Reply #144: Ive already been in contact with them over their ultra-right wing

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commentaries. Here is our correspondence:

Dear Mr. ________,

I also appreciate you taking the time to send us your frank criticism of "The Point" commentary. Mark Hyman is certainly trying to produce arguments designed to elicit strong reactions from our viewers. He wants us all to think about our own views during another important presidential election cycle. Mark is not trying to disguise his thoughts as anything but commentary. His arguments are independent of our local journalists who are working hard to seek truth and report it fully in a fair and balanced way.

I am grateful for the fact that in America you can monitor a local TV
station. You can make a list of advertisers. You can call them. You can lobby others to do the same. I also think it is great that anyone who has the resources to own a TV station can actually state an opinion and yet let the news department act independently of the commentators.

Mark Hyman is offering commentary just like a newspaper's editorial
board. So, I am concerned and disappointed that in the end you will no longer watch CBS2. I don't want you to miss the award-winning local coverage of news, weather and sports.

We appreciate your feedback. You may write directly to Mark at
www.KGAN.com. To send a comment just click on The Point box on the
right side of our home page. Please write or call me any time with
your questions comments or concerns.

Sincerely,


Rod Peterson
CBS2 KGAN-TV News Director
319-395-9060 ext. 401
[email protected]


Here is my original letter:

So hopefully you can get my point.

I sat through another one of your right-wing news commentaries that should best be classified as commercials for the Bush-Cheney campaign, or at least attack advertisements against John Kerry. How can you continue to show these horrid commentaries? There is so little quality local news. I used to watch your channel because I couldn't care less about helicopter camera angles. But now that is all I'm left with should I need local news. I'm not alone. When I talk with friends at work or other local activists, "The Point" frequently comes up when we discuss the sad state of local news.
But some good has perhaps come out of this. I plan to watch your channel for one more week with some friends of mine on a rotating schedule. We will be cataloging all of the local sponsors advertising during your news casts so that we may contact them and ask that they discontinue their accounts with you. We plan to notify them that we will not give them our patronage until they pull their adds. While we are just a few, there are several local organizations that may love to participate. The local Democratic party, America Coming Together, and ACT for Change (to name a few) would no doubt love to help and they have thousands of E-mail addresses in their databanks. Will we be successful? Only time will tell.

I hope you will take the time to respond to this. I never found your
local newscasters to be as offensive as Mark Hyman, yet it is they who are in jeopardy as each time "The Point" airs, you alienate more viewers and endager the jobs of employees of News Channel 2. Perhaps you can use the feelings expressed in this E-mail to take "The Point" off the air. We are not talking about honest political disagreements. Mark Hyman lies and distorts. Stand up for yourself and your local employees.



Can we get some DUers to mass E-mail this fuckwad?