wag the dog

[Bill Irwin]

What!  An illegitimate president in an ill advised war with no final
solution in mind and no free press - no, can't happen in America.  Are you
some kind of subversive or something?
Bill

----- Original Message -----
From: <StepCher@aol.com>
To: <austin-ghetto-list@pairlist.net>
Sent: Friday, October 12, 2001 5:53 AM
Subject: FWD: wag the dog



>  U.S. media forget about dimpled chads
>  By JOHN IBBITSON
>
>
>  Thursday, October 11, 2001 ? Print Edition, Page A1
>
>
>  WASHINGTON -- Just weeks ago, it would have been the biggest
>
>  story in the land: A final, comprehensive audit would reveal
>
>  whether Al Gore or George W. Bush should be president. Today,
>
>  it seems to be nobody's news.
>
>
>  A consortium of major U.S. news organizations has decided
>
>  unanimously not to analyze and report the results of the
>
>  $1-million (U.S.) audit they commissioned to identify which
>
>  presidential candidate received the most votes in Florida in last
>
>  November's election.
>
>
>  By "spiking" the story, they have raised questions about
>
>  whether the country's biggest media conglomerates are
>
>  suppressing news that potentially could tarnish the image of Mr.
>
>  Bush in the midst of the President's war on terrorism.
>
>
>  "I find it truly extraordinary that they have made this decision,"
>
>  said Jane Kirtley, media ethics specialist at the University of
>
>  Minnesota. "I am so chilled by what is going on."
>
>
>  The Supreme Court, in ordering an end to the recounting of
>
>  votes in Florida last December, effectively handed the presidency
>
>  to Mr. Bush. But there was evidence that, had accidentally
>
>  mismarked ballots such as the famous "dimpled chads" been
>
>  properly scrutinized, Mr. Gore might have won the state and the
>
>  presidency.
>
>
>  Last January, The New York Times, The Washington Post, The
>
>  Wall Street Journal, Associated Press, Newsweek, CNN and
>
>  several other news organizations banded together and
>
>  commissioned the University of Chicago's National Opinion
>
>  Research Center to conduct a comprehensive examination of the
>
>  ballots not officially counted in the Florida result.
>
>  The centre was charged with examining each of about 180,000
>
>  uncounted ballots, reporting on which marks are on each ballot.
>
>
>  The survey was completed around the end of August, Julie
>
>  Antelman, a spokeswoman for the centre, said. Reporters and
>
>  editors from each member of the consortium were then to review
>
>  the survey and attempt to discern how each voter had intended
>
>  to vote, and who, on that basis, won Florida.
>
>
>  But shortly after the Sept. 11 attacks on the World Trade Center
>
>  and the Pentagon, the consortium unanimously agreed not to
>
>  proceed with the analysis.
>
>
>  To choose deliberately not to report major news is a remarkable
>
>  decision for them to take. But they say the decision was taken
>
>  because of a lack of resources and that the war on terrorism has
>
>  made the story irrelevant.
>
>
>  "Right now, we don't have the time, the personnel or the space
>
>  in the newspaper to focus on this," Catherine Mathis,
>
>  vice-president of corporate communications at the New York
>
>  Times Co., said in an interview. "There's a much bigger story
>
>  right now."
>
>
>  Work on the Florida recount, she said, has been "postponed
>
>  indefinitely."
>
>
>  "Our belief is that the priorities of the country have changed, and
>
>  our priorities have changed, and we need to marshal our
>
>  person-power and our financial resources to cover the events of
>
>  Sept. 11 and its aftermath," said Steven Goldstein,
>
>  vice-president of corporate communications for Dow Jones & Co.,
>
>  which publishes The Wall Street Journal. "When times have
>
>  settled down, I'm sure all of this will come out. But not in the
>
>  next few weeks."
>
>
>  There have been previous efforts to examine rejected Florida
>
>  ballots in an attempt to divine the intent of the voters who cast
>
>  them, including a survey by The Miami Herald that suggested Mr.
>
>  Bush indeed won the state.
>
>
>  But the study commissioned by the news consortium was by far
>
>  the most detailed and objective. Because antiquated voting
>
>  machines were used in Florida and the punch-card ballots were
>
>  complicated, many votes were marked as spoiled when a
>
>  machine failed to punch cleanly the ballot's chad -- the bit of
>
>  paper to be punched out.
>
>
>  To help divine voter intent, each of 180,000 uncounted ballots
>
>  was examined by a three-person panel, and its marking
>
>  described. Was the chad "dimpled," (bulging, but intact)?
>
>  Hanging by one or three corners? Could light be seen through
>
>  the intended hole?
>
>
>  The results were tabulated in a set of tables. "The National
>
>  Opinion Research Center has completed its part of the task," Ms.
>
>  Antelman said. "What remains is for the media group to request
>
>  the data set."
>
>
>  Neither the centre nor the consortium knows whether the data
>
>  suggest that, had the uncounted votes been tallied, Mr. Gore or
>
>  Mr. Bush would have won the state. Mr. Goldstein rejected the
>
>  suggestion that the media might be avoiding the story for fear of
>
>  embarrassing the President in a time of national crisis.
>
>
>  "It has absolutely nothing to do with that whatsoever," he said.
>
>  "The priorities have changed. People are focused on the fact that
>
>  we're at war."
>
>
>  But "to say it is not a story any more is an utterly ingenuous
>
>  thing to say," Prof. Kirtley said. "Of course it's still a story,
>
>  whatever are the results of that audit.
>
>
>  "They should just do it."
>
>
>
>        Copyright © 2001 Globe Interactive, a division of Bell Globemedia
>
>                                           Publishing Inc.
>
>
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