<!--EZCODE AUTOLINK START--><a href="http://www.globalnewsmatrix.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=1434">www.globalnewsmatrix.com/...e&sid=1434</a><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK END--><br><br>Robert Koehler likes to ask tough questions and tackle issues ignored by the press. When he asked if the 2004 Presidential election was stolen, it created a rift in the Chicago Tribune newsroom, providing an example about the sad state of media affairs existing today. <br>June 18, 2005 <br>By Greg Szymanski<br><br>Some people say Tribune Online columnist Robert Koehler works inside the belly of the beast, working inside a corporate media hungry for money but short on truth telling.<br><br>Able to spit out a few morsels of truth every now and again, Koehler describes his unique position a little differently, suggesting it’s more like floating on top a gigantic whale’s back instead of rumbling around inside it’s belly.<br><br>Wherever he sits, one of his recent columns, hinting the 2004 Presidential election was stolen, caused the ugly beast to let out a fierce roar, leading to a heated controversy inside the Chicago Tribune newsroom.<br><br>"It was a definite body blow," said Koehler this week from his suburban home in Chicago.<br><br>To fully understand what Koehler means by a "body blow" and the ensuing controversy surrounding his April 14 column entitled "The Silent Scream of Numbers: The 2004 election was stolen," it’s important to understand how Koehler is positioned in respect to the Chicago Tribune, the employer who cuts his paycheck.<br><br>Koehler basically wears two different hats. First, he’s one of the Tribune Online Service’s chief editors, meaning he manages and distributes the work of other columnists under contract by the Tribune, sending their stories to newspapers across the country who pay the Tribune-parent company for this service.<br><br>Next, Koehler has developed his own column, separate and apart from his editing duties. Over the years, he he’s generated about 12 newspaper accounts, including the Chicago Tribune. Each newspaper, however, is not obligated to run his stories, deciding what to print based on content.<br><br>"Only a few papers decided to run my stolen election piece and the Tribune wasn’t one of them," said Koehler about his story that didn’t get much action in the mainstream papers but spread like a wildfire on the Internet. . "I want to point out, however, the politics of the Tribune are different than mine, but that’s ok. They are, of course, free to run whatever they’d like and I respect that."<br><br>But what Koehler didn’t like was the way the Tribune bosses responded to his column even though it never appeared in their paper.<br><br>"Basically, they wrote a rebuttal column criticizing my point of view regarding something that never ran in their newspaper in the first place," added Koehler, saying this struck him as a bit strange to say the least. "Frankly, it made me a little angry and I wanted an explanation."<br><br>The rebuttal column, which treated Koehler like "Peck’s Bad Boy" gone mad with conspiracy theories, ran in the Tribune shortly after the controversial story appeared to be gaining momentum in cyberspace, a place where independent thought still roams free without corporate control and censorship.<br><br>After the Tribune’s response appeared, Koehler and his bosses engaged in an inner-office squabble, leading to Koehler’s decision to write a rebuttal to the rebuttal, a decision Koehler later discarded after being convinced it was better to leave personal inter-office fights out of the newspapers.<br><br>"I really wanted to write a rebuttal, but later reconsidered sending it over the wires since it I thought our office disputes may be leading the reader away from the real issue of potential election fraud," said Koehler.<br><br>To get some measure of intellectual satisfaction, Koehler decided to write a common letter to the editor, expressing his displeasure over the Tribune’s reaction, which the Tribune printed without censorship.<br><br>After the dust settled and the parties made their peace, Koehler said he learned a valuable lesson about the true colors of the Tribune’s editorial policy as well as an overall lesson about the mainstream media’s obsession with controlling free speech by silencing diverse and controversial opinions.<br><br>"I understand it’s the Tribune’s call, but basically they made my story sound like a total conspiracy," said Koehler who has vowed to keep following the election fraud issue as well as other stories other mainstream journalists may not touch.<br><br>"My company (Tribune Online Services, a branch of the parent company) wants me to follow up on the election story and I am going to continue writing about it. But looking back at what happened, I can’t help but think the media is now sacrificing it’s own relevance by refusing to print and be open to stories like mine.<br><br>"It’s a modern day Jim Crow situation at heart, but I am a continual optimist. I keep believing this whole sad situation can be turned around some day. All I can say is I am going to keep writing about the controversial issues and stories, like election fraud, that have basically been ignored by the media.<br><br>But what also has been ignored by the Tribune and others, who are blaming the messenger while forgetting the message, is the sum and substance of Koehler’s election story.<br><br>After returning from the National Election Reform Conference, in Nashville, Tenn., Koehler writes in his controversial column that it was "an extraordinary pulling together of disparate voting-rights activists — 30 states were represented, 15 red and 15 blue — sponsored by a Nashville group called Gathering To Save Our Democracy. It had the feel of 1775: citizen patriots taking matters into their own hands to reclaim the republic. This was the level of its urgency.<br><br>"Was the election of 2004 stolen? Thus is the question framed by those who don’t want to know the answer. Anyone who says yes is immediately a conspiracy nut, and the listener’s eyeballs roll. So let’s not ask that question."<br><br>Instead of falling into the "conspiracy nut" classification by making blank accusations, Koehler then provided facts and details – food for thought – posing serious questions about voter disenfranchisement, electronic voter machine irregularity and ongoing disputes about exit polls not matching the election’s final results.<br><br>Questions like:<br><br>"Let’s simply ask why the lines were so long and the voting machines so few in Columbus and Cleveland and inner-city and college precincts across the country, especially in the swing states, causing an estimated one-third of the voters in these precincts to drop out of line without casting a ballot.<br><br>"This, mind you, is just for starters. We might also ask why so many Ph.D.-level mathematicians and computer programmers and other numbers-savvy scientists are saying that the numbers don’t make sense (see, for instance,
www.northnet.org/minstrel, the Web site of Dr. Richard Hayes Phillips, lead statistician in the Moss v. Bush lawsuit challenging the Ohio election results). Indeed, the movement to investigate the 2004 election is led by such people, because the numbers are screaming at them that something is wrong.<br><br>"And we might, no, we must, ask — with more seriousness than the media have asked — about those exit polls, which in years past were extraordinarily accurate but last November went haywire, predicting Kerry by roughly the margin by which he ultimately lost to Bush. This swing is out of the realm of random chance, forcing chagrined pollsters to hypothesize a "shy Republican" factor as the explanation; and the media have bought this evidence-free absurdity because it spares them the need to think about the F-word: fraud."<br><br>From Koehler’s tough questions, it’s easy to see why the Tribune bosses felt offended. Koehler struck an embarrassing nerve, reminding mainstream editors about the hypocrisy and folly they are actively pursuing on a daily basis.<br><br>Once a nerve like this is struck, it’s human nature to strike back and criticize and this is exactly what Tribune editors did.<br><br>However, Koehler’s questions have a much broader scope of importance besides a newsroom squabble. His hard hitting questions remind everyone the daunting task that lies ahead to restore some semblance of democracy in a government gone wild with power and a people feeling helpless to stop it.<br><br>Listen to the opening paragraphs of Koehler’s controversial column as a shocking reminder of the task ahead:<br><br>" As they slowly hack democracy to death, we’re as alone — we citizens — as we’ve ever been, protected only by the dust-covered clichés of the nation’s founding: "Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty. It’s time to blow off the dust and start paying the price. <br><br>"The media are not on our side. The politicians are not on our side. It’s just us, connecting the dots, fitting the fragments together, crunching the numbers, wanting to know why there were so many irregularities in the last election and why these glitches and dirty tricks and wacko numbers had not just an anti-Kerry but a racist tinge. This is not about partisan politics. It’s more like: "Oh no, this can’t be true." <br><br><br>Original article:<!--EZCODE AUTOLINK START--><a href="http://commonwonders.com/archives/col290.htm">commonwonders.com/archives/col290.htm</a><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK END--><br> <p></p><i></i>
by sunny » Sat Jun 18, 2005 9:21 pm