Re: Birmingham cheating: Artilce #4 - Blaming the Victims

["George N. Schmidt" <Csubstance@AOL.COM>]

In a message dated 6/21/00 11:54:11 AM, Allen.Flanigan@USPTO.GOV writes:

<< Bob Schaeffer's points regarding the absolute legality of the newspaper's
telling one side of a story are of course true, but I can't imagine that
even the most unabashedly biased newspaper would not be willing to at least
give someone so specifically and explicitly vilified a chance to tell their
story.  >>

On January 28, 1999, the Chicago Tribune (the largest circulation daily
newspaper between the east and west coasts and one of the most powerful media
corporations on Earth) in an editorial called for my firing. The same day,
the Chicago Sun-Times, also in an editorial, stopped thisclose to calling for
my firing.

On February 23, 1999, the Chicago Sun-Times (one of the ten largest
circulation daily newspapers in the United States) published a column stating
that I had been "investigated" for using racial slurs. That story was a
complete fabrication that was part of Paul Vallas' disinformation campaign
against myself and Substance. In November 1999, the Chicago Board of
Education paid $35,000 to an semi-independent investigator who had spent a
month at my former schools, interviewed dozens of people who completely
cleared my name of the columnist's slanders. But then the Chicago Board of
Education classified the report clearing me. We've been denied access to the
report and challenged to sue to get it.

Neither Chicago daily newspaper wants a copy.

Also in February 1999, Education Week ("American education's newspaper of
record") ran an article describing the Vallas administration's attack on me
without talking to me.

At about the same time, Mike Klonsky, the former head of one of the most
bizarre Maoist sects in the United States during the early 1970s went after
my reputation here and across the Internet, only this time wearing his latest
hat (minus the little red star) of a very highly paid "School Reform" leader
here in Chicago. Klonsky's job was to derail our defense campaign among
people who call themselves "progressives".

Last year, Time magazine ran an article on "teachers who cheat" which
mentioned my case in a way that everyone knew the reference (from Vallas) was
about me. Time published a Letter correcting the record, but did nothing
editorially.

Whatever pretenses of "fairness and accuracy" you might believe from the
press, when big chips are down, they are relentlessly one-sided. I've just
lived through more than a year of all that. I hope it's not as true
elsewhere, but it's certainly true here.

It is difficult for people to accept the truth of the quote Bob Schaeffer
offered earlier: "The press is free to those who own one."

The campaign against me, my family, my professional reputation, and the
newspaper Substance was a very professional hatchet job. It was reminiscent
of many that have been done over the years by various agencies of our public
and private governments. It had a "bipartisan" character, with a minor league
Leftist component (a requisite part of any world class sliming campaign since
the late 1980s) from Klonsky, the leader of Chicago's "Small Schools
Workshop."

As early as March or April 1999, Chicago was dispatching Al Foster, one of
the more glib (and very well paid) apologists for the Chicago Plan to places
like Virginia, where, among other things, Foster -- besuited, glib, smiling
-- carried Chicago's version of things to your state's education leaders, and
also the sliming of any opponents both on the record and (I'm sure more
importantly) off-the-record. One of your colleagues there mentioned Foster's
appearance in Virginia to me more than a year ago.

I think we need to have some contemporary imagination about these things.

Why is it that we can read about the libels, slanders, and other attacks on
people, say, 40 years ago (the J. Edgar Hoover campaign against Martin Luther
King, Jr., for example) and not realize that with the fall of the Berlin
Wall, a lot of sleazebags had to abandon their Cold War activities and make
their services available to the highest bidders in the public and private
sectors? Most of the graduates of journalism school wind up in public
relations, and they can't afford to go to work for Ralph Nader, PAVURSOL,
Substance, or Fair Test. Even when they might not like it, they become part
of the machine that publishes the lies about "accountability" on the one side
and the slanders against the opponents of high stakes, on the other.

The same Chicago Tribune that used to publish leaks from FBI agents as page
one exclusives against civil rights and anti war leaders has simply changed
its approaches from the ravings of the days of Joe McCarthy without changing
its basic mission, which is to present the heartland with the official
American version of reality.

I think everyone should keep trying to get the story out, but don't believe
that the "free press" of this nation is obliged to report freely and fairly
about activists and campaigns that challenge some of the dominant
institutions, corporations, and programs of The New School Order (as Richard
Riley used to refer to it).

My phone number is listed, but the people who wrote the editorials and
repeated the libels and slanders against my name and reputation never called.

I always return my calls within 24 hours (except in rare emergencies).

Sorry, Allen. Bob's right. The day we get to go up against our opponents on a
level playing field is the day...

Well, metaphors fail me.

George N. Schmidt
Editor, Substance
5132 W. Berteau
Chicago, IL 60641
773-725-7502

--------------------------------------------------------------------------
To unsubscribe from the ARN-L list, send command SIGNOFF ARN-L
to LISTSERV@LISTS.CUA.EDU.