DU Shrine to Martyred Journalists: That Their Words Be Not Forgotten

[McCamy Taylor]

So many journalists have had their reputations, careers and lives destroyed by the Bush family and the Far Right in the last few decades for daring to write or speak the truth. As a writer, it makes me furious. As a human being, it makes me sorrowful.

If their frenzy to subvert the truth, the Bush clan has gone so far as the destroy books ("Fortunate Son") an act reminiscent of the infamous bonfires of Nazi Germany. They have lied, forged documents and proven themselves to be the Lords of Lies.

However, there is one sanctuary they have not polluted yet. Here, on the internet, there are more words than all the hired goons in the Bush payroll. Since words and images were the tools of the martyred journalists, I would like to make a shrine at DU in which we celebrate them for their deeds and mourn for what was done to them.

I am going to post the names of some people and ask that other post links, share thoughts ect. Sort of like the chapels in a cathedral. Maybe it will work, maybe it wont.

[McCamy Taylor]

1. J.H. Hatfield

[McCamy Taylor]

10. The Burning of "Fortunate Son"

http://www.barbelith.com/cgi-bin/articles/00000058.shtml

Next, the Dallas Morning News happened to suddenly receive confidential information on Hatfield's criminal past. Hatfield denied the allegations, claiming that they had confused him with another person of the same name. He returned home to Arkansas, to find camera crews camped out outside his home. The truth soon surfaced. Hatfield had been convicted in 1988 of paying a hit-man $5,000 to murder his former boss with a car bomb, and subsequently served five years in a penitentiary. The intended victim had escaped unharmed. Hatfield had been guilty of the crime; he had paid for it with five years of his life, and had since successfully reinvented himself as an author. But the contents of his book were now all but forgotten, as inquiries into Bush's drug history were diverted into stories about Hatfield's life. Less than a week after publication 70,000 copies of Fortunate Son were withdrawn and destroyed, despite the fact that the book was at #8 on Amazon's Top 100 within 72 hours of its publication and #30 on The New York Times hardcover non-fiction list. St. Martins Press promised to turn it into "furnace fodder".

[McCamy Taylor]

2. David Webb

[McCamy Taylor]

6. David Webb's Death by Suicide

http://www.thenation.com/capitalgames/index.mhtml?bid=3&pid=2066

Gary Webb is dead.

He was the journalist who wrote a famous--or infamous--1996 series for the San Jose Mercury News that maintained a CIA-supported drug ring based in Los Angeles had triggered the crack epidemic of the 1980s. On Friday, the 49-year-old Webb, who won a Pulitzer Prize for other work, apparently shot himself. His "Dark Alliances" articles spurred outrage and controversy. Leaders of the African-American community demanded investigations. Mainstream newspapers--including The New York Times, The Washington Post and The Los Angeles Times--questioned his findings. And nearly a year after the pieces appeared, the Mercury News published a criticism of the series; Webb was demoted and soon left the newspaper. Two years later, he published a book based on the series.

Webb's tale is a sad one. He was on to something but botched part of how he handled it. He then was blasted and ostracized. He was wrong on some important details but he was, in a way, closer to the truth than many of his establishment media critics who neglected the story of the real CIA-contra-cocaine connection. In 1998, a CIA inspector general's report acknowledged that the CIA had indeed worked with suspected drugrunners while supporting the contras. A Senator named John Kerry had investigated these links years earlier, and the media had mostly ignored his findings. After Webb published his articles, the media spent more time crushing Webb than pursuing the full story. It is only because of Webb's work--as flawed as it was--that the CIA IG inquiry happened. So, then, it is only because of Webb that US citizens have confirmation from the CIA that it partnered up with suspected drug traffickers in the just-say-no years and that the Reagan Administration, consumed with a desire to overthrow the Sandinistas in Nicaragua, allied itself with drug thugs.

[McCamy Taylor]

3. Peter Arnett

[McCamy Taylor]

8. The Freeper Call to Action that Got Arnett Fired

If you watched the recent documentary "Weapons of Mass Deception" you saw an MSNBC executive sheepishly admit that they were "Freeped" into firing celebrated war corresponded Peter Arnett.

Here is the Freeper Post in which the Freeps planned the action.

http://209.157.64.200/focus/f-news/880296/posts

You all probably already know what Peter Arnett has done by his interview with Iraqi state TV - gave aid and comfort to the enemy.

Here are a couple of his comments:

"It is clear that within the United States that there is growing challenge to President Bush and the conduct about the war. And it is clear that our reports here about the Iraqi civilian casualties in the war, and the resistance of the Iraqi forces, are going back to the United States, and it helps those who oppose the war and challenge the policies to develop their arguments.

"Now America is reappraising the battlefield plan and delaying the war, for maybe a week. The first war plan has failed because of Iraqi resistance. Now they are trying to write another war plan."

[McCamy Taylor]

4. Dan Rather

[McCamy Taylor]

12. "Famous Texans" Bio of Dan Rather

http://www.famoustexans.com/danrather.htm

When Dan Rather covered Hurricane Carla for Houston's CBS affiliate in 1961, he impressed network higher-ups, who made him a national correspondent. His reports on the J.F.K. assassination, Vietnam, and Watergate (his on-air Nixon confrontations made headlines) impressed the public on a nightly basis. Then, Rather helped make a Sunday-night news program, 60 Minutes, the nation's highest-rated.

[McCamy Taylor]

15. Picture of Rather Standing Up (Literally) to Richard Nixon

[McCamy Taylor]

5. Mary Mapes

[hholli1]

7. Steve Kangas. nt

[McCamy Taylor]

11. Steve Kangas's Web Site

http://home.att.net/~Resurgence/

"This is a memorial mirror site of Steve Kangas' fine web page.
It is as it was when he met death, February 8, 1999.
Rest in peace Steve, your truth lives on."

[JanMichael]

13. I was just looking at the Kangas site.

http://home.att.net/~Resurgence/L-overclass.html

[prairierose]

9. I don't have any names to add to the list right off hand but...

I would suggest that a list plus links to articles etc would be a very nice addition to demopedia. I think it would be a very good thing to have this information in one place so that as people become aware of these criminal activities they would have a comprehensive list to check and read through. We have seen our membership grow substantially recently. Now whether that is due to freepers coming in or more people waking up to reality is not known. However, I think that having this type of information available so that it is easier for new people to educate themselves to the past and present as well as the future plans of the BFEE.

I don't want to take away from your wonderful memorial here. This idea just occurred to me as I was reading the list.

[YellowRubberDuckie]

14. Martyred?

Wow. They were idiots reporting in an area they knew to be violent and they knew what they were getting themselves into. Calling them Martyrs is disrespectful to those who actually died as martyrs.
Duckie

[McCamy Taylor]

16. I hope this is satire.

[YellowRubberDuckie]

17. What? My post?

I'm absolutely serious.
Duckie

[Name removed]

18. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[YellowRubberDuckie]

19. I'm a woman...

But you act as if they were saints being killed for the greater good. I'm sorry, but that's insulting. They were journalists. In my world when you go into a war torn part of the world, you understand the risks and don't whine and cry about it when you get killed.
Honestly? If you say something nasty publicly about your boss, I'm sure they'd fire you too.
Duckie

[McCamy Taylor]

20. I'm a woman too. Let's talk martyrdom, shall we, Sainthood is tricky.

Martyrdom is much simpler. It is when a person is trying to do the right thing for the right reason, and someone else punishes them for doing it.

I am glad that you spoke out, YellowRubberDuckie. Thank you. If there are people who truly believe that it is not sensible or safe for journalists to take chances or risks to uncover the truth, then it is all the more important that we celebrate those who have taken the chances and have uncovered the truths. Some of the truths uncovered---like Mary Mapes daring to air the prison abuse scandal in Iraq Prisons---have been very important. Yes, it cost her her job and her reputation at CBS, but I doubt she would do it any different it she had to do it again.

[jdj]

21. by war torn, do you mean the United States?

Hatfield and Kangas were killed here.

Kangas was found shot to death if the bathroom of an office building belonging to Richard Mellon Scaife, whom he had an appointment to meet with.

These journalists and writers WERE saints, and they WERE killed for the greater good, much more than any simpering, pseudo-suffering religion icon.

[YellowRubberDuckie]

22. God, you guys are so predictable...

Always attacking religion. And I was referring to the journalists who were killed abroad in the middle east and other war torn places over the years. They were killed because they did something someone didn't like. Sure they might have tried to uncover the truth, but what is truth really anymore, but someone's perception of what's going on around them? There is no truth anymore. It's been so dilluded and molested that I don't think that anyone really knows what it is anymore.
Duckie