Bob Boldt/ MWC News

A Strategy for Effective Advocacy—Beat the Press

I mentioned in my last Op-Ed concerning my response to Michael Moore that I have had it with writing my congressmen, signing petitions and participating in protest marches.  I said nothing about not beating on the press.
 
This following nasty bit of business I am writing about here is left over from a complaint I filed with my local CBS affiliate concerning a whoring little piece Lara Logan of 60-Minutes did on behalf of those cute toy airplanes, the drones, that are doing a yeoman’s service in loosing the hearts and minds of the people of Pakistan and Afghanistan. See my piece on MWC News:  Drones—America's New Air Force—60-Minutes’Lara Logan reports on the increasing use of drones in the battlefield 

Immediately after the August 18th rebroadcast, I contacted my local CBS affiliate, KRCG and complained on what was obviously an unalloyed piece of pro-Pentagon propaganda, uncritically spun out with no redeeming value as a news piece. 

On Sunday October 11th I again witnessed another disinformation segment from 60-Minutes, this time detailing the attempts to create a kinder, friendlier killing force in Afghanistan.  It was the headliner on the show, titled: Afghanistan: Tough Mission for Marines

Apparently there are more than a few of us who are appalled with the continued, undiminished civilian casualties in that conflict.  So, as usual, the Pentagon fog-of-war-machine turned to their favorite camera for hire: the 60-Minutes’ crew to exert some damage control.

Well I decided if the Pentagon, 60-Minutes and my local CBS affiliate could up the ante, so could little-old-media-consumer-me.  The result is this letter I wrote to the KRCG General Manager that I will be posting via registered mail on Monday morning.

Dear Mr. Van Ness,

Please refer to my letter of August 18th, 2009 to you concerning 60-Minutes and what seems now a disturbing pattern of providing free PR for the Pentagon’s war of choice against the people of Afghanistan and Pakistan. 
 
Since you did not have the courtesy to reply or even acknowledge my prior correspondence sent via USPS and email, I can only assume that you do not like to read or respond to detailed complaints from your viewers.  If you had taken the trouble to scan to the bottom of my letter you would have read the following:
 
I have no interest in pursuing my futile attempt to influence the producers of 60-Minutes in their continued unconscionable cheerleading of our immoral and illegal foreign wars.  I may have better luck placing pressure at the local outlet of the Network’s misinformation and fraudulence, i.e. KRCG.  If you want to continue to be a responsible member of our community you must cease just following orders from the corporate network.  We your viewing public will no longer sit by while you broadcast the same lies under Obama that you did under Bush. You must assume some organizational and personal responsibility for what you broadcast.  There are ways—legal ways—nonviolent ways—to bring your actions into line with your responsibilities, should you continue to ignore them.  You may consider yourself on notice.
 
Since your short attention span seems unable to countenance extended correspondence, I will not trouble you with a long litany of all the obfuscations and misrepresentations forwarded by Scott Pelley in his one-sided 60-Minutes “report” on Golf Company in Afghanistan that I have just had the displeasure of watching this evening. 
 
It is time to make real on my promised threats.  In the following weeks, I will be assembling a list of all the local businesses that advertise on your station.  I will be communicating with them via mail, phone and email asking them to withdraw their advertising from KRCG for the reasons I have stated in my letter of August 18th.  If these local businesses (upon whom your survival depends) do not respond to my request, I will immediately organize and launch an embarrassing boycott of said businesses.
 
I had sincerely hoped it would not come to this, but your lack of response to my past request has left me no choice.  You and I, along with many other prominent institutions in our society, bear the terrible burden of the knowledge that, had we been better informed, more proactive and more courageous after 9/11, we would not have countenanced the US incursions into Iraq or even into Afghanistan (in the combat troop numbers we seem to think are so necessary today.)  I do not intend to let this present disinformation campaign by 60-Minutes continue and I hope you will not allow it to continue either.  If you persist in your amnesia and cowardice, I intend to shake you out of it (again) by totally legal, non-violent and highly effective means. 
 
As I said before, John, it is time you begin behaving like a responsible member of the community you pretend to serve.

=====

Due to my pledge to abstain from serious political advocacy, I may not fully follow through with this threat, at least not to the extent I am implying in the comments to the General Manager of KRCG.  I might write a couple of letters to some of the big local companies who buy a lot of time and fire off some boilerplate emails—and leave it at that.  I will be circulating my comments widely through my local network.  If they generate some interest in an advertisers’ boycott I may consider launching an all out campaign.  I certainly do not have the time or money to do this all by myself.

The powers that be can probably rest easy though.  Hereabouts our peace movement is pretty well devoted to expending the greatest possible effort in activities they have found from long experience to be the least effective.  They love to stand all day on street corners and deflect the spit from passing cars.  Under no circumstances would they ever consider an action like actually blocking a recruiting center, or making life miserable for a University department with ties to Pentagon big bucks and  boycotting local businesses who sponsor the stations that broadcast Fox News, Rush Limbaugh, etc.  No way!

How about the CBS affiliate in your town.  Why do they approve of this kind of 60-Minute crapola they have to shove down the throats of their viewers?  As Andy Rooney would say, “Why do they do that?”  Maybe you should consider harassing some station managers in your town. 

In a career of working on the fringes of advertising, marketing and the media, I have known a number of these General Manager-CEO types.  I have found them nearly to a man (and woman) to be wary, frightened, cowardly creatures.  That is why it is with no small amount of pleasure I will continue to trouble this particular spineless one at KRCG.  I do so love to see him sweat—at least for a little while.  Wouldn’t it be nice to have an ulcer named after me?
 
Peace,
 

Robert Boldt an editor of MWC News, is a freelance film/video producer living in Jefferson City, Missouri. He is active in local politics, worked on the Howard Dean and John Kerry campaigns and is a cofounder of The White Rose Collective. Articles by Bob Boldt at MWC News http://mwcnews.net/bob-boldt

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