small correspondence I had with NPR yesterday: year in review

[G_j]

I listened to their sound collage for 2003 and noticed something missing. Here is a short corresponce that followed. (corrected a few typos and errors in grammer)

my letter to NPR:

The collage of sound segments I just listened to on Weekend Edition had
nothing about the massive peace demonstrations that proceeded the
invasion of Iraq. On a global scale this was truly historic. On Feb. 13 at least 11 million people demonstrated to say they did not want war. I have noticed that the media in general has barely mentioned this history.
I'm not surprised, but genuinely dismayed. A few journalists have
candidly admitted that they were not critical enough of the case being made for war before the Iraq invasion. Well, the people who were skeptical and desperately tried to prevent war, now appear to have been astute in their positions .
Why must you now ignore this story?

Sincerely, -----
--------------------
response from NPR:

Dear -----,
I forwarded your email to Bob Malesky, the executive producer of Weekend
Edition Sunday. Here is
his response. I think that you are both right: sounds of protest might
have led eloquently into
substantive quotes from political opponents to the war. But the issue
itself has been given a pretty
good airing on NPR.

Regards,
Jeffrey Dvorkin
NPR Ombudsman

-----Original Message-----
From: Wesun
Sent: Sunday, December 28, 2003 9:33 AM
To: Jeffrey Dvorkin
Subject: RE: Year in review

Jeffrey -
We talked about this yesterday, and I'm not surprised we're getting a
few letters mentioning it. Given the limited amount of time we had to
cover the whole year, we felt opposition to the war was given quite
eloquently through the various politicians we quoted - Nancy Pelosi, and
all the democratic candidates. Sounds of chanting from the demonstrators
themselves would not have added a whole lot of substance, and the clips
rarely set themselves up very well.

Bob

---------------------
my response:

Jeffrey,
Thank you for your timely response to my letter regarding the
peace demonstrations of 2003. I don't know how much attention
the peace movement has received in your discussions of events in 2003. I can only hope that if you haven't given this the time it deserves, that you will. Perhaps you could interview someone who has been involved on the grass roots level.
It was my impression that Nancy Pelosi and others were following the lead of everyday citizens who applied great pressure to their political leaders to speak up.

From the point of view of someone who spent countless hours
calling and writing members of Congress, the media, and the UN, standing in all weather vigils, helped organize a local Feb. 15 peace rally which was attended by an unprecedented (for our town) 2000+ people and travelled to Washington DC to march for peace, it was a frustrating and disheartening year. We were often ignored, accused of being anti-American, traitors and worse from some quarters and yet I have not heard
anyone really stop to ask if we were possibly right and if thousands of lives might have been saved if we had been listened to. Many people I know were already aware of the lack of evidence for WMD and that the CIA was possibly being pressured to "cook the books".

Also, I must add that I think the fact that people all over the world
collectively raised their voices for peace was one of the most positive and inspiring stories of the year.

Sincerely, ----
-------------------
no further response...

[Kolesar]

1. But the issue itself has been given a pretty airing on NPR

...to which I would respond that they still managed to misinform half of their listeners on such important issues as whether Saddam had WMDs or whether Iraq was linked to 9/11.

Thanks for keeping the pressure on NPR. It can only help.

[G_j]

2. yea that's rich

It must be hard to acknowledge a story as being important if you ignored it all year.

[loudnclear]

3. Good for you!!

Hats off.

[G_j]

4. If you noticed my other thread about Sinclair

I've been spending some of my holiday venting at the media.
I'm so fed up with their BS.

:puke:

[Pow_Wow]

5. I've written NPR a dozen times

in the last few years and never got a single response. ??