Guest Blogged by Dennis Domrzalski of f-brilliant…
After waiting nearly a week, the Albuquerque Journal on Sunday finally published a story about Laura MacCallum quitting her job as KKOB Radio’s afternoon drive time anchor.
What a pathetic story it was, though. It shows why the blogosphere is daily becoming more powerful and why more and more people are turning away from traditional media sources for their news. The fact is, those traditional sources can’t be trusted to tell us what’s really going on, especially when it comes to their own industry.
MaCallum quit because KKOB News Director Pat Allen pulled her stories about allegations of vote buying at the recent sate Republican Party’s pre-primary conventions. Allen caved after getting complaints from Heather Wilson’s U.S. Senate campaign and from state Republican Party officials. (See BRAD BLOG’s Special Coverage Page on the scandal here.)
The Journal’s — this newspaper is the largest media outlet in the state — seven-paragraph story, buried on page B4, fails to mention that it was Wilson’s campaign that did the complaining. It didn’t go into detail about the vote-buying scandal, and it said nothing about Allen’s memo to MacCallum that he didn’t think the stories were valid because other media outlets and bloggers hadn’t picked them up…
The MacCallum story involves legitimate questions about the state GOP’s delegate selection process — whether campaigns can buy delegates to the main nominating convention — and whether a federally licensed radio station caved in to political pressure to kill the stories. Would KKOB have pulled stories critical of the state Democratic Party if one of its campaigns or officials had complained?
Truth is, TV, radio stations, and newspapers routinely make decisions about which stories to pursue or not based on political pressure, personal likes or dislikes, and advertising dollars.
They just don’t want you to know about it. That’s why you rarely see the media writing or airing stories about themselves. That’s why you hardly ever see or hear stories about their inner workings, their profit margins, their reasons for killing or pursuing stories, their news judgment.
The industry that demands that politicians, institutions, and businesses reveal just about every detail of their lives, offices, and business, tries as hard as it can to keep those things about itself secret.
They’re all members of the same club, and the club doesn’t criticize itself. The members protect each other.
Is it a big deal that the state’s largest radio station — a “conservative” talk station — pulled stories after a Republican campaign and the state Republican Party complained?
You’re damn straight it is.
Was the public served — KKOB operates on the public airwaves — by the station’s censoring a story critical of the Republican Party?
No.
Is it news that the Journal, New Mexico’s largest media outlet, buried this story and kept key details of it from the public? Is it news that the Journal refused to dig into a story about whether political pressure kept a story from the public airwaves?
Yeah.
Would this matter of public interest have been covered so extensively by the mainstream and traditional media?
Hell no. They didn’t want you to know about it.
But you do know about it, thanks to bloggers.
People in the traditional media have long been society’s information gatekeepers. In the past, what you’ve been able to see, hear, and read has been totally up to them.
They demanded your trust — after all, they knew what information you needed and didn’t need — but they’ve abused that trust time and time again, especially in regards to their own decisions and secrets.
That’s why the gatekeepers are being swept away. That’s why we need more bloggers.
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Dennis Domrzalski has been a reporter for 27 years, having worked at The Albuquerque Tribune, Weekly Alibi, New Mexico Business Weekly and the City News Bureau of Chicago. He has been covering the Heather Wilson/NM GOP “Vote-Buying” Scandal at f-brilliant and serves as the co-host of the Eye on New Mexico Sunday morning TV talk show on Albuquerque’s NBC affiliate KOB-TV Channel 4. He also hosts the local cable program, Legends of New Mexico on Gov. 16.
Hey FCC, how about that lack of media accountability on OUR PUBLIC AIRWAVES? Thanks Dennis great article!
Aaaah, to have the good ole days of the Fairness Doctrine back. Just a another day in bought-out-sourced-deregulationville.
To add insult to injury, Albuquerque’s second largest newspaper – the Albuquerque Tribune – just folded about 2 weeks ago. They were a much better journalistic effort than the usual tripe in the Journal. They would have printed the MacCallum story immediately, and followed up.
Thanks for this story. Thanks also for not being a sell-out hack.
Because of this fact, the ptb’s are all over the internet astroturfing. Astroturfing refers to the creation of fake grassroots. There was a campaign to bash Bev Harris, to turn her into some kind of “grifter.” There are also folks at Kos, including the Big Cheese himself, who are portraying those concerned with election integrity as being conspiracy nutters.
I am not looking to toot my own horn, but a Mr. Steven Hertzberg of the Election Science Institute was outed months ago as being a prolific poster at a place called BreakForNews, yet another disinfo palace. That place came out with attacks on Bev Harris, RawStory, and BradBlog. Someone named AnonymousArmy came out with the same angle attacking Brad Friedman at DailyKos. We now know that Kos is a fan of the CIA. There are these status quo elements all over the internet trying to control the “netroots.”
Hertzberg was the guy who whitewashed the importance of the 2004 Ohio exit polls. He is the same kid who endorsed a Republican operative at the Democratic Underground. Now his ESI domain has been shut down. Why?
Steven Hertzberg can now be linked almost directly to DailyKos. He is a contact of an Andrew Hoppin at Jaiku.com. Hoppin has it on his resume that he worked for Yearly Kos.
I think the Bash Bev Harris story needs to be made public. As it is, there have only been the few working on this, most notably a Mr. John Dean {not the famous one}.
If the dirt flung at Bev Harris have all been lies, this story must be told. The only problem I would have with a Bev Harris is if she has been a part of some convoluted script all these years. To me it appears that she was singled out to be swift boated as soon as she made her earlier discoveries of Diebold machines being easily fudged.
Myself and another kid exposed Mike Rivero’s “Unofficial” What Really Happened forum as being manipulated by Hal Turner type provocateurs. As soon as we did this, a massive cybersmear campaign was started against us. We are two nobodies. But since this has happened to us, I can see how the same thing happened to Bev Harris.
We can see what happened to Medea Benjamin, Cindy Sheehan, Michael Moore, even a guy like BradBlog. A few weeks ago this guy named John Caylor called Brad CIA and a Larisa RawStory as Russian mafia.
I am sick and tired of this kind of crap being chalked up to there is that nutty internet for ya.
Sorry for the rant. I am deeply impressed that you have gone public with this story. I am grateful to that woman quitting the job over it. I respect people like yourselves who value integrity over compliance to injustice.
Proof Linking Steven Hertzberg to the DailyKos
http://allaircraftarenotinvolve...t160.html#1423
The people united will never be defeated