|
Editor, The North Country Gazette:
I have been getting involved with the growing media reform movement. I am
encouraged by the number of people who made the effort to show up for the
media reform meeting in Tampa on the second weekend in September. I think
that we all know many people who feel like national news coverage is biased,
and I am sure that some of you feel like the local press also ignores or
slants stories.
Tom Tito provided an excellent example of this at the meeting. Tom knew
that information for a story had been provided to the St. Petersburg Times about
Mayor Rick Baker's involvement with his family's business which was charged
with defrauding the government well before the last election. However,
instead of reporting on this information in a timely manner, the St. Pete
Times sat on it until after the election, and then apparently ran it so that
they would not look like they were ignoring it all together. Tom has just
informed me that the the St. Pete Times ran the story because they had
learned that the Weekly Planet was going to run a story on the St. Pete
Times failure to cover this story on Rick Baker.
This story about Rick Baker can be found in the St. Pete Times on April 11,
2001 on page 1B, but as Tom pointed out, it cannot be found by searching the
St. Pete Times website. Why would the St. Pete Times not report on this
before the election and why has it made this story difficult to find in its
database? Wes Fager's article below has some information which may explain
the Times questionable actions.
We have all heard that politics is local. I think that in order for the
media reform movement to have the greatest impact, it must focus on the
local media's distortion of stories and failure to cover stories.
While exposing the national news media's failures to cover stories and
biased coverage of stories is important to inform the public, the national
news media often ignores this information because it doesn't experience any
direct impact from the exposure of its failures. If it becomes a big enough
story in the alternative news media, the national media can pick it up then
and put their spin on it. Most people will never know the difference.
However, local media can be affected by their failure to cover stories. If
enough people know about a local media outlet's failure to cover a story or
its biased coverage of a story, then it may lose readers or viewers to a
competitor. This explains why the St. Pete Times ran the story about Rick
Baker's family after the election. If it had completely ignored the story,
it might have lost more of its credibility and some of its readers.
The internet provides a low cost means to report on issues, but most of the
internet news sites only cover national stories. A few websites try to
cover local news, but most of these do not get very much traffic. The Indy
Media sites are trying to do this, but due to the volunteer nature of Indy
Media, most of the Indy Media sites lack continuity and include stories that
would seem to be more appropriate for the National Enquirer.
Wes Fager has posted some of his articles on the Tampa Indy Media website,
but they still have been ignored by the local mass media. Apparently, the
local mass media does not believe that the Tampa Indy Media reaches very
many people. Of course, this belief is bolstered by the fact that the
counter for the Tampa Indy Media website is regularly reset without changing
the date to reflect the date on which it was reset. As a result, it appears
that the site only gets about 100 hits a day when it gets well over 1,000.
As many of you know, I am fighting the corrupt judges of Pinellas County,
Florida and Florida's Second District Court of Appeals. They have been
willing to ignore the law for the influential local Republican law firm of
Battaglia, Ross, Dicus & Wein. I have evidence of their corruption, but as
in most cases, the local media is ignoring the scandal. The St. Pete Times
did a very biased story about this which completely ignored the documents
that I provided to them. I have included the link to this story below so
that you can compare their coverage to the other sites' coverage.
Fortunately, I have a paid invoice showing each of the documents that I gave
to the St. Pete Times, and I am about to call them on it. This could prove
to be very embarrassing for them, and it could be a detailed example of
media bias which could generate significant public interest.
Florida's frontrunner for the Republican nomination for Governor in 2006 is
its current Attorney General Charlie Crist who is a Pinellas County
Republican. I have evidence showing that Florida law enforcement ignored
felonies committed by court personnel and members of the Battaglia firm.
Some of it is shown at the Rule of Law link below. I think that this could
be very embarrassing for Florida's Republicans if it ever gets widespread
exposure.
Fortunately, several websites that focus on judicial corruption have posted
information about my plight, and June Maxam of The Empire Journal and The North Country Gazette has recently done stories about it.
Following are links to some of this coverage:
Mark Adams Article 1
Justice For All Or Justice For Sale.
Mark Adams Article 2
Pinellas Judge Crockett Farnell No Stranger To Recusal Motions.
North Country Gazette article
Contempt Hearing Set In Florida Attorney’s Case
Rule of Law info
http://www.rule-of-law.info/adams-smith.htm
The St. Pete Times article about me
He's sure he's right, but he's all alone.
Wes Fager has written numerous articles about the Pinellas County
Republicans and corruption for http://www.thestraights.com/index.htm. There
is an interesting one on their front page now about an influential Pinellas
County Republican, Ambassador Mel Sembler, and his lawsuit to get his penis
pump back. That's right his penis pump, but that's not news, is it? How
about the millions of dollars of taxpayer money used to build his shopping
centers and "rehab" centers, is that news?
Wes has published other articles about the Pinellas County Republicans which
have been ignored by the local press. See the article about Mel Sembler,
Pinellas Republicans, and St. Pete Times which explains why the St. Pete
Times has begun ignoring stories about local corruption.
http://www.tampaindymedia.org/bin/site/templates/default.asp?area_2=imc/open%20newswire/2005/Mar/53793.5625.dat
and more
http://www.tampaindymedia.org/bin/site/templates/default.asp?area_2=imc/open%20newswire/2005/Feb/10602.447265625.dat
You would think that these stories would be picked up by the local press,
but they have either failed to cover them at all, or as in my case, they
published a misleading story. Once again, I think that the best way to
reform the media is by exposing the failures of the local press. I think
that we all know many people who are tired of the way that the mass media is
reporting the news and who are ready to get their news from a media outlet
that they trust. This is a vast untapped market. An organization that
reported the news honestly and provided differing points of view could tap
this lucrative market while providing the public with valuable information
that is currently being withheld. This could give the local mass media some
serious competition that would force them to reform their coverage
especially if it began to compete for advertising revenue.
I believe that a new media revolution can be started by just a few
determined people. We need a few people with journalism experience,
business experience, website design experience, and legal experience and a
few others who can contribute time and funds to make a difference. I think
that we have the experience, desire, and resources among our group. We
already have stories that we can use to show the public that our local mass
media is not reporting the news accurately, and we can get the word out
about our revolutionary news outlet in a variety of cost effective ways.
One of my friends is currently running for mayor of Pinellas Park. He is
trying to shake up the Pinellas County Democratic Party. Its current
leadership has not been very successful, and he is tired of seeing
Republicans elected over and over. He is interested in helping start up a
new online media outlet, and so am I. If you are too, email me at
localnewsreform@hotmail.com and let's start putting this together.
Please spread the word to your contacts to see if more people are interested
in our local news site and to let them know about these stories. Thank you
for your attention and your efforts to inform the public.
Sincerely,
Mark A. Adams, Esquire
Tampa, FL
10-07-05
© 2005 North
Country Gazette
|
