Carolyn Taplin writes from Canada:

“With regard to your link to the article at counterpunch.org questioning low voter turnout by Iraqi expatriates: I read an article in a Canadian publication just before the election that may answer this question. Apparently, many ex-Iraqis didn’t register for two reasons. One, they were afraid that attaching their names to a list of registrants would endanger their surviving family members still in Iraq and two, they feel they are now citizens of their new country and should be voting accordingly. One fellow interviewed said he’d been in Canada for twenty years, his son went to public school and played hockey and the boy knew nothing about Iraq. The man feels he and his family are Canadian now and he votes in our elections. He also expressed a great deal of concern over the safety of family members still in Iraq and felt that if he registered someone connected to al-Qaeda would find out and do his family harm. He claimed al-Qaeda was ‘everywhere’, including Canada, and the information would fall into the wrong hands.

“I noticed yesterday one of your readers questioning voting booths being set up in the U.S. for the Iraqi election. Canada did this as well and I have no idea why either. I’ve never seen it done this way before. I wonder if maybe it was for transparency or logistical reasons? I don’t recall this happening when Afghanistan held their first election after the Taliban fell. I’m sure there’s an explanation for this procedure but I could only guess at this point.

“You may be right about MoveOn being somewhat afraid of the media. They were getting some bad press there for a while with the media inferring the group is very left-wing, a near crime, apparently, in the U.S. It’s also possible they’re naive enough to believe you can only change the system from within. The only problem with that, of course, is that once you’re far enough in to have any power to make changes the system has already changed you. Time has run out for merely making incremental moves.”

ETHICS?

Jan Torchnik: “Yo Danny,”

“Talk about feeling helpless. This is typical of the manipulations that the Republicans in power employ on every level, to strengthen their unbreakable infrastructure.

http://www.citizen.org/pressroom/release.cfm?ID=1868

“What can we do about this? Is this reversible? I mean, how is the ethics committee chosen? I mean, how is this not a criminal act? Sorry to lay this question on you during your pinched nerve phase, but as usual, I’ve got nowhere else to go. Hope you feel better.”

I keep hearing from folks who listened to my newscast at WBCN in Boston back in the day (the 70’s) and I thank you all for reconnecting. Example: Bill Darbyshire writes:

How well we remember “Danny Schechter, your News Dissector” on WBCN…. we lived in Marblehead and Amesbury, MA, and Hampton NH during those years and always new you were head and shoulders above the rest…

Keep on doing well! And now that we’re living in SW Michigan, we “re-discovered” your whereabouts, we’ll keep on reading your “stuff”. It’s still great!

From an Old Massachusetts Watermelon (pinko/commie inside, green and liberal/tree-hugger outside)!”

PBS ATTACKS FIDEL

Letter to KQED (PBS in SanFrancisco) from Karen Lee Wald:

Dear KQED,

“There was a time when KQED was a beacon of sunshine in an otherwise drab or threatening world. Contributing to KQED was a moral obligation, because it was the only way to guarantee the quality and diversity — and independence — of programming we couldn’t find anywhere else.

“In the early 1970s, I produced my first video, with the help of Daniel del Solar, via KQED’s program to assist various communities of the Bay Area learn to do video production.

“With your airing of that hatchet-job on Fidel Castro and the Cuban Revolution, however, I feel as though the final nail has been put in the coffin of what was once truly representative public television. It seems that Big Government, now in the name of George W. Bush and cronies, calls all the shots, and PBS just rolls over and actually airs shoddy, transparent rightwing propaganda pieces it would never have even considered a couple of decades ago.

What good does it do for all of us who once pitched in our nickels and dimes to keep public radio and tv public, if the money from the big corporations and big government so clearly outspends and outranks us?”

GOOD NEWS

From Editor and Publisher:

“NEW YORK — With reports of continued ethical flaps among journalists, from Jayson Blair to “60 Minutes” to government-funded columnists, public opinion about journalists’ ethics seems to be sinking. But a new study by two college professors shows that –public opinion notwithstanding — journalism is actually one of the most ethical professions in the country.

“Lee Wilkins of the Missouri School of Journalism, and Renita Coleman of Louisiana State University, administered the Defining Issues Test, an assessment that uses psychologist Lawrence Kohlberg’s stages of moral development, to 249 working journalists in newsrooms across the country. The results showed journalists ranking fourth highest among professionals tested.”

http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1000787370

WMD OPENS TOMORROW NIGHT

Some press attention:

NEW YORK DAILY NEWS

“Rush and McCoy: ‘Fahrenheit’ fans should check out Danny Schechter’s new documentary, ‘Weapons of Mass Deception,’ opening Friday here, in which investigative vets Seymour Hersh, Greg Dyke and Peter Arnett join former ABC Newsman Schechter in taking big media to task for its coverage of the Iraq war.”

The Willamette Week In Portland Oregon made WMD its pick of the week.

Weapons of Mass Deception

“What if the American media had actually told the truth during this war? What if they covered all angles and perspectives and did not withhold information from the American public? Weapons of Mass Deception asks whether the real weapon of mass destruction is the American media machine. The film ponders just how much the distorted and sensationalized news coverage fueled this war. Danny Schechter, veteran media critic and former 20/20 producer, goes into the fields of television, print media and the network’s jingoistic war theme songs in order to thoroughly investigate the blurred line between news and propaganda. One of the most interesting contrasts is one between journalists during the Vietnam War and those during this current “Operation Iraqi Liberation.” Decades ago, journalists exposed the gravity of U.S. war crimes and challenged the administration’s decisions, while the public was watching. Now, teams of embedded reporters are handpicked by networks, trained by the military and given a list of topics they may not discuss, sort of like a reality TV show. So what happened? Schechter focuses on this single question and explores it deeply. If only our networks—or at least our journalists—would do the same. –NR (Amanda Deutch)”

I also have an op-ed in Newsday today on the media coverage of the Michael Jackson trial.

Keep your letters flowing. Write Dissector@mediachannel.org