Ohio - live report, plus looking back at Gary Webb - coming up

[SophieZ]

It's your world. Understand it!
December 19: Sunday Monitor


KPFT - Pacifica Radio
www.kpft.org - - listen online
or, in Houston, 90.1 FM


6 pm Central
7 pm Eastern
4 pm Pacific


<> 6 pm HEADLINES

<> SEGMENT 1: PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION RECOUNT IN OHIO --

DOES OHIO 2004 MAKE FLORIDA 2000 LOOK LIKE A CUB SCOUT JAMBOREE?

Evan Davis and Bob Fitrakis will report live from Ohio on the recount, the lawsuits, the many oddities in the Ohio presidential tallies, and breaking developments.

Should there be a recount, a revote, or should everybody just go shopping and "get over it"? Were officials administering the election in Ohio clueless, or was there fraud? What about Kenneth Blackwell and those two hats he wears simultaneously, Secretary of State of Ohio AND co-chair of the Bush Campaign for Ohio? What is Triad, and why were they "adjusting" computers in 41 of Ohio's 88 counties before the recount?

Evan Davis, based in Columbus, has been pursuing the Ohio election story for months for Free Speech Radio News.


Bob Fitrakis is a professor at Columbus State Community College. He has a doctorate in political science and a law degree. He has authored seven books, won ten major investigative journalism awards, and he and his wife are editors of the Columbus Free Press (www.freepress.org). He served as an international election observer in the 1994 presidential elections in El Salvador. He was a legal advisor for eight polling locations in Columbus, Ohio for the Election Protection Coalition.


<> SEGMENT 2: KRISTINA BORJESSON, ON GARY WEBB
Gary Webb, 49, has died.

Gary Webb was the winner of more than 30 journalism awards, including the Pulitzer Prize. In 1996, he broke the story of how cocaine trafficking was becoming an epidemic in Los Angeles' black neighborhoods, and the trail of money was supporting US intervention in Central America. That San Jose Mercury News series was followed by his book, Dark Alliance: The CIA, the Contras, and the Crack Cocaine Explosion.

His work created a firestorm; it was one of the first big stories to race around the internet, without benefit of being picked up by the major papers. In fact, those major papers -- the New York Times, Washington Post, and LA Times -- simultaneously attacked Webb's work. His death, December 12, 2004, of gunshot wounds, was ruled a suicide. There seems to be an epidemic of death by suicide (or is it "suicide"?) among serious investigative journalists - Mark Lombardi, J.H. Hatfield, and Danny Casalaro met the same fate.

There is also a high risk of being run out of mainstream media if a reporter stubbornly reports evidence of high crimes -- Kristina Borjesson will talk with us about Gary, and about the "buzzsaw" that a reporter can run into. "The buzzsaw is what can rip through you when you try to investigate or expose anything this country's large institutions -- be they corporate or government -- want kept under wraps." Her book is Into The Buzzsaw - Leading Journalists Expose the Myth of a Free Press. Kristina was a mainstream reporter herself until she investigated a big story and found out too much. She included Webb's story in her book, and was at Gary Webb's funeral yesterday.


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[Zan_of_Texas]

1. R.I.P., Gary Webb