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Date: Wed, 17 Dec 1997 05:33:57 -0800
To: (Recipient list suppressed)
From: Paul Andrew Mitchell [address in tool bar]
Subject: SLS: "Reporters ... NOT Reporting ...." (fwd)
<snip>
>
>Date: Wed, 17 Dec 1997 05:20:46 -0500
>From: Mayor Loz <landlord@telerama.lm.com>
>Subject: Reporters ... NOT Reporting....
>
>
>December 17, 1997
>
>An open letter to my colleagues
>
>For nearly 20 years I served as a reporter and editor at daily
>newspapers in major markets around the country. As a reporter I've
>covered every imaginable story from mass murders to political races. As
>the top editor of several daily newspapers, I've supervised hundreds of
>other journalists -- some of them good, some of them bad.
>
>In all my years in the establishment press, I can't think of a single
>instance in which a colleague questioned the soundness of my news
>judgment. Therefore, I've got wonder: Have I suddenly lost my touch? Or
>have my colleagues in the major media lost their nerve?
>
>I refer to the lack of coverage of one of the most sensational stories
>of our time -- the apparent bullet hole found in Commerce Secretary Ron
>Brown's skull.
>
>So far, two highly credible military forensic pathologists involved in
>the investigation of Brown's plane crash death last year have come
>forward, one the record, to state their conviction that there is an
>unexplained, circular wound, characteristic of a gunshot, in Brown's
>head. Air Force Lt. Col. Steve Cogswell and Army Lt. Col. David Hause
>both agree that Brown should have been autopsied. Remarkably, he was
>not.
>
>Today, after examining the photographic and x-ray evidence, one of the
>nation's most prominent forensic pathologists sticks his neck out to
>agree with their findings. Dr. Cyril Wecht of Pittsburgh said there was
>"more than enough" evidence to suggest possible homicide in Brown's
>death to warrant an autopsy.
>
>"It's not even arguable in the field of medical legal investigations
>whether an autopsy should have been conducted on Brown," said Wecht, who
>has conducted some 13,000 autopsies himself and reviewed approximately
>30,000 others. "I'll wager you can't find a forensic pathologist in
>America who will say Brown should not have been autopsied."
>
>In this case, you can forget political motivations being behind Wecht's
>outspokenness. He is a prominent Democrat.
>
>Meanwhile, as the experts line up behind the unexplained bullet hole
>theory, the original explanation of Brown's death is growing more
>suspect. Air Force Col. William Gormley, the pathologist who signed off
>on the Brown case for the government, has changed his story. After being
>confronted with the photographs on a television show, he now renounces
>earlier statements suggesting the hole didn't penetrate the skull. Brain
>matter is clearly visible in the photographs -- which, strangely, had
>been lost by the government. About the missing x-rays and photos, Wecht
>joins the suspicious among us.
>
>"The frequency of lost x-rays, hospital records, documents, autopsy
>materials and other materials in a medical-legal investigation is
>directly in proportion to the complexity, controversy and external
>challenges," he says. He says such losses are "very, very rare" in
>normal cases.
>
>There appears to be nothing normal about the Brown case -- which, you
>would think, would add to its newsworthiness. Uh-uh. Not only has the
>story been largely ignored by the big papers, some of the nation's
>leading reporters have begun dismissing the reports without ever looking
>at the evidence.
>
>Howard Kurtz, the media critic of the Washington Post, cited the Brown
>story as one more reason to dismiss prize-winning investigative reporter
>Christopher Ruddy's earlier reporting on the death of Vincent Foster. Is
>that journalism? Or is that faith?
>
>I wouldn't have believed my colleagues could be this myopic, this
>closed-minded, this trusting of authority if I hadn't seen it happen
>over and over and over again in recent years. For certain stories, no
>amount of evidence can persuade journalists to question official
>government findings. Worse yet, any renegade reporters who do had better
>be prepared for an inquisition, ridicule and ostracism.
>
>Frankly, I consider it to be a badge of honor to be rejected by a
>profession that has lost its moral foundation, its curiosity, in fact,
>its whole sense of purpose.
>
>No, it's not me that has lost my news judgment. I got into this business
>inspired by the press' role in uncovering the Watergate scandal. Back
>then, reporters and editors had no problem questioning government
>handouts. What's changed since then? The party in the White House? Is
>that all it takes?
>
>If the press doesn't get on the ball soon, my dear colleagues are going
>to owe Richard Nixon a profound and posthumous apology.
>
>
>Joseph Farah is editor of the Internet newspaper WorldNetDaily.com and
>executive director of the Western Journalism Center an independent group
>of investigative reporters.
>
>Go to the between the lines archive
>
<snip>
===========================================================================
Paul Andrew Mitchell, Sui Juris : Counselor at Law, federal witness 01
B.A.: Political Science, UCLA; M.S.: Public Administration, U.C.Irvine 02
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ship to: c/o 2509 N. Campbell, #1776 : this is free speech, at its best 06
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_____________________________________: Law is authority in written words 09
As agents of the Most High, we came here to establish justice. We shall 10
not leave, until our mission is accomplished and justice reigns eternal. 11
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