Prize winners," he said. "We'll have access to many photos from the MPA and School of Journalism. We should have no trouble changing the photos every three months." Miller said that many of the exhibitions would be historical in nature, which he hopes will attract groups of school children. These groups will have to make special appointments to visit the hall of fame, as it will only be open on Saturdays and Sundays in the beginning. Admission is free, and volunteers will staff the hall.

"The main focus is to honor photojournalists, but the hall of fame will also attract people to historic downtown," Miller said.

For photo fanatics statewide, and even nationwide, the hall of fame could become a prime destination, as it will be the first hall in the country dedicated to photojournalism. These visitors will get a history lesson from both their surroundings in Washington's downtown and from the photographs displayed.

Much of Zehrt's work conveys photography's role in recording and teaching history. In one photograph, a man surrounded by children weaves a basket. Zehrt took the photograph in Branson.

"Kinda different today, isn't it?" he said.

In Zehrt's downstairs office, a collection of photographs on a bulletin board portrays news photographers in the '40s. All sport suits, ties, and hats.

"At this point, I'm marketing the past, which could be as recent as yesterday," said Zehrt of his current work in photography. "I'm sure you've heard the expression 'the past is prologue'. I kinda like that expression. Pictures never go out of style."

Linda Golden is a senior at Webster University, pursuing degrees in photography and French.

Belleville daily targets St. Louis
by William D. Townsend

The Belleville News-Democrat, the southwestern Illinois daily newspaper with the highest circulation in its traditional coverage area, has expanded its presence on the west side of the Mississippi with a new edition sold in downtown St. Louis and dozens of locales north, south and west of the Arch.

It welcomes all readers, but it takes particular aim at a group that reads less and spends a lot: the growing population of workers under 50 who work in downtown St. Louis.

"St. Louis Edition," centered below the News-Democrat mast (sans Belleville), identifies the four-page section that's wrapped around the main body of the paper on Tuesdays and Thursdays.

While not just about St. Louis, the copy is brief and relevant to workers no matter where they are from, it's neatly packaged, and a page of capsules shows where to have fun after work and on weekends.

"Our goal ... is to give you a snapshot of the top news stories of the day, useful information about careers, work life and personal technology and the opportunity to weigh in with Web polls and discussion boards," said Jeffry Couch, executive editor, in a page-one open letter to readers on the section's first day, Aug. 30. "We also hope to entertain you along the way."

Jay Tebbe, a Belleville native and the president and publisher of the News-Democrat for about 18 months, said St. Louis news, sports and entertainment have long been covered by the paper.

"We're not a major metropolitan paper," Tebbe said. "Our strategy with the St. Louis edition is to serve the tens of thousands of people who live in Illinois and work in Missouri. Also, some newspaper readers throughout Greater St. Louis are looking for another voice (in addition to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch)."

The News-Democrat is more conservative than the Post.

"The St. Louis edition is a response to reader and advertiser requests to make our paper more widely available in St. Louis. The paper is sold on a single-copy basis," Tebbe said.

"Our cover section offers an alternative to busy people who work in St. Louis. We have quick-hit reads from around the world and around Missouri, we're partnering with KSDK and KSDK.com, and we'll emphasize reader interaction, useful information about careers, work life and personal technology. The edition will evolve as we learn, as we go."

Tebbe said the Sept. 27 section is a typical example of the St. Louis edition's standard features:

- "Five Things You Should Know:" On the top left side of page one on Sept. 27 are quick summaries that invite the reader to flip to a specific page for more information: flu season, the death of actor Don Adams, St. Louis area job growth, an earthquake in Peru and a country-rock duo coming to the community.

- Below those five items are news summaries: Gulf Coast flood coverage, a confirmed Supreme Court chief justice, a soldier convicted of abuse in a Baghdad prison.

- The paper placed these briefs from KSDK.com at top right: Bus driver fired for leaving girl on bus; Sen. Kit Bond wants $1.3 billion for Missouri National Guard; police investigate attack on pizza-delivery driver; displaced pets find homes in St. Louis.

- Top stories in the middle of page one: Photo of a Missouri state trooper's funeral, fees for car batteries and tires will fund the clean-up of waste sites and tire dumps, a Washington University student finds a new mosquito, and a St. Louis judge overturns a murder conviction.

- Across the bottom of page one: the day's weather forecast, the Web site of the day, a teaser to the editorial cartoon and a Web question.

- Pages 2 and 3 both have a half page of ads above art and articles about a Web site that helps women, how crisis managers help rebuild lives, the plight of middle managers, a music channel, a review of a video game and a column on computers.

- The back page is filled with a community calendar and entertainment schedule.

The News-Democrat, owned by the Knight Ridder chain since 1997, has covered southwestern Illinois for 147 years. About 80 percent of its paid circulation is in St. Clair and Madison Counties in southwestern Illinois. It also outsells all other dailies in Monroe and Clinton counties and has distribution in Randolph, Washington and Perry counties. It will continue to focus on the east side as it explores expanded coverage of the west, Tebbe said.

It can afford to expand because, for nine years in a row, the News-Democrat has grown net paid daily and Sunday circulation at a time when most newspapers have struggled to maintain their reach.

In 2004 its Monday-through-Saturday circulation was 54,028, 61 more than in 2003 (the Sunday total of 64,440 in 2004 beat 2003 by 157). Tebbe expects the 2005 independent survey to show further growth. About 3,000 St. Louis editions appear each Tuesday and Thursday.

A half-page ad in a Tuesday St. Louis edition costs $6 a column inch, or about $387, while a half-page ad printed one time on that same day in the Belleville paper that's delivered throughout the paper's circulation territory costs about $1,354.

"We're pleased with our progress," Tebbe said, "but we're still working on our game."

William D. Townsend is a freelance writer, formerly in public relations for SBC Yellow Pages and a reporter and editor for the St. Louis Globe-Democrat.

Monograph reminds reporters of their own rights
by Steve Hallock

Journalists wishing to learn from contemporary history-and there is a need for a refresher course on journalistic responsibility these days-can find the opportunity in a monograph published late last year by Western Washington University journalism professor Floyd J. McKay.

In a journalistic atmosphere in which reporters resemble government lapdogs more than watchdogs-consider embedded journalists marching on to war with invading soldiers in Iraq, a White House press corps that dismisses as non-news a British memo indicating that the Bush administration tailored intelligence to support going to war in Iraq, a major news magazine (Time) agreeing to reveal its confidential sources concerning evidence having to do with that same invasion-McKay offers a timely reminiscence of the formative years of the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press.

Published in the autumn 2004 issue of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication's Journalism Communications Monographs, McKay's piece details the struggles of a small cadre of journalists in the 1970s as they battled the federal courts and the administration of President Richard Nixon to protect the confidentiality of their sources of information.

Those confrontations take on renewed meaning and importance in light of new assaults on press freedoms today and of the recent revelation that retired FBI official Mark Felt was the ultimate confidential source of the 20th century-"Deep Throat," the background tipster who helped the Washington Post uncover the Nixon administration's Watergate scandal.

The Reporters Committee was a response by activist journalists to an anti-press attitude fostered by a president who distrusted and disliked journalists and who encouraged a similar attitude by his staff.

President Richard Nixon and his firebrand lieutenant of rhetorical repartee, Vice President Spiro Agnew, framed the press as the enemy of the government and of the people, and the administration had the support of a court system that routinely struck down First Amendment-based arguments by reporters protecting the identities of sources who had leaked valuable-and damning-evidence involving government cover-ups and malfeasance. It was just this sort of evidence, provided by an anonymous source, which helped topple the Nixon presidency.

The undoing of Nixon, H.R. Haldeman, et. al., by the sort of anonymous sources the Reporters Committee was seeking to protect is one irony of McKay's piece. Another is his quoting of William Safire-who wrote speeches for the Nixon administration before becoming a prize-winning columnist for The New York Times-on behalf of amicable relations with the press.

In his book "Before the Fall: An Inside View of the Pre-Watergate White House," published after he left the Nixon administration, Safire wrote that the anti-press mindset of the president and his staff was not mere carping or political gamesmanship-it was genuine hatred.

"He was saying exactly what he meant," Safire wrote. " 'The press is the enemy' to be hated and beaten, and in that vein of vengeance that ran through his relationship with another power center, in his indulgence of his most combative and abrasive instincts against what he saw to be an unelected and unrepresentative elite, lay Nixon's greatest personal and political weakness and the cause of his downfall."

It was during the Nixon administration that the primary journalistic concern leading to the creation of the Reporters Committee arose: the demand by federal prosecutors in 1970 that New York Times reporter Earl Caldwell turn over his notes of interviews with members of the Black Panthers. McKay's monograph-"First Amendment Guerillas: Formative Years of the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press"-cites Caldwell's refusal, based on the reporter's argument on behalf of journalists maintaining confidential sources. A small group of reporters met to discuss this and other cases of government press intrusions-from this group sprang the Reporters Committee.

This was the era of free love, of anti-war and pro-civil rights protests, of acid and marijuana-a time, writes McKay, in which "prosecutors often lacked good sources among militant racial groups, the anti-war movement or the drug culture. Reporters who were able to penetrate these organizations were seen as a source of notes, pictures and other investigative gems."

Reporters considered the Caldwell case to be "emblematic of a growing trend on the part of prosecutors, from the federal to local level, toward the use of reporters as sources. The use of subpoenas to require reporters to reveal sources was, according to William J. Small (in his book "Political Power and the Press"), 'one powerful tool which the government has used rarely in the past but dramatically and with chilling effect beginning in the late 1960s,' particularly in the period following the 1968 Democratic National Convention."

Another irony found in this scholarly remembrance of press battles past is the emergence from the Nixon administration of Jack C. Landau, who graduated from Harvard with a law degree and became a legal correspondent for Newhouse newspapers, as a leader of the Reporters Committee. Landau had served a stint as a press spokesman for the Justice Department under Nixon's attorney general, John Mitchell, before returning to Newhouse and becoming involved in the formation of the Committee-and eventually becoming its executive director.

"Although some assumed he was 'paying penance' for working with the enemy," McKay writes of Landeau, "the mission that became a crusade was typical of Landau's aggressive approach to journalism, a style he brought to the Committee." Landau viewed himself as a "First Amendment guerilla," writes McKay, "and quickly became the major player in the organization."

Landau used his connections in the Washington legal community to obtain pro-bono assistance on behalf of First Amendment issues-including freedom of information, libel, confidentiality, privacy and prior restraint.

"With Watergate coming down," writes McKay, "it was a heady time to be a journalist and a heady time for the Committee."

The time called for such a group. Besides the Caldwell case, McKay references others that mid-career and veteran journalists will remember from an age of mutual government-press mistrust. "The so-called 'Eastern establishment media' had been attacked by Vice President Spiro Agnew in 1969," writes McKay, "and federal prosecutors subpoenaed files of Time, Newsweek, and Life later that year as part of the Weathermen investigation. The Caldwell case followed in 1970, and the Pentagon Papers case broke in June 1971. It was a time of paranoia on both sides, and civil libertarians were alarmed."

And so was born a reporter advocacy group that survives today not only as an active agent still serving reporters on behalf of press and free-speech freedoms but also as a clearinghouse offering advice and resources regarding numerous press-freedom issues. One of the early projects of the Committee was a federal shield law that would establish the right of reporters to keep secret the names of their sources. But for various reasons-fighting among publishers and Committee members over how strong such a law needed to be, for one-a federal shield law never took hold. However, with the impetus of a 1972 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that denied Caldwell and other reporters a First Amendment right to protect sources but allowing states to enact such legislation, several states came through, and 31 states and the District of Columbia today have on the books some form of legislation protecting reporters from prosecution for failure to divulge sources of their information.

The political mood and press-baiting atmosphere that McKay chronicles bear a remarkable resemblance to the press battles being waged today. Government subpoena and press-badgering have returned in full strength-perhaps even stronger, in light of waning public sympathy on behalf of press rights and freedoms. In November 2004, Jim Taricani, an investigative reporter for the NBC affiliate in Providence, R.I., was found in criminal contempt of court after he refused to name a confidential source who had provided him with videotaped evidence of corruption involving officials of Providence who allegedly accepted a bribe from an undercover FBI informant.

In August 2004 a federal judge held Time magazine reporter Matthew Cooper in contempt of court for refusing to testify during an investigation into the leak of the identity of a CIA agent whose husband accused the administration of President George W. Bush of "twisting" intelligence to support going to war in Iraq. That October, New York Times reporter Judith Miller was ordered jailed for her refusal to answer questions before a grand jury probing that same leak.

The U.S. Court of Federal Appeals in Washington on April 19 of this year rejected these reporters' appeal of a decision upholding contempt citations against them. The U.S. Supreme Court passed on the case. Miller served almost three months behind bars after refusing to divulge her confidential sources for a story that never was published. She revealed her informant Sept. 29 when the source-Lewis "Scooter" Libby-released her from her confidentiality promise. Time caved almost immediately, agreeing-reportedly with the source's permission-to identify its anonymous source.

At least eight other journalists face or recently have faced sanctions for refusing to obey court orders to name their sources.

Meanwhile, the Bush administration and its supporters have taken up '70s-style anti-press initiatives designed to put reporters in a defensive posture. For example, National Public Radio reported in mid-December that the Bush administration wanted an investigation to determine who gave the press information about a project to develop a secret stealth spy satellite.

That same month, after a soldier fighting in Iraq publicly questioned Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld about the lack of equipment to fight the insurgents in Iraq, the ensuing controversy became not the soldier's question but the fact that he had been fed the question by a newspaper reporter. Similar to the tactics used by Nixon and others in the 1970s, opponents of full disclosure and supporters of presidential policies today spin the issues in a context that makes the messenger, rather than the message, the problem.

Comes now William Safire once again, writing on behalf of a federal shield law, which has been proposed in the House by Reps. Mike Pence, an Indiana Republican, and Rick Boucher, a Vermont Democrat (and co-sponsored by Missouri Republican Roy Blunt and Illinois Democrat Rahm Emanuel) and in the Senate by Indiana Republican Richard Lugar. Writing in The New York Times Dec. 13, Safire rhetorically asked the question that anti-shield advocates frequently raise: "Isn't every citizen obliged to give sworn testimony to help the government enforce the law?"

The correct answer, supplied by Safire, is, "No. Government may not compel a man to testify against his wife, nor doctor against patient, nor priest against penitent, nor lawyer against client. The law has extended this 'privilege' to psychologists and social workers, on the theory that society is ill served by erosion of trust within relationships dependent on such trust. Certainly the public interest in the robust and uninhibited flow of information should continue to protect confidential relations between source and journalist."

He's right, and McKay has given journalists and media owners a needed reminder that guerilla tactics and court battles on behalf of press-and citizens'-freedoms need not be passé. In today's atmosphere of a presidential administration that routinely avoids disclosure and shuns open government, that is moving to put on the federal courts judges likely to support policies of government secrecy, that has limited individual rights in the guise of national defense, the necessity for aggressive hard-hitting journalism has once again become clear.

Surely the jailing of Miller, who stood up on behalf of the principle of protecting anonymous sources, underscores this.

Steve Hallock, a former newspaper editor and editorial writer who earned his doctorate in journalism at Ohio University, teaches at Southern Illinois University.

Early Edition:
SJR expands
by Ed Bishop

Here's the plan: SJR will expand its mission into the electronic media-first with a radio program on KDHX and then, in a few months, with a television program on KDHX-TV. We will also have an interactive blog set up by mid-winter.

In the 35 years SJR has published, a sea change has taken place in journalism. When we started out, most of the local radio and television stations were owned locally or, if not, they were given a tremendous amount of autonomy. More importantly, St. Louis had two daily newspapers, both locally owned.

Today, with a few exceptions, all the local radio and television stations are owned by big national corporations. The St. Louis Globe-Democrat is no more. And the St. Louis Post-Dispatch is owned by a company in Davenport, Iowa.

In other words, the people who determine the structure of newsrooms in St. Louis, their scope, their focus, their style-their budgets-are sitting in offices hundreds of miles from here. They have less understanding of the community. They have more responsibility to their stockholders.

Fifteen or 20 years ago, SJR could critique individual news stories by how they were reported, the political and social circumstances that shaped them, and we knew where the buck stopped.

During the last few years, though, our focus has changed to more general critiques. Journalism think tanks, esoteric theories, corporate strategies, new and complex legal questions and national trends have all had enormous effect on our local news. In short, to really understand local news we had to understand things that hadn't been part of St. Louis journalism before.

Our mission to critique local journalism hasn't changed but our methods and sources have been transformed. Media criticism today is more philosophic than it was in 1970 and the people who understand it best aren't necessarily in St. Louis.

A.J. Leibling once said that freedom of the press belongs to those who own the presses. Well, if that's the case, we have less freedom of the press than ever before because fewer and fewer companies own the presses.

Let there be no mistake, journalism in its broadest sense-the flow of information needed to maintain a democratic republic-is threatened in this country. A large corporation's only purpose is to make a profit, not to disseminate information that often works against that purpose. For various reasons too complicated to go into here, that didn't used to be the case.

So, here's our problem: The public sees journalism criticism in the old ways-misquoting sources, reporters' bias, advertising pressures, editor's decisions, etc. Those are still areas of concern.

But the real story of local journalism is the national consolidation of media ownership and the newsroom's place in corporate America.

To truly critique local journalism, SJR needs to educate the general public to the new and broader problems. To do that, we have to go to where the public is-to the Internet, to radio and to television. And we have to talk to sources who deeply understand the new journalism universe.

The radio show will air on Wednesdays at 7 p.m., right after "Democracy Now."

In fact, as you read this, the first show has already aired. It was an interview with nationally syndicated radio talk-show host Thom Hartman. Hartman is also an author and media historian. His books include "What Would Jefferson Do?" and "We the People."

The second program, which will air Oct. 19, is an interview with broadcasting legend Walter Cronkite. We talked about the history of television news and how it stands now.

The television show will begin in January. It will have the same format, with a couple of additions, as the radio program-calm, intelligent conversation about the crisis in journalism and American democracy.

Politics & Media:
Bush's ratings disaster
by Terry Jones

Why is President George W. Bush's job approval rating on the decline? Recent media coverage, especially the pundits, would have you believe that the president's inept handling of Hurricane Katrina's aftermath is the principal culprit.

A recurring theme in the Hurricane Rita narrative, for example, was that the president has learned his political lesson from the Katrina fiasco and was going to be Georgie-on-the-spot this time. Maybe that, in turn, would reverse the approval-rating decline.

The only problem with this hurricane-driven interpretation of the presidential job-rating drop is that the data do not support it. Charles Franklin, a University of Wisconsin-Madison political scientist, who once taught at Washington University, has had an ongoing analysis of Katrina's impact on his blog (politicalarithmetik.blogspot.com).

He concludes that "President Bush's standing with the public is currently being driven down not by the unique and unexpected events of Hurricane Katrina but by his handling of the economy, foreign affairs and Iraq."

A Gallup/USA Today poll conducted Sept. 16-18 shows the public assigns higher marks (41 percent approval) to Bush's handling of "the response to Hurricane Katrina" than it does to his performance on foreign affairs (38 percent approval), the economy (35 percent) or "the situation in Iraq" (32 percent).

Bush's job ratings, Franklin argues, have been declining since January. This downward trend should be taken into account before calculating any specific Katrina effect. Now that there have been almost 20 post-Katrina polls measuring presidential approval, a robust basis for analysis, Franklin estimates that Katrina did have a modest downward impact (minus 1.48 percentage points) but that the considerably more powerful explanations for Bush's drop remain Iraq and the economy.

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What Katrina did accomplish was exposing once again the nation's racial fault line, demonstrating how whites and blacks give different interpretations to the same event.

Take, for example, the following question from a Sept. 8-11 CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll: "Now thinking about the looters in New Orleans who entered stores and took things in the first few days after the hurricane, which comes closer to your view-they were mostly criminals taking advantage of the situation or they were mostly desperate people trying to find a way to survive?" Fifty percent of whites chose the "criminal" alternative; only 14 percent of blacks did so.

Another item in the same survey was "just your best guess-do you think one reason the federal government was slow in rescuing these people was because many of them were black, or was that not a reason?" Only 12 percent of whites thought race was a reason-but 60 percent of blacks said it was a factor.

Two enduring perceptions are at work. One is the Willie Horton factor. Probably because they have been bombarded for years with visuals linking inner city blacks with criminal acts, many whites are primed to link black images with criminal behavior. The other is victimization. Having been enslaved and then segregated, after being the victim through most of U.S. history, blacks are predisposed to think it's taking place again.

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The September Campaigns & Elections, the top trade journal for political consultants, features an inner cover page ad from the Newspaper Association of America, the newspaper trade group which numbers the St. Louis Post Dispatch and the St. Louis Business Journal among its members.

The pitch: Use newspapers instead of the Postal Service to deliver political direct mail. Just as political operatives prefer to embed campaign spots inside television news spots, hoping for some confusion between what is news and what is pitch, the Newspaper Association ad makes the case that "your message arrives bundled with the day's most important news-instantly making your piece more credible …"

In 2006, look for campaign appeals amid furniture and grocery ads.

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It has been an unsettling year for Morgan Stanley, one of world's largest investment firms. Following protests from shareholders and revelations from former senior managers, all aimed at toppling Philip Purcell, he finally resigned in June and was soon replaced by John Mack, a former Morgan Stanley executive who had been eased out by Purcell in 2001.

It was financial soap opera at its best and, to give the story a St. Louis angle, Charles Knight, former Emerson CEO, and John Jacobs, once an Anheuser-Busch executive vice president, were in the middle of it all. Both were on the Morgan Stanley Board of Directors, and Knight headed the compensation committee that handed Purcell a $113 million severance package. Knight originally opposed hiring Mack as Purcell's successor but ultimately shifted his position. Nevertheless, when the dust settled in early September, both Knight and Jacobs resigned from the board.

Expectation would be for the St. Louis press to be all over this story, and the St. Louis Business Journal was indeed on duty. Its Sept. 16 edition featured a detailed account. The Post, at least as of Sept. 25, was devoid of this information.

Terry Jones is professor of political science at UM-St. Louis.

Off the Record:
Sly & the family

Political and social newspaper columnists, like the St. Louis Post-Dispatch's Bill McClellan and Sylvester Brown, Jr., have a function in common. It's their job to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable, and their work proves it. Both men write columns about political issues and columns with a human-interest base, about murders and also about kind people doing kind things for people who have not been as fortunate.

They come from highly divergent backgrounds. McClellan, white, is a former police reporter from a working-class family in Chicago. He often writes from the point of view of a slacker, a pose that does not reflect his intelligence or his keen wit. Brown, black, is from a family that had little money and lived in the projects. Naturally, he is more militant than McClellan, though they have similar points of view on many issues.

Both are courageous. McClellan's tales of the Bornwells and the Marriedwells take a sharp needle to the soft underbelly of St. Louis' upper echelons in business and society. Brown is more blunt-he should be, given his background and life experience.

But Brown did something particularly courageous recently. In a building-wide memo addressed, "Dear Colleagues …" he called out the entire staff and management of the Post and accused them of turning their backs on the Gateway Classic, a college football game that is part of a weekend of marching bands, concerts and other festivities aimed at raising money for college scholarships.

Brown pointed out that the newspaper was quick to support-with coverage and favorable advance stories-all sorts of events that took place here.

But as he wrote: "Why aren't we giving the kind of coverage to the Gateway Classic that we give to events like the Final Four? I know the paper is highly supportive of downtown development and any event that generates millions in our region and helps kids. Perhaps you can help me understand why we provide scant coverage to this worthwhile organization and why we're not throwing our support behind its civic, social and economic efforts?

"This is an attempt to step on toes …"

I don't know how hard Brown's step was, but I think it was a memo that needed to be written and read. Earl Wilson, Jr., who runs the Gateway Classic, is sometimes difficult to get along with, but as Brown pointed out, so are Mike Martz, Francis Slay, Vince Schoehmehl, Bob Cassilly and many other civic leaders.

Brown's memo was too late to accomplish much for 2005. The usual story or two ran, and there was second-rate coverage of the game, relegated to the rear of the sports section. There were no huzzahs about how much money flowed into town as a result of the football game and its weekend, though that simplistic reasoning shows up every time a white-oriented event takes place.

It remains to be seen if Brown's toe-stepping maneuver achieves anything in terms of more help by the newspaper in promotion for 2006, or if the long-institutionalized racism of St. Louis continues to be a major roadblock in the way of any sort of real civic progress.
-Joe Pollack

Gunning for it
A police sergeant in Edmonton, Alberta, has faced disciplinary hearings for attempting to set up a drunken-driving arrest of a newspaper columnist who had criticized the local photo radar operation.

Sgt. Bill Newton has been charged with insubordination and unlawful exercise of authority. Hearings were held in September. A police department lawyer said Newton had a personal vendetta against Edmonton Sun columnist Kerry Diotte, who wrote in 2004 that the photo radar equipment was a "cash cow."

Diotte wrote that photo radar machines were raising about $14 million annually while fatal accidents in Edmonton actually increased from 20 in 2002 to 32 in 2003.

"You know, I know and the police know that driver error is the main reason crashes occur. All the photo radar in the world is not going to correct that core problem," Diotte wrote.

According to the Sun, Newton used a restricted computer system to run a check on Diotte in the Canadian police information database. He found Diotte had no marks on his driving record and no police record, but gave Diotte's name and car description to a police team that was targeting 100 identified "aggressive drivers" last November during a holiday drunken-driving crackdown.

When Diotte went to a bar for a "Canadian Association of Journalists mixer," two police officers staked out his car on the parking lot. Diotte ended up taking a cab home and avoided the sting.

Newton testified at his hearing that he was justified in pursuing Diotte.

"Clearly in my mind this was police-related," he said. "(The column) misrepresented what the police were doing. It had the potential to undermine public confidence in the police service."

Newton said another local journalist had told him that Diotte was a "habitual drunk driver," but said he couldn't recall who that source was, or whether it was a man or woman.

A verdict is scheduled for Nov. 14.
-Rick Stoff

All in the family
"The colonel's lady and Rosie O'Grady are sisters under the skin," Rudyard Kipling once wrote, not thinking that St. Louis and Munster, Ind., would reach that sort of equality some day, but he didn't understand corporate consolidations, to wit …

On Sept. 20, Shawn Candela, a news and business designer for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, submitted his resignation, not citing any reasons but making the move effective immediately, which is rare. He had been suspended indefinitely a couple of days earlier.

On Sept. 23, it was announced that Jason Lewton had been hired as part of the design team, to work on the news/metro desk. Lewton, who attended Mizzou, was described as having spent a year as a news designer on the Post's "sister paper in Munster, Ind.," with previous experience in Alton and Jacksonville, Ill. Those newspapers were not given names, but merely referred to as part of Freedom Communications.

The homogenization of the Post into the Lee corporate hierarchy also was noted in the fact that Post-and perhaps other Pulitzer newspaper's-pension checks would soon be issued from Lee headquarters in Davenport, Iowa.

And speaking of Davenport, which probably soon will be identified as a "sister city" of St. Louis, there's another link between the cities. David Chipperfield, who will design the new wing of the St. Louis Art Museum, also is the designer of the new art museum in Davenport. An art connection certainly will give the Lee family the same sort of cultural cachet as the Pulitzer family.
-Joe Pollack

In the money
It's a diabolical tactic, but it probably will produce results. Post employees on a higher level-the ones who get company-issued American Express credit cards-have been put on notice that fudging on the expense account will no longer be allowed, nor will it be winked at. And it will cost some money.

In a memo that read like News 101 in journalism school, card holders were told recently that all American Express statements must answer the five "Ws"-who, what, where, when and why-for each expense listed. A receipt for each expense must also accompany the statement.

But the Lee staffer, in a sentence worthy of a Sherman staffer-we're talking Civil War here-added that instead of just telling the miscreant to pay up and behave in the future, the authorities will not process the statement, "which could result in late fees for which you will be responsible."

Unspoken is the fact that in today's credit card world, a late payment can raise interest charges and create late fees for all the cards the villain possesses, a rather hefty lick.

When I was in journalism school, the five "Ws" were accompanied by an "H" for "How?" and an explanation like "I forgot" would never pass muster.
-Joe Pollack

Channels:
When it rains, it pours
by Tripp Frohlichstein

St. Louis green screens have gotten a lot of use over the past few months, as WeatherPlus is still working out its kinks at KSDK (Channel 5) and new meteorologists have joined in the forecasting around the city.

Channel 5 has not yet solved the problems of their taped segments becoming outdated, and incorrect reports are not fixed quickly. On Sept. 15, thunderstorms sprouted west of St. Louis a little after 6 p.m. By 8:15, they were all over the area.

On WeatherPlus, John Fuller, in a piece probably recorded before 6 p.m., was telling viewers the rain was over and skies would clear. Since it was pouring, I called Channel 5 (as a viewer) to suggest the segment be updated. An hour and five minutes later, they were still running the old piece. To make matters worse, the piece had an error in it-the time of sunset was about an hour off, and no one had noticed.

I really miss the former 24-hour, non-commercial, all-local Weather Channel, which even had current traffic problems as part of its programming. In addition to being untimely, WeatherPlus has commercials and national inserts from NBC.

Also, the graphic forecasts were much more specific on the old St. Louis Weather Channel (which aired on the channel now occupied on Charter by Channel 5's WeatherPlus).

WeatherPlus shows a graphic for the day with a high and low temperature. The Weather Channel used type and added forecasts for nights, along with winds and the chance of rain.

How does Channel 5 respond? In an e-mail, news director Mike Shipley wrote, "Weather Plus is updated at least five times a day, but often requires more. The start-up of such a new enterprise always brings with it a new set of challenges that only show up once you start down the road. Your observations are correct and issues for us too that we are working to address."

But nearly two weeks after his e-mail, nothing had been done. I turned on WeatherPlus at 4:22 p.m., as it rained and thundered throughout the area (according to the radar).

The local weather section still had Fuller predicting the weather for noon (more than four hours earlier). As for 3 p.m., he suggested scattered showers might be in the area, when, in fact, the area was a solid sheet of rain.

Another idea from the old Weather Channel: When rain is in the area, increase the frequency of when the local radar is displayed. In fact, during severe weather, the old Weather Channel aired the radar almost exclusively.

If the Atlanta-based Weather Channel can do it, you'd think the folks in St. Louis could figure out a way to make their coverage more immediate and relevant.

If Channel 5 can't fix this and make it more current, it will quickly become irrelevant to viewers and advertisers.

Despite the difficulties with WeatherPlus, Channel 5 still claims the most accurate forecasts overall in St. Louis as rated by an independent group. I don't know which of its forecasters carried the rest of them for the award.

Luckily for St. Louis, KMOV (Channel 4) has added a top prospect with Reynolds Wolf. He's a smooth talker with an apparently solid knowledge of meteorology. Kent Ehrhardt is still doing a solid and credible job on Channel 4 as well.

I still find myself turning to KTVI (Channel 2)'s Dave Murray, though, when I really want a sense of the weather, especially short-term forecasts and severe weather. Murray has a keen sense of what will be happening hours into the future.

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Channel 5 does deserve a big congrats for serving viewers well in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. NBC News offered a one-hour version of the network news, as did CBS.

At 6 p.m., however, Channel 5 stayed with the network while Channel 4 switched to its local news. Channel 5 news aired at 6:30 p.m. instead.

Given the interest in the storm and the fact that many people still don't have cable, the station served viewers well with its unselfish move.

And though I normally whine about stations sending local reporters to cover national stories, there are exceptions to everything. Channel 2's Roche Madden's visit to New Orleans following Hurricane Katrina is one of them.

Despite all the network coverage, Madden seemed to bring a different emotional dimension to the story-maybe it was his familiar face. More likely it's the fact he is a fine reporter, and made the story personal. He included good interviews and lots of information, making me feel as if I knew more about what was going on in New Orleans.

Tripp Frohlichstein owns Media Masters and consults with business, government and non-profit organizations. He will not comment on any television coverage if it involves his clients.

Sports & Media:
Who's on first?
by Joe Pollack

Mr. Miklasz, meet Mr. Strauss. Sports copy editors, meet your writers.

You'd think that the Cardinals' beat writer for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Joe Strauss, and the paper's senior sports columnist, Bernie Miklasz, would agree on something as simple as a batting order, even if it belonged to a non-Cardinal team, and that the copy desk would see the discrepancy, either in original copy or when the paper was printed.

But according to the first sports page Sept. 4, when both men were in Houston for Chris Carpenter's 20th victory, they could agree that it was the ninth inning and that Carpenter's final pitch was his 120th.

Meanwhile, Strauss, in his game story, described how Carpenter struck out Luke Scott with his 110th pitch, then retired shortstop Adam Everett on a grounder to short and closed out the game with his 120th pitch, a called third strike to pinch-hitter Orlando Palmeiro.

Miklasz, just a column to the left on the front page, saw it differently. In his account, the Houston leadoff batter was Everett, a strikeout victim. He then wrote that catcher Brad Ausmus grounded to shortstop for the second out.

And they agreed on the final out, with Miklasz also writing that Palmeiro looked at a third strike on Carpenter's 120th pitch.

I don't know the layout of the Houston press box-the last time I saw a baseball game in the city, the Colt 45s were playing in the Astrodome-but when I was issuing press box credentials for Football Cardinal games in the 1960s, I usually grouped the writers from the visiting team's city in the same area. I don't know where Miklasz and Strauss were sitting-since it was the bottom of the ninth inning, perhaps one was on his way to the locker room to join the pack of pundits for the predictable, trite post-game quotes and became confused as to the Astros' batting order. Both writers quoted Carpenter, and others, from the locker room.

Of course, this is not the gravest error that ever happened. After all, we're talking about the sports pages, the fun-and-games department of the newspaper.

But it's symptomatic of the carelessness of writers throughout the newspaper, compounded by that of copy editors, that so many minor errors crop up in the "corrections" column a day or two later. The funniest recently involved a cutline on Ramadan which described the period of daily fasting as lasting "from sunset to sundown," a period of time that even sports writers-and former sports writers-can endure without difficulty.

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On the other side of the coin, Post photographers and picture editors deserve high praise for the special section on Busch Stadium with unusual, striking and evocative photographs of happenings in what can be considered the backstage area of the stadium. Robert Cohen and J.B. Forbes took a series of exciting and sentimental pictures, and editors played them large enough to increase their effectiveness.

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In the week when the Cardinals went into post-season play, the Riverfront Times took a shallow, but interesting look at the second and third income streams available to Post sports writers and columnists via gigs on radio and television.

The RFT also discussed the ethics of such as Steve Savard, KMOV (Channel 4), and Frank Cusumano, KSDK (Channel 5), who act as sports reporters but also work as play-by-play announcers on different stations.

There are those who say that sports writers have no ethics anyway, so it does not make any difference. The New York Times, for example, preserves its writers' ethics by keeping them off the air and away from even the appearance of conflict of interest by not permitting them to vote for Most Valuable Players, Cy Young Awards, Oscars, Tonys and so on.

The money is good, and Bryan Burwell told the RFT that the extra money kept his stomach comfortably filled with high-quality victuals. In these days of 24-hour news and constant babble on talk radio, learning about news, whether as a scoop or just in the context of a team's release of information, will keep a reporter on an ethical edge in determining whether the information waits for the next day's newspaper or is on the radio right now.

Does the news go to the highest pay scale? Or does loyalty belong to the original employer, without whom there would be no interest from a secondary outlet? Or is it spelled out in contractual language somewhere?

This is particularly odd in the case of the Post, and the RFT ignored the fact that the newspaper has increased its restrictions on "real reporters" in terms of writing for other publications, while permitting most of its sports types to spend a lot of time behind microphones. Why are there different standards? Is one group better or more important than another?

Back in the days when the Post owned KSD and KSD-TV (which it was before Joseph Pulitzer sold the radio station and added a final "K" to the TV call letters), Post management would not allow its reporters on its stations, though there was little restriction on working for other stations (in terms of full disclosure, I worked for KMOX for many years, on and off, while I was with the St. Louis Globe-Democrat before and the Post after my decade with the Big Red).

When the Post hired me as film and theater critic, Channel 5 wanted to put me on the old "Newsbeat" program with Dick Ford and John Auble. Program Director Keith Gunther asked permission of the late Ev Graham, then managing editor. Graham approved, broke the news to me, reminded me that I was to be the first Post reporter to work for a Pulitzer station, then paused a moment, grinned and paid me a superb compliment when he added, "I told Gunther it might have been the smartest move he ever made."

Joe Pollack is a former St. Louis Post-Dispatch columnist.

AM/FM:
Sale signals the end of 'Red'
by Joe Sonderman

What's "Red" from Jerseyville and worth $20 million? Emmis Communications is selling WRDA ("Red" 104.1 FM) to Radio One for $20 million. "Red" had been airing a format described as "new standards," mixing older jazz and pop standards by artists such as Frank Sinatra with modern acts such as Diana Krall, Harry Connick, Jr. and Norah Jones. On Oct. 1, Radio One changed the station to "Hot 104.1, Back-to-Back Hip Hop."

The sale is the latest in a long line of rapid changes for 104.1 FM, which has a marginal signal across a good half of the St. Louis area.

Rick Cummings, president of Emmis Radio, said in a statement that "'Red' was a novel format our staff in St. Louis executed well. But after 18 months, the results have not been robust. The station is not a core asset in St. Louis, where Emmis has a three-station rock wall as well as a news/talk FM."

Emmis owns talk-station KFTK (97.1 FM), classic hits KIHT (96.3 FM), alternative rock KPNT (105.7 FM) and album-oriented rock KSHE (94.7 FM).

"Radio One has been looking for some time for another property in St. Louis, and this was the ideal time for Emmis and Radio One to put the deal together," Cummings said.

"Red" has a small but dedicated audience, and Emmis will continue to play the format on the Web at www.red1041.com. "Red's" programming will also be heard on KFTK Saturday nights from 4 p.m. to midnight and from noon to 9 p.m. on Sundays, when the numbers for the conservative talk on KFTK dropped quite a bit. There's no word so far on what will happen to the Matt Drudge syndicated show on KFTK.

Radio One is the seventh largest broadcasting firm in the nation, ranked according to broadcast revenue. It already owns urban adult contemporary (and former hip hop station) WFUN (95.5 FM). Radio One primarily targets African-American and urban listeners. The firm owns or operates 69 stations in 22 urban markets. There was speculation that Radio One would put an urban leaning Top 40 format on 104.1 FM, to compete with KSLZ (107.7 FM).

It is amazing that a weak signal licensed to Jerseyville could bring in $20 million. Back in the 1980s, the station-known as WJBM-was worth about one tenth of that amount. New ownership switched it to country WKKX (KIX 104 FM).

Zimmer Communications bought 104.1 FM in 1990 and swapped signals in 1992, placing the country format on 106.5 FM and moving Top 40 WKBQ from 106.5 FM to 104.1 FM. Emmis bought the stations in 1997, beginning the series of ill-fated and short-lived formats.

Despite decent ratings for the Top 40 format, the station became "Alice at 104.1," a sort of adult-contemporary alternative. It then switched to hard alternative rock "Extreme" WXTM in 1998. But Emmis bought competitor KPNT (105.7 FM) in June of 1999 and pulled the plug on "Extreme."

In October 2000, the calls were changed to WMLL, and the station began playing music of the '80s. It was a good idea, but the format was poorly executed. The station never made an impact, despite having the once-popular Steve and DC in the morning. The calls were changed to WRDA and the New Standards format put in place in January 2004.

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Kathleen Englund will no longer be heard doing the traffic reports on WVRV (101.1 FM). The KSDK (Channel 5) traffic anchor was let go by Metro Networks, allegedly after calling in sick and asking a fellow employee to cover her shift. She neglected to inform the new Metro Director of Operations, who used it as an excuse. Never mind that such a policy had never been in place before.

Insiders say management at Metro had been gunning for her ever since Englund negotiated her own deal with KSDK. Metro provides traffic for several broadcast outlets, including WVRV and Channel 5. Englund will still appear on Channel 5, since that is a separate deal.

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Promotions directors are often unsung heroes. They work long hours behind the scenes to assure that station events are successful. The St. Louis broadcasting community has lost one of the best. Abigail Pollay, 43, died suddenly Sept. 30. Pollay became the promotions director for Bonneville in 2003. She was nominated as marketing/promotions director of the year in 2005 by Radio and Records. Pollay worked for KSHE and Emmis for many years.

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Before the wrecking ball begins swinging at Busch Stadium, KMOX (1120 AM) is already looking ahead towards life without Cardinal baseball. The station has been broadcasting classic baseball games when the Cardinals have the night off.

John Carney and Jon Grayson are in the middle of three weeks of Sunday night auditions for a regular weeknight slot on KMOX. They are expanding their regular overnight "Two Johns No Waiting" feature, where the pair take an irreverent look at current events. The proposed show includes a look at the top stories with liberal use of CBS and KMOX features, a music segment and a segment that pits a rabbi and a priest together, "Donnybrook" style.

Program Director Steve Moore says Carney and Grayson are one of many possibilities being considered for evening programming when the Cards begin the 2006 season on KTRS (550 AM).

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WGNU (920 AM) is starting to make some changes. The station has added Dr. Laura Schlesinger to the weekday line-up. Her syndicated show airs 2-4 p.m. "The Travel Planners," with Kevin and Sue McCarthy, segues into the Saturday afternoon line-up beginning Oct. 22.

Kevin McCarthy recently marked his 30th year as a St. Louis personality. KTRS ditched the show earlier this year to air infomercials. Kevin is working to syndicate the show nationally and has landed two affiliates at the Lake of the Ozarks and one in Florida.

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For a format that attracts little in the way of ratings, it's truly amazing how large the egos can get among sports radio broadcasters. Steve Savard, sportscaster for KMOV (Channel 4), and bad boy Kevin Slaten of lowly KFNS (590 AM and 100.7 FM) got into a well-reported confrontation at Rams Park recently.

After the exchange of obscenities, Savard reportedly challenged Slaten to a meet him in the ring at the annual Backstoppers Guns and Hoses charity boxing matches.

It all stems from Savard's other job as play-by-play announcer for the Rams. Slaten has been blasting Savard as a shill for the team, claiming he can't be objective. Sports broadcasters act as if this stuff is important.

Someone needs to point out that they are covering a game and taking themselves way too seriously. Slaten's past behavior is well documented-he was once thrown out of a Steamers game he was announcing at the Checkerdome for reportedly trying to take a poke at an opposing player arriving in the penalty box. There are also well-documented personal issues that ended up public. But in the end, he does manage to get his name in the newspaper a lot.

There are too many sports stations and too many children masquerading as professional broadcasters.

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One of the good guys in the sports broadcasting community has a new radio home. St. Louis Post-Dispatch sports columnist Bernie Miklasz is clocking in these days at KSLG (1380 AM). Miklasz is hosting a show from 8-11 a.m., part of a time slot that was formerly allotted to KSLG General Manager David Greene and Jeff Gordon of the Post.

Miklasz had been a contributor to KMOX since 1985 and a regular host of "Sports Open Line" for more than two years. The change comes about as a result of the Cardinals broadcasts moving to KTRS in 2006. Since Miklasz covers the games, he would be unavailable many times when KMOX plans to air "Sports Open Line."

On his final day at KMOX, Miklasz said he will always love the station, but the columnist added, "I actually prefer mornings." Miklasz feels because there is so much sport talk in this town that by the time he gets on the air in the evening for "Sports Open Line," many stories and issues have been "beaten to death." "I look forward to getting the first crack at things occasionally," he said.

KMOX sports producer and hockey expert Andy Strickland will also move over to KSLG, where he will produce Miklasz's show and contribute on air.

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A former radio host made headlines in the wake of the Gulf Coast disaster. Missouri Attorney General Jay Nixon successfully sued to halt fundraising by self-proclaimed white separatist Frank Weltner of St. Louis.

The suit alleged that Weltner was using several Web addresses to collect money, allegedly to help survivors of Katrina. Nixon said the money was being re-directed to an account used to promote racist and anti-Semitic Web sites.

Weltner hosted a show on WGNU (920 AM) from 1992 until management took the "Coach Potato" off the air in January 2005. He also operates a site called "Jew Watch." Nixon says Weltner has been associated with the National Alliance, listed by the Southern Poverty Law Center as one of the nation's largest and most active neo-Nazi hate groups.

"Charitable donations are intended as an act of love, not an instrument that could be used to fund hate," Nixon said. He reminds Missourians to go to his "Check a Charity" Web site at www.ago.mo.gov to research charitable groups.

The online database offers information on how much of a donation is actually used for programs, and how much is used for administration and other expenses.

Joe Sonderman is a former radio and TV traffic reporter, music director and on-air personality. He also works part-time at KMOX (1120 AM).

Radio History:
Small-town voice finds big fame at KMOX
by Frank Absher

Editor's note: Information for this article was provided by the St. Louis Media Archives at the St. Louis Public Library.

When Viola Jeanne Chassels graduated from Salem High School in Illinois in 1931, she may have had the typical high school dreams of the time: Get married, settle down, raise a family. Instead she became a well-known radio singer.

Three girls from Salem decided to cast their lot in the big city to the west. Jean, as she was known, was the lead singer in the group, known around Salem as The Chassels Trio. Her mother apparently managed the group, and documentation shows Julia Chassels set her sights high for the girls.

Woody Klose, one of the popular announcers on KMOX sent her a letter inviting the trio to an audition at 8:30 a.m. May 28, 1932:

"This audition will make you eligible to appear on the broadcast of the KMOX Public Audition Program, which goes on the air at 9:30 o'clock, a.m. … You are only allowed two minutes at the most."

The three girls, Jean, Vivian Griffin and Marie Hamilton, had a chance to appear on KMOX, provided they made the cut at the audition.

Julia's effort paid off. Under their new moniker, The Harmonettes were regularly featured on several KMOX short-form variety shows, which usually lasted 15 minutes. They'd sing three selections with a piano or organ accompaniment. Most of these shows were "sustaining" at first, meaning there was no sponsor.

Later, as the economy improved and the Depression began to fade, their shows acquired a sponsor. That was due, in part, to the backing of Ted Straeter, a KMOX programmer who had a successful side business as a producer of talent for KMOX shows.

In early December of 1932, a letter from Straeter arrived in Salem.

"Dear Mrs. Chassels: I should like to have you and the girls come to my studio on Thursday, December the eighth at eleven in the morning, at which time I should like to discuss plans for work with the girls trio. Kindly let me know immediately if this will be satisfactory."

Straeter and his partner Myles Hasgall were so well-known for their work that they were credited at the beginning and end of the shows that featured talent they had discovered, as found on this KMOX script from 1933: "Myles Hasgall and Ted Straeter, maestros of music in St. Louis, present their regular Wednesday evening program. Tonight Hasgall and Straeter present The Harmonettes."

A newspaper clipping of the era noted, "Union Electric Light and Power Company signed them for its KMOX Thursday night show after their first audition."

Back in Salem, the town was proud of its radio stars. An ad in the local paper read: "Dorothy Perkins radio program over KMOX St. Louis, each Tuesday night 7:45 … Three Salem girls who have made good in big-time radio broadcasting. Tune in next Tuesday night and enjoy the program."

As their popularity increased, two of the original members of the Harmonettes married and moved on, but Jean was the constant, and it's safe to assume there were a lot of proud people in Salem when the CBS Radio Network began national broadcasts from the KMOX studios featuring the group.

There must have been something in the air in the 1930s at KMOX. Jean Chassels met a guy at the station who was also interested in music. He was single, and he spent a lot of time working as staff arranger and pianist for the Karl Hohengarten and Al Roth big bands, even finding time for his own musical show of piano selections seven times a week. He also did some arranging for the Harmonettes.

In 1938, Jean Chassels gave up her singing career on KMOX. She married that music man, who by that time had moved to a job at KSD, and became Mrs. Russ David.

Frank Absher is a St. Louis radio historian. St. Louis radio history is available online at www.stlradio.com.

Late Edition:
Ten Best Censored Stories:
Freedom under attack in U.S.
by Charles Klotzer

Free expression and access to information in the United States is under attack on many fronts. Earlier this year, GM didn't like news coverage in the Los Angeles Times and stopped running ads in the paper. The national board of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting has been politicized by Republican appointees when its very purpose was to insulate CPB from political interference. Under the Bush administration access to public records under the FOI Act can be reduced if they contained "information that could be misused to harm the security of our nation and the safety of our people," according to a White House memo. The vagueness of the memo enables officials to withhold just about anything.

These news items have been covered by the press, although not as prominently as we would like.

The Ten Best Censored Stories covered in the alternative media describe some of these issues overlooked by the mass media. For the sake of openness, this writer is one of Project Censored national judges, the organizing body under the direction of Dr. Peter Phillips of Sangamon College in California. While I may disagree here or there with some of the choices, the overriding message of the selections should induce the mass media to do some soul searching and resolve to serve their public more comprehensively and cater less to officialdom and public acceptance.

1. Bush team limits open government
The Bush administration has been working to make sure the public-and even Congress-can't find out what the government itself is doing.

In the Fall of 2004, Rep. Henry A. Waxman (D-Calif.) released an 81-page report that found that the feds have consistently "narrowed the scope and application" of the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), the Presidential Records Act, and other key public information laws. At the same time the government expanded laws blocking access to certain records-even creating new categories of "protected" information and exempting entire departments from public scrutiny.

The FOIA gives citizens the ability to file a request for specific information from a government agency and provides recourse in federal court if that agency fails to comply with FOIA requirements. Over the last two decades, beginning with Ronald Reagan, this law has become increasingly diluted and circumvented by each succeeding administration.

Under the Bush Administration, agencies make extensive and arbitrary use of FOIA exemptions such as those for classified information, privileged attorney-client documents and certain information compiled for law enforcement purposes.

Bush administration has even refused to release records to Congressional subcommittees or the Government Accountability Office. A few of the potentially incriminating documents being held secret from Congress include records of contacts between large energy companies and Vice President Dick Cheney's energy task force; White House memos pertaining to Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction; and reports describing torture at Abu Ghraib.

The Critical Infrastructure Information Act of 2002 (CIIA) as part of Homeland Security exempts from FOIA any information that is voluntarily provided to the federal government by a private party, if the information relates to the security of vital infrastructure. But under the act, even "routine communications by private sector lobbyists can be withheld from disclosure?.?.?.?if the lobbyist asserts that the changes are related to the effort to protect the nation's infrastructure. Such a broad interpretation of CIIA could hide errors or misconduct by private-sector companies working with the Department of Homeland Security.

In March 2002, the Bush Administration reduced public access to information through FOIA by mandating that agencies safeguard any records having to do with "weapons of mass destruction." This included "information that could be misused to harm the security of our nation and the safety of our people," according to a memo by White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card. However, the memo did nothing to define these terms and agencies were left free to withhold virtually any information under the vague charge of "national security."

In 2003, the Bush Administration won a new legislative exemption from FOIA for all National Security Agency "operational files." The Administration's main rationale for this new exemption is that conducting FOIA searches diverts resources from the agency's mission.

Congressman Waxman describes the government secrecy moves as "an unprecedented assault on the laws that make our government open and accountable."
- Source: Common Dreams, Sept. 14, 2004, "New Report Details Bush Administration Secrecy" by Karen Lightfoot

2. Media fails on Iraq: Fallujah and the death toll
Les Roberts, an investigator with the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, conducted a rigorous inquiry into pre- and post-invasion mortality in Iraq, sneaking into Iraq by lying flat on the bed of an SUV and training observers on the scene. The results were published in the Lancet, a prestigious peer-reviewed British medical journal, on Oct. 29, 2004.

Roberts and his team (including researchers from Columbia University and from Al-Mustansiriya University in Baghdad) concluded that the death toll associated with the invasion and occupation of Iraq is about 100,000 civilians, and may be much higher. 95% of those deaths were caused by helicopter gunships, rockets, or other forms of aerial weaponry and more than half of the fatalities were women or children.

The study was done before the second invasion of Fallujah in the fall of 2004. More than 83 percent of Fallujah's 300,000 residents fled the city. The people had nowhere to flee and ended up as refugees. Many families were forced to survive in fields, vacant lots, and abandoned buildings without access to shelter, water, electricity, food or medical care. The 50,000 citizens who either chose to remain in the city or who were unable to leave were trapped by Coalition forces and were cut off from food, water and medical supplies Men between the ages of 15 and 45 were refused safe passage, and all who remained were treated as enemy combatants. Coalition forces cut off water and electricity, seized the main hospital, shot at anyone who ventured out into the open, executed families waving white flags while trying to swim across the Euphrates or otherwise flee the city. US forces shot at ambulances, raided homes and killed people who didn't understand English, rolled over injured people with tanks, and allowed corpses to rot in the streets and be eaten by dogs. Medical staff and others reported seeing people, dead and alive, with melted faces and limbs, injuries consistent with the use of phosphorous bombs. As of December 2004 at least 6,000 Iraqi citizens in Fallujah had been killed, and one-third of the city has been destroyed.

The International Committee for the Red Cross reported on Dec. 23, 2004 that three of the city's water purification plants had been destroyed and the fourth badly damaged.

Not long after the "coalition" had embarked on its second offensive, U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Louise Arbour called for an investigation into whether the Americans and their allies had engaged in "the deliberate targeting of civilians, indiscriminate and disproportionate attacks, the killing of injured persons, and the use of human shields," among other possible "grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions?.?.?.?considered war crimes" under federal law. Marjorie Cohn, a professor at Thomas Jefferson School of Law, executive vice president of the National Lawyers Guild, and the U.S. representative to the executive committee of the American Association of Jurists, has noted that the U.S. invasion of Fallujah is a violation of international law that the U.S. had specifically ratified: "They [US Forces] stormed and occupied the Fallujah General Hospital, and have not agreed to allow doctors and ambulances to go inside the main part of the city to help the wounded, in direct violation of the Geneva Conventions."
Updates: English Al-Jazeera website at http://english.aljazeera.net/HomePage, and website at www.dahrjamailiraq.com, The World Tribunal on Iraq at www.worldtribunal.org
- Sources: Peacework, Dec. 2004-Jan. 2005, "The Invasion of Fallujah: A Study in the Subversion of Truth" by Mary Trotochaud and Rick McDowell
- World Socialist Web Site, Nov. 17, 2004, "US Media Applauds Destruction of Fallujah" by David Walsh
- The NewStandard, Dec. 3, 2004, "Fallujah Refugees Tell of Life and Death in the Kill Zone" by Dahr Jamail
- The Lancet, Oct. 29, 2004, "Mortality Before and After the 2003 Invasion of Iraq" by Les Roberts, Riyadh Lafta, Richard Garfield, Jamal Khudhairi and Gilbert Burnham
- The Lancet, Oct. 29, 2004, "The War in Iraq: Civilian Casualties, Political Responsibilities" by Richard Horton
- The Chronicle of Higher Education, Feb. 4, 2005, "Lost Count" by Lila Guterman
- Asheville Global Report, April 15, 2004, "CNN to Al Jazeera: Why Report Civilian Deaths?"

3. Some sources claim 2004 election fraud likely
On Nov. 2, 2004. Bush prevailed by 3 million votes despite exit polls that clearly projected Kerry winning by a margin of 5 million.

The 8-million-vote discrepancy was well beyond the poll's recognized, less-than-1-percent margin of error. And when Freeman and Mitteldorf analyzed the data collected by the two companies that conducted the polls, they found concrete evidence of potential fraud in the official count. The overall margin of error should statistically have been under one percent. But the official result deviated from the poll projections by more than five percent-a statistical impossibility of over 100,000 to one.

"Exit polls are highly accurate," Steve Freeman, professor at the University of Pennsylvania's Center for Organizational Dynamics, and Temple University statistician Josh Mitteldorf. "They remove most of the sources of potential polling error by identifying actual voters and asking them immediately afterward who they had voted for."

Only in precincts that used old-fashioned, hand-counted paper ballots did the official count and the exit polls fall within the normal sampling margin of error. And "the discrepancy between the exit polls and the official count was considerably greater in the critical swing states."

Edison Media Research and Mitofsky International, the two companies hired to do the polling for the Nation Election Pool stated in a final report that the discrepancy was "most likely due to Kerry voters participating in the exit polls at a higher rate than Bush voters." The corporate media widely reported that this proved the accuracy of the official count and a Bush victory. The body of the report, however, offers no data to substantiate this position. In fact, the report shows that Bush voters were more likely to complete the survey than Kerry voters. The report also states that the difference between exit polls and official tallies was far too great to be explained by sampling error, and that a systematic bias is implicated.

In precincts that were at least 80 percent for Bush, the average within-precinct error (WPE) was a whopping 10.0 percent-the numerical difference between the exit poll predictions and the official count. Also, in Bush strongholds, Kerry received only about two-thirds of the votes predicted by exit polls. In Kerry strongholds, exit polls matched the official count almost exactly.

Greg Palast reported how in June 2004, well before the election, his co-author of "Jim Crow" Rev. Jesse Jackson brought him to Chicago to have breakfast with Vice Presidential candidate John Edwards. The Reverend asked the Senator to read Palast's report of the "spoilage" of Black votes-one million African Americans who cast ballots in 2000 but did not have their votes register on the machines.

Edwards said he'd read it over after he'd had his bagel. Jackson snatched away his bagel. No read, no bagel. A hungry Senator was genuinely concerned-these were, after all, Democrats whose votes did not tally, and he shot the information to John Kerry. A couple of weeks later, Kerry told the NAACP convention that one million African-American votes were not counted in 2000, but in 2004 he would not let it happen again. But he did let it happen again. More than a million votes in 2004 were cast and not counted.  - Sources: In These Times, Feb. 2, 2005, "A Corrupted Election" by Steve Freeman and Josh Mitteldorf
- Seattle Post-Intelligencer, Jan. 26, 2005, "Jim Crow Returns To The Voting Booth" by Greg Palast and Rev. Jesse Jackson
- www.freepress.org, Nov. 23, 2004, "How a Republican Election Supervisor Manipulated the 2004 Central Ohio Vote" by Bob Fitrakis and Harvey Wasserman

4. Surveillance of Americans quietly stepped up
On the day American troops captured Saddam Hussein, Bush signed into law the Intelligence Authorization Act-a controversial expansion of the Patriot Act that included items culled from the "Domestic Security Enhancement Act of 2003," a draft proposal that had been shelved due to public outcry after being leaked.

Specifically, the IAA allows the government to obtain an individual's financial records without a court order. The law also makes it illegal for institutions to inform anyone that the government has requested those records, or that information has been shared with the authorities.

"The law also broadens the definition of 'financial institution' to include insurance companies, travel and real-estate agencies, stockbrokers, the U.S. Postal Service, jewelry stores, casinos, airlines, car dealerships, and any other business 'whose cash transactions have a high degree of usefulness in criminal, tax, or regulatory matters.' The definition is now so broad that it could plausibly be used to access even school transcripts or medical records.

"In one fell swoop, this act has decimated our rights to privacy, due process, and freedom of speech," wrote Anna Samson Miranda in an article for LiP magazine titled "Grave New World" that documented the ways in which the government already employs high tech, private industry, and everyday citizens as part of a vast web of surveillance.

In November 2002, the New York Times reported that the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) was developing a tracking system called "Total Information Awareness" (TIA), which was intended to detect terrorists through analyzing troves of information. The system, developed under the direction of John Poindexter, then-director of DARPA's Information Awareness Office, was envisioned to give law enforcement access to private data without suspicion of wrongdoing or a warrant.

Congress passed a Defense Appropriations bill unanimously on July 18, 2003, expressly denying any funding to Total Information Awareness research. In response, the Pentagon proposed The Multistate Anti-Terrorism Information Exchange (MATRIX). As devised by the Pentagon, it is a state-run information generating tool, thereby circumventing Congress' concern regarding the appropriation of federal funds for the development of this controversial database. The MATRIX program was officially shut down on April 15, 2005 but the Department of Justice and the Department of Homeland Security are now utilizing a system called FACTS (Factual Analysis Criminal Threat Solution). According to the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, "Between July 2003 and April 2005, there have been 1,866,202 queries to the FACTS application. Florida law enforcement officials are pursuing continuing the program and rebuilding it."

On May 10, 2005, President Bush secretly signed into law the REAL ID Act, requiring states within the next three years to issue federally approved electronic identification cards. Attached as an amendment to an emergency spending bill funding troops in Afghanistan and Iraq, the REAL ID Act passed without the scrutiny and debate of Congress.

Identification cards that do not meet the federally mandated standards will not be accepted as identification for travel, opening a bank account, receiving social security checks, or participating in government benefits.
- Sources: Information Management Journal, Mar./Apr. 2004, "Patriot Act's Reach Expanded Despite Part Being Struck Down" by Nikki Swartz
- LiP Magazine, Winter 2004, "Grave New World" by Anna Samson Miranda (former Project Censored Student)
- Capitol Hill Blue, June 7, 2004, "Where Big Brother Snoops on Americans 24/7" by Teresa Hampton and Doug Thompson

5. Tsunami gave U.S. military advantage in Southeast Asia
The American people reacted to the tsunami that hit the Indian Ocean in December 2004 with an outpouring of compassion and private donations. Across the nation, neighbors got together to collect food, clothing, medicines, and financial contributions. Schoolchildren completed class projects to help the cause.

Unfortunately, the U.S. government didn't reflect the same level of altruism. President Bush initially offered an embarrassingly low $15 million in aid. More importantly U.S. government used the catastrophe to exploit its own strategic military advantage. While supplying our aid (which when compared proportionately to that of other, less wealthy countries, was an insulting pittance), we simultaneously bolstered military alliances with regional powers in, and began expanding our bases throughout, the Indian Ocean region.

Establishing a stronger military presence in the region has long been a US desire to keep closer tabs on China. China, thanks to its burgeoning economic and military muscle, has emerged as one of this country's greatest potential rivals.

During subsequent tsunami relief operations, the U.S. reactivated its military co-operation agreements with Thailand and the Visiting Forces Agreement with the Philippines. U.S. Navy vessels utilized facilities in Singapore, keeping with previous treaties. U.S. marines and the navy arrived in Sri Lanka despite the tsunami-hit island's initial reluctance to permit their entry. The U.S. also stepped up their survey of the Malacca Straits, through which 90 percent of Japan's oil supplies pass.

The United States currently operates a base out of Diego Garcia, a former British mandate in the Chagos Archipelago (about halfway between Africa and Indonesia). Its lease runs out in 2016. The isle is also "remote and Washington is desperate for an alternative," wrote veteran Indian journalist Rahul Bedi.

In February 2005, the State Department mended broken ties with the Indonesian military although human rights observers charged the military with withholding "food and other relief from civilians suspected of supporting the secessionist insurgency, the Free Aceh Movement," Jim Lobe reported for the Inter Press Service.

Former Secretary of State Colin Powell declared that U.S. relief to the tsunami-affected region would assist the war against terror and introduce "American values to the region." The Bush Administration is also reviving its hopes of normalizing military ties with Indonesia, writes Lobe. The world's most populace Muslim nation, its strategically located archipelago, critical sea lanes, and historic distrust of China have made it an ideal partner for containing Beijing.

During a January 2005 visit to Jakarta, Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz told reporters, "I think if we're interested in military reform here, and certainly this Indonesian government is and our government is, I think we need to possibly reconsider a bit where we are at this point in history moving forward."

According to an article in the Asheville Global Report, the following month the U.S. State Department made a decision to renew the International Education and Military Training (IMET) program for Indonesia.

"Clearly these new bases will strengthen Washington's military logistical support in the region," says Professor Anuradha Chenoy at Delhi's Jawaharlal Nehru University.
- Sources: Jane's Foreign Report (Jane's Defence), Feb. 15, 2005, "U.S. Turns Tsunami into Military Strategy"
- The Irish Times, Feb. 8, 2005, "U.S. Has Used Tsunami to Boost Aims in Stricken Area" by Rahul Bedi
- Inter Press Service, Jan., 18 2005, "Bush Uses Tsunami Aid to Regain Foothold in Indonesia," by Jim Lobe

6. U.S. deeply involved in oil-for-food scam
Last year, right-wingers in Congress began kicking up a fuss about how the United Nations had allegedly allowed Saddam Hussein to rake in $10 billion in illegal cash through the Oil for Food program. Headlines screamed scandal. New York Times' columnist William Safire referred to the alleged U.N. con game as "the richest rip-off in world history."

There is plenty of evidence of corruption in the "oil-for-food" program, but the trail of evidence leads not to the UN but to the U.S. "The fifteen members of the Security Council-of which the United States was by far the most influential-determined how income from oil proceeds would be handled, and how the funds could be used. The initial anti-UN accusations were based on a General Accounting Office report released in April 2004 and were later bolstered by a more detailed report commissioned by the CIA.

According to the GAO, Hussein smuggled $6 billion worth of oil out of Iraq, most of it through the Persian Gulf. Yet, the U.N. fleet charged with intercepting any such smugglers was under direct command of American officers, and consisted overwhelmingly of U.S. Navy ships. In 2001, for example, 90 of its vessels belonged to the United States, while Britain contributed only four.

Most of the oil that left Iraq by land did so through Jordan and Turkey with the approval of the United States. The first Bush administration informally exempted Jordan from the ban on purchasing Iraqi oil. This arrangement provided Hussein with $4.4 billion over 10 years, according to the CIA's own findings. The United States later allowed Iraq to leak another $710 million worth of oil through Turkey.

Scott Ritter, a U.N. weapons inspector in Iraq during the first six years of economic sanctions against the country, unearthed yet another scam: The United States allegedly allowed an oil company run by Russian foreign minister Yevgeny Primakov's sister to purchase cheap oil from Iraq and resell it to U.S. companies at market value.

"It has been estimated that 80 percent of the oil illegally smuggled out of Iraq under 'oil for food' ended up in the United States," Ritter wrote in the U.K. Independent.

Little of the blame can credibly be laid at the feet of 'the UN bureaucracy.' Far more of the fault lies with policies and decisions of the Security Council in which the United States played a central role.
- Sources: Harper's Magazine, Dec. 2004, "The UN is Us: Exposing Saddam Hussein's Silent Partner" by Joy Gordon
- Independent/UK, Dec. 12, 2004, "The oil for Food 'Scandal' is a Cynical Smokescreen" by Scott Ritter

7. U.S. military targets independent journalists
The Iraq war has been the deadliest combat zone for reporters since the International Federation of Journalists began keeping tabs in 1984. A total of 49 media workers have lost their lives in Iraq. Nonembedded journalists have now become familiar victims of U.S. military actions abroad. "As far as anyone has yet proved, no commanding officer ever ordered a subordinate to fire on journalists as such," write Steve Weissman. But what can be shown is a pattern of tacit complicity, side by side with a heavy-handed campaign to curb journalists' right to roam freely.

According to independent journalist Dahr Jamail, journalists are increasingly being detained and threatened by the U.S.-installed interim government in Iraq. When the only safety for a reporter is being embedded with the U.S. military, the reported stories tend to have a positive spin. Non-embedded reporters suffer the great risk of being identified as enemy targets by the military.

The Pentagon has refused to implement basic safeguards to protect journalists who aren't embedded with coalition forces, despite repeated requests by Reuters and media advocacy organizations.

The most blatant attack on journalists occurred the morning of April 8, 2004, when the Third Infantry fired on the Palestine Hotel in Baghdad killing cameramen Jose Couso and Taras Protsyuk and injuring three others. The hotel served as headquarters for some 100 reporters and other media workers. The Pentagon officials knew that the Palestine Hotel was full of journalists and had assured the Associated Press that the U.S. would not target the building. The U.S. military exonerated the army of any wrongdoing in its attack on the Palestine Hotel. To date, U.S. authorities have not disciplined a single officer or soldier involved in the killing of a journalist.

Unsatisfied with the U.S. military's investigation, Reporters Without Borders, an international organization that works to improve the legal and physical safety of journalists worldwide, conducted their own investigation. They gathered evidence from journalists in the Palestine Hotel at the time of the attacks. Their report stated that the U.S. officials first lied about what had happened during the Palestine Hotel attack and then, in an official statement four months later, exonerated the U.S. Army from any mistake of error in judgment. Olga Rodriguez, a journalist present at the Palestine Hotel during the attack, stated on KPFA's Democracy Now! that the soldiers and tanks were present at the hotel 36 hours before the firing and that reporters had even communicated with the soldiers.

April 8, 2004: The same day of the attack on the Palestine Hotel, the U.S. bombed the Baghdad offices of Abu Dhabi TV and Al-Jazeera killing Al-Jazeera correspondent Tariq Ayyoub. August 17, 2004: Mazen Dana was killed while filming a prison, guarded by the U.S. military in a Baghdad suburb.

As a matter of military doctrine, the U.S. military dominates, at all costs, every element of battle, including our perception of what they do. The need for control leads the Pentagon to urge journalists to embed themselves within the military, where they can go where they are told and film and tell stories only from a pro-American point of view. The Pentagon offers embedded journalists a great deal of protection. As the Pentagon sees it, non-embedded eyes and ears do not have any military significance, and unless Congress and the American people stop them, the military will continue to target independent journalists.
- Sources: Feb. 28, 2005, "Dead Messengers: How the U.S. Military Threatens Journalists," Steve Weissman
- InterPress Service, Nov. 18, 2004, "Media Repression in 'Liberated' Land" by Dahr Jamail

8. Iraqi farmers threatened by Bremer's mandates
Historians believe it was in the "fertile crescent" of Meso­po­ta­mia, where Iraq now lies, that humans first learned to farm. "It is here, in around 8500 or 8000 B.C., that man­kind first domesticated wheat, here that agriculture was born," wrote Jeremy Smith in the Ecologist. This entire time, "Iraqi farmers have been naturally selecting wheat varieties that work best with their climate?.?.?.?and cross-pollinated them with others with different strengths.

"The U.S., however, has decided that, despite 10,000 years practice, Iraqis don't know what wheat works best in their own conditions."

Smith was referring to Order 81, one of 100 directives penned by L. Paul Bremer III, the U.S. administrator in Iraq, and left as a legacy by the American government when it transferred operations to interim Iraqi authorities. The regulation sets criteria for the patenting of seeds that can only be met by multinational companies like Monsanto or Syngenta, and it grants the patent holder exclusive rights over every aspect of all plant products yielded by those seeds. Because of naturally occurring cross-pollination, the new scheme effectively launches a process whereby Iraqi farmers will soon have to purchase their seeds rather than using seeds saved from their own crops or bought at the local market.

Native varieties will be replaced by foreign-and genetically engineered-seeds, and Iraqi agriculture will become more vulnerable to disease as biological diversity is lost.

Texas A&M University, which brags that its agriculture program is a "world leader" in the use of biotechnology, has already embarked on a $107-million project to "re-educate" Iraqi farmers to grow industrial-sized harvests for export using American seeds. As part of the project, Iraqi farmers are given equipment and genetically modified seeds. And anyone who's ever paid attention to how this has worked elsewhere in the global South knows what comes next: Farmers will lose their lands, and the country will lose its ability to feed itself, engendering poverty and dependency.

Order 81 was one of several imposed by Bremer that fit nicely into the outlines of a U.S. "Economy Plan," a 101-page blueprint for the economic makeover of Iraq, formulated with ample help from corporate lobbyists. Greg Palast reported that someone inside the State Department leaked the plan to him a month prior to the invasion. One of the goals of the plan is to impose intellectual property laws in Iraq favorable to multinational corporations.

Smith put it simply: "The people whose forefathers first mastered the domestication of wheat will now have to pay for the privilege of growing it for someone else. And with that the world's oldest farming heritage will become just another subsidiary link in the vast American supply chain."
- Sources: Grain, Oct. 2004, "Iraq's New Patent Law: a Declaration of War Against Farmers"
- TomPaine.com, Oct. 26, 2004, "Adventure Capitalism" by Greg Palast
- The Ecologist, Feb. 4, 2005, "U.S. Seeking to Totally Re-engineer Iraqi Traditional Farming System into a U.S. Style Corporate Agribusiness" by Jeremy Smith

9. Iran's new oil trade system challenges U.S. currency
The Bush administration has been paying a lot more attention to Iran recently. Part of that interest is clearly Iran's nuclear program-but there may be more to the story. One bit of news that hasn't received the public vetting it merits is Iran's declared intent to open an international oil exchange market, or "bourse."

The vast majority of the world's oil is traded on the New York NYMEX (Mercantile Exchange) and the London IPE (International Petroleum Exchange), and, as mentioned by William Clark, both exchanges are owned by U.S. corporations. Both of these oil exchanges transact oil trades in U.S. currency. Iran's plan to open an international oil exchange for trading oil in the euro is a huge threat to U.S. dollar supremacy in oil. A shift away from U.S. dollars to euros in the oil market would cause the value of the dollar to plummet.

In mid-2003, Iran broke from tradition and began accepting euros as payment for its oil exports to its E.U. and Asian customers. Saddam Hussein attempted a similar bold step back in 2000 and was met with a devastating reaction from the US. One of the first orders issued by Bremer after the US occupation of Iraq was to sell oil in dollars only. (Censored 2004 #19).

Russia, Venezuela, and some members of OPEC have expressed interest in moving towards a petroeuro system. And it isn't entirely implausible that China, which is "the world's second largest holder of U.S. currency reserves," might eventually follow suit.

China, as a major exporter of goods to the United States, has a vested interest in helping shore up the American economy and has even linked its own currency, the yuan, to the dollar, but it has also become increasingly dependent on Iranian oil and gas. Worrisome to the United States is the potentiality of China to abandon its ongoing large purchases of U.S. Treasuries/debt-should it become displeased with U.S. policies towards Iran.

Barring a US attack, it appears likely that Iran's euro-dominated oil bourse will open in 2006. The irony is that U.S. threats to invade Iran put pressure on the Chinese to abandon their support of the dollar. Clark warns that "a unilateral U.S. military strike on Iran would further isolate the U.S. government, and it is conceivable that such an overt action could provoke other industrialized nations to abandon the dollar en masse."
- Source: GlobalResearch.ca, Oct. 27, "Iran Next U.S. Target" by William Clark

10. Mountaintop removal threatens ecosystem and economy
On Aug. 15 2004, environmental activists created a human blockade by locking themselves to drilling equipment, obstructing the National Coal Corp.'s access to a strip mine in the Appalachian mountains 40 miles north of Knoxville. It was just the latest in a protracted campaign that environmentalists say has national implications, but that's been ignored by the media outside the immediate area.

Mountaintop removal (MTR) is a new form of coal mining in which companies dynamite the tops of mountains to collect the coal underneath. Multiple peaks are blown off and dumped onto highland watersheds, destroying entire mountain ranges. More than 1,000 miles of streams have been destroyed by this practice in West Virginia alone. Mountain top removal endangers and destroys entire communities with massive sediment dams and non-stop explosions.

According to Fred Mooney, an active member of the Mountain Faction of Katuah Earth First!, "MTR is an ecocidal mining practice in which greedy coal companies use millions of pounds of dynamite a day (three million pounds a day in the southwest Virginia alone) to blow up entire mountain ranges in order to extract a small amount of coal." He goes on to say that "Then as if that wasn't bad enough, they dump the waste into valleys and riverbeds. The combination of these elements effectively kills everything in the ecosystems."

The coal industry has coined many less menacing names for mountaintop removal, such as cross range mining, surface mining and others. But regardless of the euphemism, MTR remains among the most pernicious forms of mining ever conceived. Blasting mountain tops with dynamite is cheaper than hiring miners who belong to a union. More than 40,000 jobs have been lost to MTR in West Virginia alone.

Most states are responsible for permitting and regulating mining operations under the Surface Mining Control Act. Now MTR is trying to break into Tennessee, specifically Zeb Mountain in the northeast. Because Tennessee did such a poor job in the 70's, the state renounced control, and all mining is now regulated under the federal Office of Surface Mining.

Ninety-three new coal plants are being planned for construction throughout the U.S. Demand for coal will increase as these new facilities are completed. Oil is starting to run out and there are no concrete plans for a transition to renewable resources such as wind and solar energy. Coal companies therefore will be well-positioned to capitalize on their growing market by using Mountain top removal as a cheap way to pull coal from the ground.
- Source: Earthfirst! Nov-Dec 2004, "See You in the Mountains: Katuah Earth First! Confronts Mountaintop Removal" by John Conner