When Newspapers are less than honest, the public’s right to know is suffocated by personal agendas.

Submission for guest column February 19, 2008

(Photo in copy is positioned only for proof to AC-T of the existence of Arab TV public relations video on Gilbert.)

- Article was not published nor its receptions acknowledged -

Note: Newspaper did report on Medal of Honor recipient Navy Petty Officer 2nd Class Michael A. Monsoor on April 9, 2008, but only as a tiny side item in its news brief section. Giving your life by absorbing a blast of a grenade to save other Americans only draws yawns from news editors under the leadership of their publisher responsible for this Gannett Newspaper.

Journalism.org, through its Project for Excellence in Journalism (PEJ)* released an October 2007 study documenting newspaper bias while reporting on candidates running for President:

“For the top tier Democrats, the positive tilt was even more the case than for Democrats in general. Obama’s front page coverage in the sample was 70% positive and 9% negative and Clinton’s was similarly 61% positive and 13% negative. Republican candidates, in contrast, were more likely to receive clearly negative stories in print than elsewhere: 40% negative vs. 26% positive and 34% neutral.”

In some camps this is called coloring the news, as William McGowan documented in his book, “Coloring the News,” along with Bernie Goldberg in, “Bias,” Goldberg winner of 6 Emmy Awards at CBS News.

Blatant bias is not limited to Gotham networks and newspapers.  It also exists in rural areas such as Western North Carolina, progressive editors using newspapers to promote personal agendas. 

Here are a few examples within the 700 words I am allowed to write:

-  In February 2008 an article ran about two mentally disabled Iraqi women strapped by insurgents with remote-control bombs, killing 99 in a market.  What headline would best reflect what happened when readers scanned the page, “Al-Qaeda exploits the mentally handicapped,” or “Iraq Insurgents strap bombs to the helpless?”  The newspaper gave Al-Qaeda a pass, questioning our military instead with this headline, “Market bombings return Baghdad’s air of insecurity.”

-   Another article ran February 2008 about an Army Sgt. from Candler, NC, whose sniper team, hiking for 72 hours through rough terrain with five hours sleep, awoke to discover an Iraqi.  The Sgt., afraid the man would reveal their position, had him shot.  While a jury found the murder without premeditation, consequences were dealt out by the military.

But what is interesting about this story is another one the newspaper wouldn’t print about Medal of Honor winner, Michael Murphy.  Murphy had allowed Afghan shepherds to go free after his Navy Seal unit was discovered in the mountains.  The Taliban, later finding out, killed Murphy and all but one of his men.  The newspaper seemed proud to have scuttled Murphy’s heroism as it ran Letters to the Editor from readers who complained Murphy’s story had not run.

- This same newspaper did not print the heroism of Troy Gilbert, a pilot who flew low avoiding civilian targets.   He knew he could be shot down, and was 11/06.  Ten months later, the newspaper printed a section article saying U.S. cable providers should add Al-Jazeera Arab Network to programming, demanding in its headline, “ . . . and let’s not quash it.”   The opinion editor even admitted she didn’t have cable/satellite in her home.  If she had, she could have seen Gilbert’s burned body dragged out of the rubble on Arab television.  It was also Arab television that hosted a new show for young Muslim men titled, “How to Beat Your Wife.”

- I had discovered this bias in March 2006, when the same managing editor refused to run my submission on an Afghan schoolmaster, Malim Abdul Habib.  Habib had used his newfound freedom to educate 1,300 Afghan teenagers, many of them girls.  Taliban beheaded Habib in front of his family for recognizing women’s rights, yet the managing editor sat on the piece and then told me it was too old to run.  I wrote the publisher asking. “If your newspaper doesn’t recognize sacrifice, who will?  The story ran but was quickly removed from the archive as if dirty.  I still wonder what happened to Malim Abdul Habib’s family and his eight children and where they are today.  Obviously, the newspaper didn’t care. 

The progressive publication I am writing about is the Asheville Citizen Times, with its Voice of the Mountains masthead.  The newspaper’s playing with our right to know reminded me of a line from The Pentagon Papers, which I saw at Diane Wortham Theatre.  The satirical comment was a warning, referring to the newspaper industry’s printing secret government documents: “We’re big boys.  Not a bunch of kids playing newspaper.”  Oh, my!

Note to reader:  See Newsday’s six chapters on Michael Murphy titled, “Born to Serve.”
URL: http://www.newsday.com/news/specials/ny-murphy-seal-sg,0,6675676.storygallery

Writer is a JFK Democrat, retired here from New Jersey four years ago.  He is the great grandson of N.A. Jennings, Texas Ranger, Rough Rider, and lyricist for “Remember the Maine,” later a journalist for the New York Sun circa 1905 and stand-in for Teddy Roosevelt.  E-mail: freedomsupport@aol.com

____________________

Documentation:

http://www.journalism.org/node/8197

http://www.coloringthenews.com/
 
http://www.bernardgoldberg.com/books.php#bias

http://www.coloringthenews.com/html/review_latimes.html

You can read Michael Murphy’s story told in six chapters on Newsday -
http://www.newsday.com/news/specials/ny-murphy-seal-sg,0,6675676.storygallery

Documenting Candler soldier story run in the AC-T -
http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/iraq/2008-02-10-sniper_N.htm

Al-Qaida video shows body of U.S. pilot – USA Today release on Troy Gilbert - http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2007-09-13-3654693931_x.htm - Gilbert was in Kosovo Campaign.

Pilot of crashed U.S. fighter jet missing in Iraq (Al-Jazeera shows Gilbert’s downed jet.) - http://www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/meast/11/28/iraq.plane.crash/index.html

Gilbert’s family Memorial page - http://www.gilbertmemorial.org/

Program on How to Beat Your Wife - http://www.freedomisknowledge.com/otw/howtobeatyourwife.html

Headline for disabled women was run by the AC-T on February 3, 2008.  

Story that Al-Jazeera should be available on all cable providers was run by the AC-T on September 16, 2007. 

My story about Malim Abdul Habib was finally run on the AC-T’s opinion section around April of 2006.  The content, no longer found on the AC-T’s archive, can be seen on the Web at http://www.freedomisknowledge.com/otw/harrybelafonte.html

Letter to Mr. Hammer, publisher of the Asheville Citizen Times

- Letter submitted in late March 30, 2008, and this time promptly rejected -

I read the Citizen Times Viewpoint on Wednesday, March 26th, in the opinion section where someone at the Citizen Times, maybe yourself, had written an article noting Weaverville's own fallen hero, Sgt. Thomas Ray.  The comment read, "We owe our deepest respect and honor to Sgt. Ray and to all those who won't come home to their families."

While it's admirable that the Asheville Citizen Times has acknowledged that the men and women who serve in our armed forces should receive the deepest respect, those of us who have or had loved ones serving overseas don't need to be lectured to by a newspaper that has gone out of its way to actually not publish stories about our American heroes. 

Words like this can read hollow when they come from a publication that had literally ignored the full story of the Metal of Honor awarded posthumously to Michael Murphy by our President, even after readers had complained of the obvious omission. 

Your newspaper had also openly promoted that all U.S. cable providers should be made to carry the Al-Jazeera Network, when it knew it was Arab television that had gone out of their way to show burned bodies of our fallen, the most recent nine months before the article had run of the distorted videotaped body of Troy Gilbert, an Air Force pilot.  It was therefore no surprise to not find any reference to Gilbert in your archive 

For myself, I had already been shell-shocked the year before when your communication editor refused to run my guest commentary letter on an Afghan schoolmaster, Malim Abdul Habib, a man who was beheaded in front of his family for defending his newfound freedom to educate over 1,500 Afghan teenagers, many of them girls.  Can you believe the arrogance?  I had to plead with the publisher at the time to allow his readers to know the sacrifice this schoolmaster had made in the name of freedom, his reward ultimately dealt out by the Taliban. 

So what did happen to all those teenage girls in Afghanistan that had finally been getting an education until their schoolmaster had been murdered?  We probably will never know.  And what happened to the schoolmaster's own eight children who had watched their father beheaded, the ones the AC-T obviously cares not one whit about.  They had been enjoying their newfound freedom compliments of the American people, a sacrifice Sgt. Ray of Weaverville obviously well understood.  After my letter was finally published, it quickly went missing from the AC-T archive. 

I had recently written personally to you twice about these inconsistencies, Mr. Hammer, but the receipt was always ignored.  So I published it to the Web where anyone can now read it:

http://www.freedomisknowledge.com/news/whennewspapersarelessthanhonest.html

I find myself meeting local parents all the time whose loved ones serve in the military.  I discover real stories the media steps on, such as the father who works in the floor department of the local Home Depot.  He proudly told me two of his boys recently volunteered to go back to Iraq to be with their bros, one on his fourth tour. 

The father and I talked about how newspapers like the Asheville Citizen Times seem to care less about writing why brave young men and women go back into harm's way.   Another parent had told my wife that when her son came home on leave, he couldn't believe the personal stories not being told by the media about the troops and their efforts to assist the Iraqi people.

Again, our hearts go out to the family of Sgt. Thomas Ray, a true American hero.  With all the people holding flags along the road to the airport on Ray’s remains arriving back home, maybe the Asheville Citizens Times will finally get the message, a newspaper that claims it is the Voice of the Mountains.  But with the real Voice of the Mountains seen out in force at Ray's coming home, Mr. Hammer, it looks like your boilerplate may need a bit more editing and your newspaper’s true mission a bit more explaining.

Writer is a JFK Democrat, retired here from New Jersey four years ago.  He is the great grandson of N.A. Jennings, Texas Ranger, Rough Rider, and lyricist for “Remember the Maine,” later a journalist for the New York Sun circa 1905 and stand-in for Teddy Roosevelt.  E-mail: freedomsupport@aol.com