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Big media has lost credibility- Americans turn to internet for truth on stolen election

by Open-Publishing - Saturday 15 January 2005
14 comments

Edito Internet Elections-Elected USA

by Don Williams

Last Friday I addressed a group of Democrats in a Blount County cafeteria, and standing there amid some 50 or so finishing their coffee and iced tea and apple pie, I satisfied my curiosity about something: "How many of you believe Bush stole the 2004 election?" I asked.

I was surprised when at least two-thirds immediately raised their hands. Ask the same question to a room full of Republicans, and you’ll get hooted off the floor. It’s a sign of the times. These days what you know or think you know depends on who you tune in.

The 2004 election is a perfect example. It may or may not surprise you, depending on where you get your news, to learn there were demonstrations, lawsuits, recounts and hearings in Ohio, Washington State, Washington, D.C., and elsewhere about the irregular voting patterns that gave us four more years of George W. Bush.

You likely heard little about those activities unless you checked Internet sources. On the day Rep. John Conyers held hearings on such matters, they hardly made the evening news.

Still, the good folks who raised their hands in the Blount County cafeteria had reason to be suspicious of this election. After all, no media had taken much trouble to alleviate their fears. The networks and cable mostly ignored, hooted down or offered dubious explanations for voter anomalies.

But these were not trivial.

First of all, exit polls predicted a substantial Kerry victory. Even conservative Fox News loudly acknowledges that discrepancy in a mocking way. Our government often regards discrepancies between exit polls and official tallies in other countries as signs of voter fraud. I’ve heard no convincing reason from the media or government for the difference here. So I wonder about it, especially given the 2000 election debacle.

The January issue of Harper’s magazine lists several other reasons - some anecdotal, some more telling - why we should be concerned about the state of our democracy.

# For example, a Franklin, Ohio, precinct possessed of 638 voters at first awarded 4,258 votes to Bush.

# In 47 of 67 counties in Florida, Bush got more votes than there were registered Republicans.

# Of the 120 million-plus votes cast nationwide, about one-third were on voting machines provided by private corporations. At least one of them - Diebold - was under control of a zealous Republican CEO who promised to deliver Ohio to Bush.

# In Illinois, Maine and Wisconsin, states that relied mostly on paper ballots, exit polls agreed with the final tally. In North Carolina, New Hampshire, New Mexico, Pennsylvania, Florida and Ohio, which relied much more heavily on electronic touch screens, the discrepancy between exit polls and the final tally invariably favored Bush.

# In 10 of 11 swing states, the final result differed from the predicted result, and in all 10 of those states, the shift added votes for Bush.

# Voters in six states reported touching the screen for Kerry and seeing their ballots marked for Bush.

None of this was conclusive proof of a stolen election, but it should’ve been enough to spark in-depth stories by the media. We should know beyond doubt who controls the software in touch-screen machines. Is it foolproof? I don’t know. I suspect you don’t either. Such ignorance and press indifference bodes ill for the future of our democracy.

I wouldn’t bring up the negligent post-election coverage if the media had not let us down lately in so many ways. Several news organs apologized for not being more skeptical of the Bush claims about weapons of mass destruction and al-Qaida connections and Saddam’s alleged ties to 9/11 and the costs of waging war in Iraq.

If big media led us astray on Iraq - and they admit they did - isn’t it possible they also blew the election coverage? To many of the good folks I spoke to in Blount County last week, it isn’t a close call.

Don Williams is the founding editor of New Millennium Writings. You may write to him at PO Box 2463, Knoxville, TN., 37901, e-mail him at donwilliams7@charter.net .

Copyright 2005, Knoxville News Sentinel Co.

http://knoxnews.com/kns/opinion_col...

Forum posts

  • Folks, there’s some serious money involved to keep the status quo. This isn’t about patriotism or religion or terror or democracy or crusades or Michael Moore or Saddam or any of that other crap. This is about fat cats who band together to do anything, and I mean ANYTHING, to keep the flow of cash surging in. This means keeping us peons under control, scared witless and obedient, and big media is doing what they are paid to do. The internet is the last bastion of freedom of thought and may actually save capitalism from imploding the way communism did. That is, if it isn’t outlawed first.

    • Don, thanks to you for stepping forward. However, allow me to point out one small error in your story.

      You stated, "On the day Rep. John Conyers held hearings on such matters, they hardly made the evening news."

      That line should read, "On the days Rep. John Conyers held hearings on such matters, they didn’t make the evening news."

      That’s right. I watched. There was NO coverage by ANY network of ANY of the hearings Conyers held, either in Washington, DC or in Ohio. The mainstream media also FAILED to mention that there was ANY recount in Ohio, though they glibly cover the recount for the governor’s race in Washington state without fail. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out why. The Republican candidate LOST in the recount.

      There’s more. Much more. The media is complicit in many plots and schemes to defraud the American and world public and they continue to this day. Even last night, on PBS (now completely controlled by Phizer, the Hewlett Foundation, ADM, Smith Barney and other fat cat corporations), Jim Lehrer and his two "commentators" discussed the "media" story of the week. NO, not the Armstrong Williams story - another lapdog of the administration who was PAID to promote administration agenda - but the story of CBS firing four staffers over the "fake documents" story concerning Bush’s service record.

      The blatant couching of "news" by the mainstream media is nothing short of treason. We are entitled to the TRUTH, not the scrubbed, vacuous mouthings of Brian Williams, Dan Rather, Peter Jennings, Rush Limbaugh (now, not only a pill popper, but an exposed LIAR), Bill O’Reilly and the rest of the moron lapdogs at FOX.

      The fight has just begun.

      Rick Gagliano

      Publisher, Downtown Magazine

      http://www.dtmagazine.com

    • Is it possible to get any foreign journalists to cover this issue?

      It could win investigative journalism awards, which should tempt someone out there in the world who is not fearful of Bush intimidation tactics. This would serve two purposes: 1) get the word out about the fraud in the American voting system and 2) embarass the American media for suppressing such a huge and important story—which is a story in itself.

      If someone has media contacts in Canada or other democracies, perhaps they can persuade them to help us.

  • Media is supposed to be, among other things, responsible. But where is the responsibility? Lost in the prospect of losing their jobs, that’s where, or else, when the big news story is about the latest basketball glory movie they make sure to point out that the movie also contains language, sexual and drug situations. Now, that’s responsibility.

    I’m not sure what to do about big media. I know that I no longer support it. I don’t buy their newspapers, I try not to go onto big media web sites, and I refuse to buy anything chic.

    I guess if we all stopped supporting big media then it would go away. Except that the same thing that happened to independent music would happen to independent media. It too would get bought out and commercialized.

    FUck it.

    But here’s the truth, Elitists take note. THe elite cannot be supported by a crumbling lower class. In order to increase their own quality of life they should raise the pyramid up from the bottom. If the bottom of the pyramid is crushed the whole pyramid, including them, is brought down a level.

    Fascism has historically not been sustainable.

    If only the elite had the intelligence to match their wealth we would all be better off.

    M. Bellefeuille

  • Wake Up America!! The MEDIA runs the Country, not the House, Senate or even W!
    They don’t report the news they MAKE the news! Even more scarey then their lack of coverage of our most recent stolen election is their lack of coverage of a HISTORIC event on Jan. 6. The challenge to Presidential Electors, which is onlythe 2nd time this has happened since 1877. This ACTUALLY happened, they can’t deny it so they just don’t acknowledge it. The ONLY mention I heard of this was CNN about 4 stories in led in with " Why a small group of Democrats are trying to slow down the Electoral process?"".
    I guess the Andrea Yates murder trial was more important. They don’t cover important events, they make events they cover IMPORTANT, by covering them!
    Every 4 years we have the biggest reality show on T.V....our Presidential Campaign! It is scripted to have 2 Parties (which really aren’t any different), debate and challenge each other, when the outcome is already scripted. Why do you think Gore and Kerry didn’t fight when they had been the true winners!
    There is only 1 winner of this whole show..., not we the people.
    THE MEDIA!!

    Please join me and boycott TV news and newspapers!

    • The reason for the Guise of a Presidential Campaign is so the media can make hundreds of millions of dollars on advertising during this campaign. They have everything to gain and nothing to lose.

  • Media and Credibilty should not be used in the same sentence in this great Faux Democracy we call America.
    The Media is controlling the people, they think they will foster apathy by not covering protests, but it WILL backfire, they are only creating more participation by the people.
    Without us they have nothing!
    Shut off your T.V."s!

    • "Without us they have nothing!
      Shut off your T.V."s!

      Yes Yes!!

      The only way they have power is if we believe them, watch them and buy the products that they advertise. If we boycott their advertisers(and be sure to make them know why) they will lose everything. If we don’t care what they say on TV, their advertisers won’t care to give them money either.

      The mainstream media where most of the money goes in political campaigns as well and we can all see how well that went.

      Think about it, these same news commentaters(liars) have been lying since our CIA killed JFK. These same bastards are controlling everything now. If you watch the video of JFK being shot, there is no doubt where the shot came from and yet Peter Jennings would rather you watch a computer re-creation and believe what he says, not your own eyes.

  • Nobody should believe the media. They only tell us what they want us to hear and hide the rest.
    How many more outlets does Murdoch have to own, direct TV, satellite. Fox etc...
    Listen to music, go on the net (before they take that over), and read a book, but don’t watch their broadcasts. They will never change unless we hit them in the pocketbook.

  • Great Story Don! The media is the root of all the problems in this Country. They are truly the EVIL ONES! They keep the real news from us and feed us garbage.

    • Great story Don! You confirmed what I already know. Ultra lib ideas really don’t have any foundation in reality! Check your kool-aid.

    • Yup !!, I gets my reality courtesy of Fox news , the Old testament, and monster trucks, hallelujah!!

  • A naive (perhaps) question from one of the many "concerned" on the other side of the Atalantic. What with our own election coming up...

    Hasn’t anybody discussed "rerunning" the election in some of the key states? With a paper ballot, international observers, blah blah. I realise you’d need quite a bit of cash to do it right, but there must be enough people who are sufficiently committed to give their time freely. To do it on a national scale would be impossible, I realise, but just as a test case in Florida and Ohio (of course), but also in some smaller states like Iowa, Nevada.... Four or five would be enough to collect clear evidence that even the mainstream media surely would not be able to ignore. Surely there’s no "legal" reason that such a thing could be prevented.

    • The people who own the media helped fiddle the election so what the bloody hell do you expect?

      Democracy is an Illusion a trick to make you think you are free...you are not... your a slave to the wage system... the chains have only been replaced with the pay cheque.

      Those with the cash call the shots…and the moment it looks like democracy may change things you will have the troops out on the streets before you can whistle Dixie.

      Like Stalin said those who vote don’t matter a jot...it’s who count’s them and then says whose won that’s running the show.