From the Radio Free Michigan archives ftp://141.209.3.26/pub/patriot If you have any other files you'd like to contribute, e-mail them to bj496@Cleveland.Freenet.Edu. ------------------------------------------------ Found this at the Chip Berlet site. Interesting how anti-Militia people meet with Editors to bend them on the issue. ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Sun, 19 Mar 1995 09:20:35 -0800 (PST) From: Dan Yurman To: Recipients of conference Subject: Media & the Militia - Questions Essay: Media & the Militia Idaho Falls, ID - 3/19/95: Today's Idaho Falls Post Register carries a reprint of an article by Baltimore Sun reporter Ann LoLordo that briefly and with many surface details and few insights offers the reader a "national roundup" of what's going on with the militia movement nationwide. Despite it's low level of detail and analysis, the article is balanced offering the reader points of view from inside the militias in Texas and Delaware and comments from ADL, Southern Poverty Law Center, and Klanwatch. Significantly, although the Baltimore Sun commissioned the article, and sent its reporter to Houston, TX, there is no local coverage from Maryland. Perhaps it was edited out by the Post Register for space? Can Local Papers Do Better? Next Tuesday I will have the opportunity, along with other area civil and human rights activists, to meet with the executive editor of the Idaho Falls Post Register to discuss what kind of a job the paper is doing covering the region. We are now in the third year of an ongoing series of quarterly meetings which are designed to help the paper do a better job. What Are the Right Questions? The questions which are before me, and the other members of the group, are these; 1. How could the Idaho Falls Post Register do a better job of covering issues of concern in the area of civil / human rights? 2. Given the paper's limited resources in staffing and reduced size of the "news hole," what should be the paper's news priorities? 3. What are the "hop topics" in the region, who knows about them, and are these topics "stories," in the traditional journalistic sense of the word, which merit coverage for the paper's readership? It's Now Your Turn I invite you to help me do my job. I am asking for ideas and pointers to information which I can bring to the attention of this group and the editor on Tuesday evening 3/21/95. Please review the questions we are being asked. What would you say? In the balance of this essay I will provide some information which puts the media situation and our questions in perspective. Some Background on the Media in E. Idaho The Idaho Falls Post Register is a daily paper that has a circulation of about 30,000 in a market area of 80,000 that includes Pocatello 50 miles to the south. The Idaho State Journal in Pocatello is the other daily paper produced in the region. USA Today and the Wall Street Journal are available locally daily via newstand sales and by mail. The Idaho Statesman of Boise, which is the largest paper in Idaho, is not available on a same day basis in Eastern Idaho. Many small weekly newspapers dot the region. All area newspapers have reduced the size of their "news hole" due to the rapid increase in prices for raw newsprint which occurred over the past three months. There are four TV stations in the Idaho Falls / Pocatello area - two commercial stations in Idaho Falls, one commercial station in Pocatello, and a PBS outlet in Pocatello located at Idaho State University. Because of the growth of cable TV and satellite dishes in recent years, local TV stations have seen their market share shrink drastically. This has affected local TV news coverage. Each commercial station has one field film crew. It takes just one spectacular potato truck wreck on the interstate to scuttle any local assignments. The film crews rarely work beyond the prime shift of 9-5 since that requires overtime pay. The PBS station has no local field film crew. There is no local radio news other than "rip & read." Some Background on the Focus Group Three years ago the Idaho Falls Post Register formed a series of focus groups to do a better job of getting feedback from readers. The paper was under attack for, among other things, being "too liberal," for being "anti-Mormon," and for focusing on crime and violence occurring in cities far away (Seattle!) from Eastern Idaho. One of the focus groups is organized around minority issues, civil & human rights, equal opportunity, etc. Membership includes representatives from the NAACP, Migrant Council and other Hispanic groups, and the Shoshone Bannock Indian Tribe. The Paper's Track Record on Minority Affairs Publisher Jerry Brady has told the group on several occasions he wants more coverage in his paper of minority affairs. Emphasizing the human side, he is especially interested in covering weddings, funerals, educational, and family concerns of minorities. The paper publishes, at a loss, El Sol, a Spanish language monthly which features the key articles of interest to the Hispanic community. It is distributed for free as far away as Twin Falls, 150 miles West, and Salmon, 200 miles north. The Post Register has championed the cause of disability insurance for farm workers, most of whom are Hispanic, in its editorial pages. The Paper's Track Record on the Militia Due to its limited resources, most stories, like today's from the Baltimore Sun, are reprints. Last summer the paper assigned a reporter to look closely at the militia and wrote four articles. These were published on a schedule of one a week, about the Idaho group, based largely on a developing controversy over the militia's claims it had support from the Idaho Sheriff's Association, which it does not. The paper has written two editorials in recent months critical of the extremism of Samuel Sherwood's United States Militia Association of Blackfoot, ID. One called attention to State Superintendent of Public Instruction Anne Fox's poor political judgement in meeting with the militia in Boise in mid-February. Wrap Up So, if you were in my shoes, what would you say Tuesday night? Please respond by email to: dyurman@igc.apc.org. I'll post a followup report next weekend on how the meeting turned out. ------------------------------------------------------------ Dan Yurman | dyurman@igc.apc.org | Hailing. . . . PO Box 1569 | ------------------- | Frequencies. . Idaho Falls, ID 83403 | 43N 112W -7 GMT | Are Open . . . ------------------------------------------------ (This file was found elsewhere on the Internet and uploaded to the Radio Free Michigan archives by the archive maintainer. All files are ZIP archives for fast download. E-mail bj496@Cleveland.Freenet.Edu)