Okay…Byron Calame has now officially replaced Daniel Okrent as the Public Editor (or Ombudsman) at New York Times. And not a moment too soon.
Calame’s first column two weeks ago criticized the paper’s tardiness in covering the issue of the Downing Street Minutes, and his latest column, published yesterday, sets a few of his goals in the new job.
Among those goals, Calame claims, will be more responsiveness to reader Email when they feel that stories are being given less than the coverage they deserve by “the paper of record”.
The Okrent chapter now closed (and we had found his eagnerness and interest in responding to reader concerns to be less than up to snuff), we’d like to give Mr. Calame a fresh opportunity to get the job done right.
To that end, our hopes are that “6 or 7” of you might drop Mr. Calame some email concerning the dreadful coverage that the NY Times has given to issues of Election 2004 and Election Reform. Nothing else matters much as long as those issues are not resolved. And the clock is ticking towards ’06. And the matter, thanks to the Help America Vote Act (HAVA), is just getting worse every day around the country.
The case that we have a completely corrupt, hackable, non-transparent, non-auditable, un-democratic, un-American, privatized, GOP-owned Electoral System in this country, and the unaudited and likely wholly incorrect results that it produced last November has been well documented for at least seven months in hundreds of articles on The BRAD BLOG pages, but covered in perhaps 3 or 4 articles (at most!) by the NY Times.
And, of course, names like Vote-Rigging Software Whistleblower, Clint Curtis and the myriad of well-documented investigative articles on the matter which we have published over those months, have never been mentioned even once in their pages.
Neither have they mentioned the phony GOP front group calling themselves “The American Center for Voting Rights” (ACVR) or the affront to real Election Reform in the body of the illegitimate “Baker/Carter National Election Reform Commission” headed by — of all offensive ironies — longtime Bush Family crony and the architect of the Bush/Cheney 2000 strategy to ensure that Americans’ votes would never be counted, James A. Baker III. (That body, by the way, is meeting again on June 30th in Houston on Baker’s home turf…shouldn’t the fact that he’s heading such a commission along with Voting Machine Company officials actually sitting on the same commission, with advisors from the ACVR be an issue worth reporting on by The New York Times?)
As to the still-unexplained disparities between the Final Results of the Election and the now-infamous Mitofsky/Edison Exit Polls that day (the same polls, by the same company that were good enough to make the prima facie case for Electoral Fraud in Ukraine by no one less than George W. Bush himself, but completely ignored in America for reasons still unkown), the NY Times continues to be desperately delinquent in their job of investigating and reporting on the issue to the American People. Should Mr. Calame be unaware of the controversy, feel free to point him here [PDF] and here [PDF].
If he’s still unaware of the ever-growing confidence crisis surrounding elections in this country, feel free to point him to editorials by Robert Koehler here or Jim Lampley here.
And then there is the matter of millions of American tax-payer dollars flowing right now to Voting Machine Companies under HAVA for new voting hardware and software which is unauditable, lacking any real standards and allowed to remain wholly proprietary and unverified by all independent bodies.
As Mr. Calame is freshly on board at “the paper of record”, and as we frequently point out, “it’s only democracy at stake”, we feel it’s time for a fresh round of polite email to the Times demanding once again that they fulfill their vital fourth estate duties as watchdogs on behalf of this country. It is time to demand again that they finally investigate the enormous and still-growing body of evidence out there that indicates Election 2004 was gamed at best, stolen at worst. Furthermore, they must offer informed, honest, investigative reporting about the most important issue that our democracy — theoretically the world’s most important — faces today: clean, fair, open, transparent, verifiable and trustworthy elections which can only be achieved through real Election Reform requiring nothing less than a voter-verified paper ballot created for every vote cast.
If we don’t get that right and we continue to have Elections in this country which the citizenry continue to have zero confidence in, then nothing…and we mean nothing…else matters.
Send Mr. Calame your email and spread the link to this article high and low — use the “Email it to someone” link below as much as you wish — so that others might do the same!
It’s your democracy and we believe it’s well worth fighting for! We won’t give up on it yet, if you don’t! Make some noise! It matters!
…CONTACT…
Byron Calame, NYTimes Public Editor: Public@NYTimes.com
Done. I wrote him. Nice work, Brad.
I just read the Florida legislature voted down paper backups for voting machines. Oh, my God. Thanks, Jeb, you maniacal bastard.
Boy, I can’t wait till late 2006 when there are 22 Democrats left in the Senate and we’re marching across Iran…
{irrelevant post deleted. Jimmo: if you want to talk about John Conyers there are plenty of threads for that. And if you want to post irrelevant material there are plenty of open threads. That’s what they are for.}
Thanks for posting that, Mr. Hankey.
I’m sure educated people have already looked into the votes cast by our Representatives and we understand why they voted the way they did!
Brad, a lot of your e-mail links are invalid. Is that for a reason? Only one out of like 5 links actually goes to the right address.
Great story Brad!
Let’s hope Byron Calame will freshen the air of the NY Times by bringing back real honest-to-god journalism and take a stand for the preservation of the free-press.
Goodbye, Okrent (good riddance), and don’t let the door hit ya on the way out !!!
re #4 thanks for that, Jon. I’ve fixed all of them, I think … yes, it was “for a reason” … the reason was that Brad forgot to type the “.com” after “NYTimes” … that explains one instance of the error, and “cut-and-paste” explains the others …
OK, folks. Please get busy on those e-mail links. And if they still don’t work, let us know!
I want to echo Brad on a couple of things in particular:
[1] We want Byron Calame to read your letters, so please be polite. It’s better to assume he doesn’t know something rather than accusing him of suppressing information. Our job at this point is to share information with him.
[2] Please use those “E-mail it to someone” links as frequently as you can! The more people who read Brad’s excellent post, the more powerful it will be…
Rock on, fellow patriots!!
Done!
This is great PR on Calame’s part, and I’ll certainly write. But I’m not very optimistic. Imagine the loss in corporate advertising if the Times actually did do some real reporting and turned up and reported on the crimes we know are lurking in plain sight yet unexposed. 9/11, vote fraud, war crimes… How does one challenge an international colossus and survive to "tell the tale?"
Here’s hoping they improve. But what this country wants and needs is the whole truth and nothing but – which I seriously doubt we’ll ever see again.
Hello-Since the new fellow has a lot on his plate at this moment, lets assume that he personally doesn’t read the emails we send.
A suggestion
Instead of sending mounds of email outlining the many and grevious errors of the past, why don’t we send a arsenal of emails suggesting that the man set up a blog in his name(not the paper)then staff it with people to compile and edit it so he could take the time to respond.
Feel free to comment, add your own ideas or just ignore.
Hey Brad, I’ve already send Mr. Calame two emails, the first almost 2 weeks ago. I’d already discovered this "invitation". No sign that either had an impact.
Emails are copied below, FYI and for the "6 or 7" of us.
Subject: Krugman Okrent "debate"
Tue, 31 May 2005 19:46:58 -0400
I’ve just read the comments and the original column. With egos like these
(Krugman and Okrent) in play, trading tit-for-tat, it’s easy to see why the NYT
has rolled-over on its coverage of Iraq, the Bush Administration, the Downing
Street "memo" (minutes, actually), the fraudulent 2004 elections, and more.
You’re too busy talking to yourselves to care about the public.
Subject: Pomona ’69 grad checks in
Tue, 24 May 2005 21:31:22 -0400
Dear Mr. Calame,
I am writing to give you my opinion about the NYT’s coverage of issues
surrounding the Iraq war, the 2004 election, the Bush administration, and so
forth. In a word, dismal. If I have any respect left for the NYT, it is
because of the fine Tuesday section on science, and especially the writing of
Natalie Angier. I am not a local, so I my comments do not pertain to your
local coverage. I have no way to assess this.
Perhaps I am especially disappointed in the NYT because of a particular
association. I graduated from Pomona College in 1969, and Bill Keller
graduated from same in 1970– a small liberal arts college with a student body
of ~1200. Frankly, I don’t remember him, and am equally sure that he doesn’t
remember me. Nonetheless, I mention this association because we were both
surrounded by the same ethos and events– the VietNam war, Walter Cronkite
telling the truth, the draft lottery, Kent State, and, slightly later, the
Watergate investigation, led by the Washington Post. Somehow, I had expected
that the events of this time frame would have inspired Mr. Keller to push the
NYT to a level of involvement and hard investigation worthy of Walter Cronkite,
and of the Washington Post during that era.
It may be that Mr. Keller is trying to push the NYT in that direction, but
without much success. I noted some recent news articles which reported on a
NYT internal inquiry. I cannot remember the exact wording of the comment, but
the gist of it was that it is harder to reach a real person at the NYT that at
any other US newspaper. True, I would say, given that even the LA Times has a
free roster of email addresses of staff, which the NYT certainly lacks.
Perhaps you are taking the tack of distancing yourselves from readers, the
further to seem above it all. I can assure that this is a mistake- to be
distant and unresponsive (among a few other faults I find with the NYT). I
teach college students, and I can also assure you that most of them don’t even
know that the NYT is the most respected newspaper in the US. Moreover, they
aren’t likely to discover that any time soon. They read internet sites and
internet blogs for news. Sorry to say, I do too, now. Just as the major
networks are encountering increasing lack of interest, I fear that the NYT will
find the same. There are many references to the main-stream media (MSM) of
late, available via the internet, mostly commenting on the lack of their
coverage of crucial events. Although this might seem like an annoying
drip-drip-drip of a leaky tap for you right now, it’s going to turn into a huge
gusher sometime in the not-too-distant future, unless you change your course.
That’s not a threat, rather, an educated prediction, based on my own
experience. Thus, the MSM will become the OSM (old stream media).
If you want to check out some recent commentary about the MSM, I suggest you go
to https://bradblog.com/archives/00001414.htm, which has the text of John
Conyers statement about the press, and includes references to a few of the
sites that I normally read, in lieu of the NYT, to find out what’s going on in
our land.
With regard to your statement, quoted thus: "So Times readers finally have the
Washington bureau’s take on the Downing Street Memo to go with the alert
coverage on the minutes the foreign desk provided back on May 2. Overall, it’s
better than the readers of most other newspapers got." Overall, it’s better
than the readers of most other newspapers got… OK, great. At Emory, a D is
a passing grade. A D+ is better. I think you got a D+.
Please forward my email to Bill Keller. I wish that I could have attended the
recent Pomona College event, where he and others spoke about journalism. I
would have had a few had questions to ask him.
Hello Mr. Calame,
I truly hope that you will give election reform the absolute importance it deserves. Without transparent elections, how can a democracy endure?
Without voter confidence in the election process here in the United States, how can we spread democracy to the world?
Democracy IS voting.
Most voters do not trust computers. So why has the US spent millions of dollars to place them in our voting booths? We need recountable,verifiable ballots.
Thank You,
Colleen Schlake
Hello Mr. Calame,
I truly hope that you will give election reform the absolute importance it deserves. Without transparent elections, how can a democracy endure?
Without voter confidence in the election process here in the United States, how can we spread democracy to the world?
Democracy IS voting.
Most voters do not trust computers. So why has the US spent millions of dollars to place them in our voting booths? We need recountable,verifiable ballots.
Thank You,
Colleen Schlake
! too am one of the 6 or 7 who sent an email to Mr. Calame..Not nearly as eloquent as yours..but it will do. The more the better.
I wrote him, too. For those out of range of the Times, I’d add a couple of points to his introduction.
The Times devoted two days of front-page banner headlines to the Ukraine election fraud story. It’s not as if they’re unaware of election fraud per se. They just won’t acknowledge that it could possibly have occurred HERE.
Byron Calame has to be made to understand (I agree, we should be polite) that this is dishonest and stupid on the part of his newspaper. The reasons have been catalogued: fear of a rebellion by advertisers and stockholders, fear of a stock market collapse, fear of retaliation by the White House (denial of access), fear of weakening our international position, resentment of bloggers, or just plain lack of guts. All of the above, probably.
If he doesn’t address election fraud within the next few columns, having heard from all of us and others, we can be absolutely sure the fix is in.
Ok Ok Ok … I was polite:
"Byron Calame (NYTimes Public Editor),
Welcome to your new job at the public record.
Many of us are not happy with the way the MSM (Main Stream Media) have handled the issue of election fraud.
Here is a link to a web page that outlines some of our concerns:
https://bradblog.com/archives/00001440.htm
Good luck in your new position. We both know you can’t make everyone happy, but you can make the journalistic record more accurate.
That we do ask."
BTW WP the last link (pdf):
http://http://uscountvotes.org/...imulations.pdf
has two "http:" sections in it and is still not working …
Mr Calame is off to a good start. At least he made a decent reply:
"Thank you for your comments. Everything sent to this mailbox is read by either me or my associate, Joseph Plambeck. If a further reply is
appropriate, you will be hearing from us shortly.
Don’t forget, when referring to a specific article please include its date, section and headline.
If you do not wish your message to be published or relayed to other editors and reporters, be sure to let us know.
— Byron Calame
Public Editor"
Hi all, all 6 or 7 of you! I submitted my two bits’ worth:
Dear Mr. Calame,
Congratulations on your new position. I am sure that you are well aware of the onerous responsibilities it involves. There was a time when The New York Times was gospel to me, and I am sickened to see how the organization has turned a blind eye to mind-bogglingly myriad scandals, from stolen elections to trumped-up wars based on lies – not to worry, I won’t bring up 9/11 just yet.
Please delve into your new enterprise with great vigor. Open your eyes, sir; the United States of America as we have known it is in mortal peril, and it was for just such situations that a truly free and inquisitive press has always been seen as the fourth pillar. This is the time when the media have to come to the aid of the people and the purpose of the truth. Please don’t let us down. If you do, the mainstream media will become the once-were media, and who knows what will become of us all?
With the best of wishes, etc.
What if???
Thanks, Dredd. Have fixed the double http:// that you pointed to.
Hopefully all the links in the article are now working. I must have been drunk — as usual — when I wrote it originally 😉
A most reasonable reaction, Brad, to what you must be living through. God bless fermentation, double https and all. Please keep up the peerless work! I can’t wait til you get the Honorable John Conyers Jr on BradRadio…
Funny timing. I just had a conversation with my two daughters this weekend, as the youngest graduated HS and heads off to a liberal arts college in SoCal to join her sister.
I explained to them that they need to read NEW sources of information like RAW STORY, Buzz Flash, and blogs like Bradblog and others. That the "old standard that I grew up with" of the New York Times being a "reliable source of news" was no longer true. They can not trust the Main Stream Media Right Wing Spin Machine.
I pointed out the NYT’s lack of coverage of the anti-war movement, the election reform movement, or any of the war crimes of the administration, while putting Judith "I Slept with an Iraqi War Criminal" Miller’s pillow-talk articles on page 1. They didn’t want to believe me.
The NYT is not going to change. A replacement of the Ombudsman who said once too often that they didn’t care what the readers said just means that they will get somebody more diplomatic in place.
Coverage will not change. Slant will not change. Pro-Bush or Bush-Neutral language will not change. Painting of anybody who has an out-of-the-box thought as a "conspiracy nut" or "tinfoil hat type" will not stop. They are beholden to the "status quo" and the corporations who buy their advertising.
Charlie L
Portland, Oregon
CLL2001@Gmail.com
The Days of Decision are coming: We are frogs begin slow-cooked, and by the time we realize the water is boiling, we won’t have the strength to jump out of the pot. Keep an eye out for your "jumping moment" and we’ll all jump together. FROG FREEDOM!!!
The Republicans in power have lied and innocent people died.
The Republicans in power have stolen and given to their rich friends, leaving just an IOU for our kids to pay off.
The Republicans in power have cheated and claim they are the "moral" ones.
We must flush all Republicans out of power in ’06 and ’08.
Take back American Democracy. Don’t vote Republican.
My email:
Dear Mr Calame,
Congratulations on your new position and many citizens look forward to you facilitating good journalism and reporting the truth. I hope this will be a turn around point. I guess that is dependent on how brave you are and your having real moral values to report the truth the public craves and deserves. The truth sir. Please.
1. Proper coverage of the US Faulty election system where any tangible records of votes have been eliminated in many places across the country.
2. Proper and professional coverage of the Iraq War, our beleagured military, coverage of the casualties, the families and our losses.
3. Good investigative reporting on the on going investigation regarding the Downing street memo.
4. And for god sakes, the independent 9/11 commission of citizens and families effected by that tragedy, have held hearings and seminars and NO one tells their stories. I have seen the videos ONLY because they recorded the events themselves as our corporate owned media kept them silent. Stories of bombs going off, buildings being "pulled" and investigations as to the illogical events that were officially reported.
Please sir, be the media that has integrity. It used to be the media that informed the citizens and did reporting. Now it is the citizens that cry out, do the investigation and reporting . .and the media is silent. Be a hero and bring back the media I was educated in, in journalism school.
Sincerely,
jpentz
Let’s try to get him to cover news that other MSM won’t touch. News like this:
Throughout the winter of 2002, the Bush administration publicly accused Iraqi weapons declarations of being incomplete. The almost unbelievable reality of this situation is that it was the United States itself that had removed over 8,000 pages of the 11,800 page original report.
Right on Veryworried, and this story too:
President Carter is calling for shutting down the hell hole at Guantanamo (link here).
Hi All! Well, OK, my letters to Calame were not so polite, but they were written before the "be polite" advice came out yesterday.
I share Charlie L’s #21 level of pessimism about the NYT.
I found a slight glimmer of hope, however, in this "link" to a report of conference a few days ago:
http://24.73.103.30/column.asp?...#038;aid=82985
"Watchdog Culture: Why You Need it, How You Can Build it"
"The conference, "Creating A Watchdog Culture: Claiming An Essential Newspaper Role," was called at the request of the American Society of Newspaper Editors and its new president, Rick Rodriguez of the Sacramento Bee, who has made "unleashing the watchdog" the theme for his presidency." (Sounds kinda like a self-help title… unleashing your inner watchdog…)
The tone of the report was pretty dry however.
There’s a list of participants (WaPo there, but not NYT).
Another commentary on the conference somes from Rick Sugg of Creative Loafing (Atlanta weekly freebie).
http://www.johnsugg.com/2005/05...chdogs_am.html
"No Watchdogs Among Press Lords"
"Publishers and editors were urged to wake up from somnambulist trances and re-discover investigative journalism. You know, like being a little skeptical towards those in power."
The comments to Sugg’s column are similar to many here at BB. But, what got to me were comments that college age students hadn’t a clue, same as pointed out by Charlie L. I had assumed since this age group lives and dies (so to speak) by the internet, that they would be readling the blogs, etc. Woe! since a military draft is coming soon (just my opinion). The columns and comments are worth reading, because they highlight a few more "suspects" among the "dailies" ("dailies"–learned that from Brad’s interview with Dave Astor).
One poster to the Sugg column said it rather memorably:
"Watchdogs, bah. We don’t need poodles OR pit bulls. We need bloodhounds, and we’re getting golden retrievers. The only thing anyone’s got to worry about with this mob is whether they’re going to get slobbered to death or beaten senseless by their wagging tails first." (Posted by: Peter da Silva)
Finally, a little more hope:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/w...060700474.html
"The Downing Street Memo Story Won’t Die
By Jefferson Morley
washingtonpost.com Staff Writer
Tuesday, June 7, 2005; 9:18 AM
"More than a month after its publication, the so-called Downing Street Memo remains among the top 10 most viewed articles on The Times of London site."
"The White House has denied the premise of the memo, the American media have reacted slowly to it and the public generally seems indifferent to the issue or unwilling to rehash the bitter prewar debate over the reasons for the war," wrote reporters Stephen J. Hedges and Mark Silva"… (in the Chicago Tribune)
"Still the story won’t go away, thanks to the attention it gets on the Internet." etc…… well, well… fancy that!
Thanks for the links Brad. I composed and sent the following:
Byron Calame
Public Editor
New York Times
Dear Mr. Calame,
First of all, congratulations on your new appointment as Public Editor of the New York Times. I read online that you recently pledged to give more attention to reader inquiries and requests concerning topics the New York Times is not covering sufficiently (or covering at all).
First and foremost I am concerned about the lack of coverage of any of the Election 2004 fraud that’s been documented or any of the election reform debates that are happening all over our country. To me there is no issue more important than the efforts currently underway to get to the bottom of election fraud and most importantly the efforts to ensure that every vote is counted in every election held in the US.
For instance, what formal investigations are underway in Ohio to prove or disprove the impeachable offenses of Kenneth J. Blackwell, the Secretary of State who was also the co-chair of the Bush Cheney ticket in Ohio? There are numerous articles online about the efforts of Bob Fitrakis (http://www.freepress.org/column...ay/3/2005/1116) and Harvey Wasserman (http://www.freepress.org/depart...y/19/2005/1284) to uncover the election fraud perpetrated by Mr. Blackwell, but not a single mention of it appears in your paper.
We who are convinced election fraud actually took place in 2004 read articles every day on the web about how these crimes are being covered up or not investigated at all, and how real election reform is being fought against (http://www.votersunite.org/news.asp) and wonder why the mainstream media is eerily silent on the issue. We have to go online to hear about John Conyers’ efforts to expose media bias in this country (http://www.conyersblog.us/archi...4.htm#comments) and why the mainstream media seems to be ignoring the most important stories about Bush’s lies and cover up leading to the invasion of Iraq (http://www.afterdowningstreet.org/). This story has been percolating for six weeks and has barely gotten a mention in your paper.
Thanks to Bev Harris, we now know how easy it is to hack into the computerized voting machines (http://www.bbvforums.org/forums...tml?1118063124) currently being marketed and purchased by inept election commissions around the country, but not a word from the New York Times about the issue. And if it weren’t for the tireless efforts of Brad Friedman we would know nothing about how this played out in the 2004 election (https://bradblog.com/ClintCurti...lintCurtis.htm) because for some reason the mainstream media is ignoring the most important stories going on in America these days.
To date there have been several reports disproving the explanations from Edison/Mitofsky about how their exit polls were “wrong” in reporting Kerry with a comfortable lead on election day 2004 (http://electionarchive.org/ucvA...ls_summary.pdf) but the New York Times evidently is satisfied with their spin in spite of the fact that their exit polls were used to prove election fraud in the Ukraine elections. Why are results in a foreign country more credible than right here in our own country? And why does the New York Times and the rest of the mainstream media in this country bury their heads in the sand about an issue that millions of Americans (http://commonwonders.com/archives/col290.htm) are very concerned about?
You know, your silence on all of these stories makes you appear to be in league with the current administration in Washington. I can only surmise that you are being ordered to ignore these stories or are intimidated about reaping the repercussions of actually doing the job that the media is trusted to do, and that’s just tragic. Your silence is allowing these criminals to continue on with an agenda that has forgotten all about the rights and concerns of most Americans and is about to bankrupt our country or worse. And the New York Times and the rest of the media sits in silence while the greatest crimes against our nation are not being reported on. You should be ashamed of yourselves.
I urge you to investigate and cover these most important stories Mr. Calame. This country relies on the media to expose such crimes, and your silence is hurting this country as much as the crimes themselves. I fear if real election reform is not in place before the 2006 elections we’ll have to endure at least two more years of fascism and rape of our rights as United States citizens, and that might be more than our country can survive. We need to know that our votes count Mr. Calame and you can play a big role in making that happen.
Sincerely,
Jeff J.
If you click through to Calame’s Public Editor page, you’ll see that there is a link to Letters to the PE. No letters have been posted since mid-April… maybe because of change over… but, I intend to keep checking, in the hopes of seeing one of these great letters posted by the PE. Anyway, that’s something else to query Calame about via email.
Mr Calame, please begin to or continue to cover the Ohio coin theft (rare coins missing, link here) influence peddling (Bush meeting costs $50,000, link here), the Downing Street Minutes, and a host of stories more important than the run-away bride story.
Mr. Calame is paid by the NYT and will do what it tells him to do. The NYT, in turn, has demonstrated its conscious supression of the news since, at least, "the election." Mr. Calame may carefully select emails and publish carefully written non-responses in order to give the impression that he and The NYT "take these emails very seriously…" or words to that effect. Word-of-mouth may be a better way to get the truth out – one person at a time.
Excellent blog, very helpful, thank you for sharing, keep up the fine effort and excellent job. Click out: debt consolodation and debt counseling or by visiting at: http://www.credit-loan.biz/ or at http://www.credit-loan.biz/Debt...olodation.aspx
Excellent blog, very helpful, thank you for sharing, keep up the fine effort and excellent job. Click out: morgage or morgage rates and morgage site, morgage calculator or by visiting at: http://www.i-morgage.com/
Excellent blog, very helpful, thank you for sharing, keep up the fine effort and excellent job. Click out: mortage or mortage rates and mortage site, mortage calculator or by visiting at: http://www.i-mortage.com/