DU please kick my post on MoveOn so we can hold the media accountable for pushing rethug propaganda instead of writing news. The rethugs wouldn't allow Conyers to book a room large enough for this event, then scheduled a whopping 11 floor votes during the scheduled 3 hours so that the 122 Congress Members had to run back and forth in order to do their job and support the will of half a million Americans who want answers from this administration about the DSM.
Then the Washington Post turns it around and acts like John Conyers is doing something wrong. Dana Milbanks article "Democrats Play House to Rally Against the War," is the only article about Conyers' rally and it slams him with lies and innuendos.
We all want this kind of reporting to stop. DU has already run a thread for us here to write in and complain, but I think we should MAKE AN EXAMPLE of this Slimy Reporter and any others who think to do the same. The Washington Post should get so many letters (how about another half million?) that they HAVE to bow to OUR UNRELENTING Pressure to start GETTING the FACTS and putting Op Ed pieces back in the Op Ed section and not in section A (where people assume they are reading the actual NEWS).
http://www.actionforum.com/forum/index.html?offset=20&forum_id=266&count=5&order=rating&parent_id=&comment_number=At Present it is NUMBER 21
- Tigress DEM, IT / DEM (June 18, 2005; Minneapolis, MN)
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21. PLEASE help John Conyers educate the Washington Post ....
About the power of Democracy.
MoveOn did a great job helping to get the message out about the public's right to know if the Bush Administration led us into the war with Iraq under false pretenses by putting out a call to back John Conyers in getting his questions about the Downing Street Memo answered.
An article was published by the Washington Post reporter Dana Milbanks that is nothing short of slander against John Conyers' rally on Thursday June 16th. "Democrats Play House to Rally Against the War," pretends at journalism and this kind of behavior MUST be STOPPED because it is a slap in the face of the media's role in Democracy as the Fourth Estate.
John Conyers wrote an excellent letter to the post and if your organization would put it out to the public to back him again, maybe we could get the media to realize that America won't tolerate this sloppy kind of reporting and attack against a great hero of Democracy.
Here is John's Letter from RAW Story
http://rawstory.com/news/2005/Congressman_Conyers_hammers_the_Washington_Posts_D_0617.html June 17, 2005
Mr. Michael Abramowitz, National Editor Mr. Michael Getler, Ombudsman Mr. Dana Milbank The Washington Post 1150 15th Street, NW Washington, D.C. 20071
Dear Sirs:
I write to express my
more...
profound disappointment with Dana Milbank's June 17 report, "Democrats Play House to Rally Against the War," which purports to describe a Democratic hearing I chaired in the Capitol yesterday. In sum, the piece cherry-picks some facts, manufactures others out of whole cloth, and does a disservice to some 30 members of Congress who persevered under difficult circumstances, not of our own making, to examine a very serious subject: whether the American people were deliberately misled in the lead up to war. The fact that this was the Post's only coverage of this event makes the journalistic shortcomings in this piece even more egregious.
In an inaccurate piece of reporting that typifies the article, Milbank implies that one of the obstacles the Members in the meeting have is that "only one" member has mentioned the Downing Street Minutes on the floor of either the House or Senate. This is not only incorrect but misleading. In fact, just yesterday, the Senate Democratic Leader, Harry Reid, mentioned it on the Senate floor. Senator Boxer talked at some length about it at the recent confirmation hearing for the Ambassador to Iraq. The House Democratic Leader, Nancy Pelosi, recently signed on to my letter, along with 121 other Democrats asking for answers about the memo. This information is not difficult to find either. For example, the Reid speech was the subject of an AP wire service report posted on the Washington Post website with the headline "Democrats Cite Downing Street Memo in Bolton Fight". Other similar mistakes, mischaracterizations and cheap shots are littered throughout the article.
The article begins with an especially mean and nasty tone, claiming that House Democrats "pretended" a small conference was the Judiciary Committee hearing room and deriding the decor of the room. Milbank fails to share with his readers one essential fact: the reason the hearing was held in that room, an important piece of context. Despite the fact that a number of other suitable rooms were available in the Capitol and House office buildings, Republicans declined my request for each and every one of them. Milbank could have written about the perseverance of many of my colleagues in the face of such adverse circumstances, but declined to do so. Milbank also ignores the critical fact picked up by the AP, CNN and other newsletters that at the very moment the hearing was scheduled to begin, the Republican Leadership scheduled an almost unprecedented number of 11 consecutive floor votes, making it next to impossible for most Members to participate in the first hour and one half of the hearing. In what can only be described as a deliberate effort to discredit the entire hearing, Milbank quotes one of the witnesses as making an anti-semitic assertion and further describes anti-semitic literature that was being handed out in the overflow room for the event. First, let me be clear: I consider myself to be friend and supporter of Israel and there were a number of other staunchly pro-Israel members who were in attendance at the hearing. I do not agree with, support, or condone any comments asserting Israeli control over U.S. policy, and I find any allegation that Israel is trying to dominate the world or had anything to do with the September 11 tragedy disgusting and offensive.
....
The fact that I and my fellow Democrats had to stuff a hearing into a room the size of a large closet to hold a hearing on an important issue shouldn't make us the object of ridicule. In my opinion, the ridicule should be placed in two places: first, at the feet of Republicans who are so afraid to discuss ideas and facts that they try to sabotage our efforts to do so; and second, on Dana Milbank and the Washington Post, who do not feel the need to give serious coverage on a serious hearing about a serious matter-whether more than 1700 Americans have died because of a deliberate lie. Milbank may disagree, but the Post certainly owed its readers some coverage of that viewpoint.
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