Don Barletta
Media accused of ignoring election irregularities
Thu Nov 18, 2004 20:26
64.140.158.53

Media accused of ignoring election irregularities

From The Boston Globe, November 17, 2004
By Mark Jurkowitz
http://www.freepress.net/news/5431

Two weeks after Election Day, explosive allegations about a media coverup are percolating.

There's the widely circulated e-mail about a CBS producer who complained that a news industry "lock-down" has prevented journalists from investigating voting problems that cropped up on Nov 2. There's the rumor that MSNBC host Keith Olbermann, who has devoted serious air time to discussing Election Day irregularities, was fired for broaching the topic. There's the assertion by Bev Harris, executive director of Black Box Voting Inc., that she had received calls from network employees saying they had been told to lay off the sensitive subject of voting fraud.

In the days after Nov. 2, the Internet was abuzz with charges from partisans that voting irregularities might have cost John F. Kerry the White House.

With some media outlets moving swiftly to debunk the notion that the election had been stolen by the Republicans, the press itself has come under scrutiny, accused of everything from a conspiracy of silence to a collective passivity about pursuing voting irregularities.

"The mainstream media is not treating this as an important story overall," said Steve Rendall, senior analyst at the liberal media watchdog group Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting. "The mainstream media has largely treated the story as some crazy Internet story." At the same time, Rendall acknowledged: "There has been excess in the way stuff has flown around the Internet and e-mail lists."

Tracking down the sources of the rapidly proliferating online allegations about a media "lock-down" is a daunting task. But the response to them has been unequivocal. "Absolutely untrue," a CBS spokeswoman, Sandy Genelius, said when asked about the report of the whistle-blowing CBS producer. "Absolutely, positively, categorically false. Besides that, it's absurd."

"There are a lot of nervous people out there," said Olbermann, whose disappearance from MSNBC was the result not of being terminated but of taking a vacation. "I'm both amused and a little terrified that I became the subject of an Internet rumor."

In an appearance Nov. 8 on the "Democracy Now!" program, Harris, whose organization is investigating allegations of voter fraud in Florida and Ohio, told host Amy Goodman that sources in television news have told her "there is now a lock-down on this story. It is officially . . . 'Let's move on' time." In an interview with The Boston Globe, she reiterated those potent allegations but declined to reveal her sources. She also appeared to soft-pedal the idea that the media was at fault, saying instead that it was too early in the fraud-investigation process to blame reporters for not being more aggressive.

"I'm not terribly concerned about . . . the media's coverage of it yet," she said. "We're still early. . . . Caution's probably appropriate. [It's] a very sensitive story.

Not all accusations that journalists have not vigorously pursued allegations of voting problems involve speculation that they are being muzzled by their bosses. But several left-leaning critics complain that reporters have lost interest in what is still an important story because the outcome of the 2004 election, unlike in 2000, is not being contested.

Media Matters for America, a liberal media monitoring organization, posted an item on its website recently that cited several stories about faulty voting equipment in Ohio that did not generate much media interest. David Brock, the organization's president, said in an interview: "I haven't seen anything that is suggesting that further probing of the issue would change the results of the election." But he added that "there are some irregularities, and I would imagine some reader and viewer interest. . . . It seems that there should have been somewhat more coverage of this. There was all this pressure and buildup and very little follow-up."

TomPaine.com, a liberal website that collects news and commentary about public policy issues, has posted several analyses arguing that Kerry was hurt in Ohio by a shortage of voting machines, as well as by discarded votes that came disproportionately from minority precincts. The website's executive editor, Alexandra Walker, said her organization leaves the conspiracy theories surrounding the media's behavior to "the blogosphere."

But she also argued that, with the election results not being disputed, "the public interest angle was not enough to keep [voter irregularities] in the sights of political reporters. The horse-race coverage of political campaigns shortchanges readers."

No one has been more engaged in the issue than Olbermann, the host of MSNBC's prime-time "Countdown" program.

"The thing that woke me up was the lock-down in Warren County," he said, referring to a Cincinnati Enquirer report that officials in that Ohio county, citing terrorist threats, barred observers from the vote count. "I began to investigate then or at least raise questions. . . . It turns out there are a lot of valid stories, at least valid stories worth investigating."

Olbermann said there are a number of reasons much of the media have not been pursuing the story as ardently as he is, including "a love-hate [relationship] with the blogs. Whatever new media is appearing, the established news industry tend to look down on it." At the same time, Olbermann flatly denies the blogger-fueled rumor that he was fired for his interest in voting irregularities, pointing out that MSNBC has let him pursue the probe.

"It's still largely a game of telephone on the Net," he said.

This article is from The Boston Globe. If you found it informative and valuable, we strongly encourage you to visit their website and register an account to view all their articles on the web. Support quality journalism.

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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

Hello. Fraud should absolutely not be tolerated in US
Presidential elections. Immediate outrage and action
is required. If you are a member of the US news
community, and you have been silent on this issue of
vote fraud, then your silence is deafening, and you
should be ashamed of yourself. To assist you in your
research, if you require some recent news stories as
fodder for the reporting that you SHOULD be doing
immediately, I have attached 30 or so recent news
articles under the fair use provision for your
consideration as background material. And they have
all been doubly virus-scanned both with Norton and
McAfee, so the links are safe to click on. Thank you
for your consideration of reporting on this issue
vital to America's present and future.

Don Barletta / State College, PA /
donbarletta@yahoo.com

email me for links:
====================================================
Bookmarks

Vote Tampering with the Diebold touch voting machine - A MUST READ
Voting - Bush vote tallies border on UNBELIEVEABLE 11-9-04
Voting - exit polls + real results do NOT match 11-3-04
Voting - Kerry Won by Greg Palast 11-4-04
Voting - e-voting woes 11-5-04 Technology News
Voting - Growing Collection of Vote Fraud links 11-7-04
Voting - Hacking the Vote - 11-6-04
Voting - IRV OpEd - Technician 11-4-04
Voting - IRV OpEd - California Aggie 11-4-04
Voting - InstantRunoff.com - state group lists
Voting - HR 57 IRV introduced 1-3-01
Voting - see the Muppets explain IRV
Voting - IRV FAQs
Voting - Vote Fraud - TONS of Background Data
Voting - was the 2004 election stolen - YES
indymedia.us - election reports
VotersUnite! 11-13-04
Voting - Diebold Backdoor 11-14-04 checksum.org
Voting - Palast KERRY WON OHIO 11-12-04
Voting - Election FRAUD - Zogby.com 11-12-04
Voting - Answers to Boston Globe's Dismissal of Voter Fraud Story 11-11-04
Voting - to the US Media Who are Whitewashing the 2004 election 11-15-04
Voting - GAO Election Inquiry Letter -- Representative Jerrold Nadler, NY 11-8-04
Voting - Election Problem LOG 349+ and counting 11-15-04
Voting - VOTESCAM The Stealing of America - Vote and Election Fraud
Secure Accurate and Verifiable Elections - S.A.V.E. Democracy
Voting - The Big Fix 2004 11-16-04
Voting - Election 2004 and Lingering Suspicions 11-16-04
Voting - 11-12-04 - 93,000 Extra Votes In Cuyahoga County - Outrage In Ohio
Voting - 11-5-04 - Background Stories about ES&S Voting Machines
Voting - 11-17-04 - Will NH Vote Recount Settle Doubts
Voting - 11-17-04 - Media accused of ignoring election irregularities - The Boston Globe
Voting - 11-18-04 - Ohio Recount Update
Voting - 11-18-04 - Was the vote hacked
Voting - 11-18-04 - Why Isn't Kerry Using $50M Unspent Campaign Money to Fund Recounts
Voting - 11-18-04 - 'Smoke Alarm' Berkeley Researchers Find Major Flaws in Florida
========================

VOTEGATE 2004
Links to Vote Fraud Websites & Info
http://www.apfn.org/APFN/VOTEGATE.HTM

Some sites with voterfraud info
http://www.stolenelection2004.com
http://pages.ivillage.com/americans4america/id17.html
http://radtimes.blogspot.com
http://www.whatreallyhappened.com/2004votefraud.html
http://legitgov.org
http://democrats.com

====================================================

Help America Recount!
If the Politicians and the Parties Won't Do It,
America's Citizens Will!

NATIONAL BALLOT INTEGRITY PROJECT
Speak Out to Congress Now!
Demand Emergency Measures to Protect the 2004 Vote Count!
Another questionable Federal election is certain to precipitate a national crisis, regardless of who is declared the winner.
http://www.ballotintegrity.org/em2004actions.html

About the Help America Recount Fund
The Help America Recount Fund is a new 527 fund working with the National Ballot Integrity Project and other organizations dedicated to ensuring the integrity and transparency of our elections. The sole purpose of the Help America Recount Fund is to finance presidential ballot recounts in Ohio, Florida and elsewhere, for the 2004 election. For more information, contact us at info@helpamericarecount.org . Or you can reach us at Help America Recount Fund, Law Offices of Lowell Finley, 1604 Solano Avenue, Berkeley, CA 94707-2109.
http://helpamericarecount.org/

How YOU Can Help Fight the Vote Fraud That Stole The 2004 Election
http://www.opednews.com/thoreau_111304_help_fight.htm

* A nationwide citizens' movement to generate a public outcry demanding the hand counting of voter verified paper ballots in all jurisdictions.

* A national media blitz and public education saturation efforts to mobilize broad support.

* Coordinated public pressure on multiple fronts.

* Aggressive investigation and data collection to expose irregularities, illegalities and criminality associated with our voting systems, with vigorous prosecution of all crimes thus uncovered.

* Coordinated legislative initiatives in multiple states and on the Federal level.

* Tactical Legal Initiatives on all available fronts, including mass class-action litigation seeking a range of remedies, including injunctions/restraining orders/emergency orders guaranteeing that:

1. All ballots shall be paper ballots and hand counted.

2. Any use of electronic voting systems, whether DRE, optical scan or punch card, shall provide a voter verified paper ballot for every vote cast, at the time the ballot is cast, and that paper ballot -- and only that ballot -- shall be used for the original hand vote count, audit, and final record.

3. Ballot counting shall be performed in the polling place, with full public oversight immediately upon close of the polls.

4. Ballot-count results shall immediately be posted at each polling place and no ballots shall be removed from that polling place until the results of the public vote count are prominently and publicly posted.

5. Official election results will be compiled directly from the signed tally sheets/report forms from each polling place. No central servers or other tallying mechanism(s) manufactured, sold, leased or promoted by any manufacturer or vendor of any type of electronic voting equipment may be used to aggregate voting results.

6. Media outlets shall wait until all polling places are closed and until all official vote counts are completed before reporting any election results or outcome predictions.

* Mobilization of citizen participation and effective training for elections oversight.

* Coordinated Election Monitoring, including relaying of "red flag" alerts, in real time, from poll watchers to technical and legal resources.

* Galvanizing broad support for adoption and implementation, in the 2004 elections, of a Manual Parallel Accounting Control System (MPACS) with uniform auditing of the elections in accordance with computer and accounting industry standards and practices. · Independent exit polling of key federal elections.
http://www.ballotintegrity.org/about.html

Election Fraud: http://www.moderateindependent.com/v2i21election.htm

Black Box Voting -- Cleanup Crew Instructions — Bev Harris, Thu Nov 18 20:43