Downing Street Memo.Com--Targets for Today

[Douglas Carpenter]

More than a month after this document was published, the news media in the US had produced barely a trickle of reports on it (mostly coverage about the lack of coverage). Most of the news giants had ignored it entirely; some have belittled its significance while actually rebuffing citizens’ requests for serious news reporting. The last few days have seen some progress, more coverage and good questions being asked. We are confident, however, that a campaign to inundate these journalists with earnest requests will continue to keep their attention focused (just as the Washington Post finally produced some reports after a recent deluge of letters).

Thus our campaign: Every weekday in June, in cooperation with other activists and bloggers, we will publicize contact information for three distinct media outlets. We ask that you:

• Write a brief letter requesting the journalists to report on the Downing Street Memo, stating succinctly why you believe the leaked document is significant for the US.

• Send that letter as an email to each of the day’s three contacts.

• Return the next day and contact the next three targets of our media campaign.

Here is the link:

http://www.downingstreetmemo.com/takeaction.html

TARGETS FOR THURSDAY, JUNE 16, 2005

1. Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
Contact EITHER
Washington Bureau Chief Craig Gilbert
email: [email protected]
phone: [phone]
OR
Senior National Editor Carl Schwartz
email: [email protected]
phone: [phone]

2. Media General, Senior Washington correspondent John Hall
email: [email protected]
phone: [phone]

3. Detroit Free Press, National News Editor Nancy Laughlin
email: [email protected]
OR
Reader Representative John X. Miller
email: [email protected]
phone: [phone]

The Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel has published one excellent editorial on DSM, but no news reports at all. It is the hometown newspaper of Rep. James Sensenbrenner, who tried to block Rep. John Conyers from holding a hearing in the Capitol on DSM today.

Media General owns a newspaper chain in the southeast. None of their papers have run any articles on DSM to date, though John Hall is a serious investigative journalist and very capable of doing credit to the subject (do not however bother talking to the DC Bureau Chief for Media General). The Detroit Free Press has published only a single article on DSM (the highly abbreviated and uninformative June 8th report by Ron Hutcheson about the Bush/Blair press conference).

__________________________________________________

Here is my standard letter:

Dear Sir/Madam:

As you know, on May 1 of this year a document now commonly referred to as “|The Downing Street Memo” was released into the British Press. This document raises serious question about how the administration was handling intelligence related to Iraq and appears to suggest that the Bush Administration had already decided on war when publicly it was claiming that no such decision had been made. Now further documents have been released in the British media which cast even further doubts.

These documents and other documents suggest that the Bush administration was determined to “fix intelligence” around a predetermined policy. Some of these documents make it clear that the administration had no credible plan for dealing with the post-war occupation.

It is most disturbing that there has been a virtual media blackout regarding “The Downing Street Minutes” and other disturbing documents.

Even more disturbing is the absence in the America media of any credible in-depth follow-up discussion or coverage regarding strong, credible and independent evidence that the Bush Administration intentionally mislead the U.S. Congress, the media and the American people.

I do hope you will accept the responsibility to address this issue and provide serious investigative journalism into this matter.

Furthermore, today-Thursday June 16, 2005, Rep. John Conyers, Jr., ranking minority member of the House Judiciary Committee, and other House members will hold a hearing to consider testimony concerning the Downing Street minutes and questions of possible fixing of prewar intelligence. I do hope you will be giving full coverage to these events.

Sincerely,
__________________________________________________


A True Voice of Opposition
A Voice for Working People
Not the Elite
http://www.bernie.org/

[deacon]

1. I know this may be a small thing/maybe not--but i think people should

be signing up for Yahoo and Google email alerts on the DSM.

It lets the search engines know there is interest too.

[rodeodance]

3. somebody on DU said the Milw-Journal-Sentinal did a good report

on it a while back--but i never did find it on the online edition.

[radfringe]

2. C-Span 3 will carry hearing

but I'm bummed out - we don't get C-Span 3... arrrggghhh

[rodeodance]

4. but you can listen-see on your computer.

[rodeodance]

5. It is at 2:30 ET

[radfringe]

6. only have dial-up service on our road

cable/phone et al won't bring it to our road or upgrade the service because there are not enough people on the road to make it worth while...

I've tried watching c-span and/or other stuff on the computer -- but it's too "choppy", computer connection locks up, have to reload, reboot.... waaaaaaaaaaaaay too frustrating...

[dweller]

8. choose the option to 'listen' rather than watch

when i can't get the picture, at least i can listen.

fwiw.
dp

[annabanana]

7. apparently it will be re-run in the evening by CSpan2

at least according to a letter someone here received yesterday.

[Pryderi]

9. What time will it run on C-SPAN2?

[Pryderi]

10. Re-run on CSPAN2 @ 8PM