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--- Begin Message ----Caveat Lector- ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor --------------------~--> Make a clean sweep of pop-up ads. Yahoo! Companion Toolbar. Now with Pop-Up Blocker. Get it for free! http://us.click.yahoo.com/L5YrjA/eSIIAA/yQLSAA/KlSolB/TM --------------------------------------------------------------------~->April 19, 2004 Please Distribute Widely Dear Colleague, I have returned to the Narco Newsroom "somewhere in a country called América" after two unforgettable tours of duty: the first, in Bolivia, where the second annual Narco News School of Authentic Journalism took place, and the second in Venezuela, to observe, investigate, and report on the historic referendum last Sunday. I return tired but inspired, broke but not broken, and ready to take the battle to the next level. Now is the time to catch up with you, the readers - my bosses, my only boss - and begin to relate all that we have lived and seen in recent weeks. I will start with the most pressing matter: the fraudulent claims of fraud by some extremist opposition groups in Sunday's Venezuela referendum vote, claims made by accusers that are so dishonest that they are now hiding from the vote audit - refusing to show their faces - as they know it will prove them, again, to be serial liars. But I wish to bring your attention to one important, if nasty, piece of foreign intervention in Venezuelan democracy about which every United States and British citizen must be informed: the unethical and illegal, under Venezuelan law, behavior by the U.S.-based polling company Penn, Schoen & Berland, and their U.S. government-funded client, the opposition group called Súmate. The following story was published today on Narco News. It is especially a must-read for politicians, political parties, political reporters, and honest public opinion pollsters, because the kind of behavior engaged in by Penn, Schoen & Berland harms the public trust in all pollsters, politicians, parties, and also the democratic process: Penn & Schoen's Inaccurate and Dishonest "Exit Poll" on Chávez Vote Maneuver by U.S. Political Consultants Violated Venezuelan Law and Professional Ethics Codes By Al Giordano Special to The Narco News Bulletin August 19, 2004 CARACAS, VENEZUELA AND SOMEWHERE IN AMÉRICA: The United States-based, British-owned, political consulting firm bearing the names of pollsters Mark Penn, Doug Schoen, and Michael Berland, committed a crime under Venezuelan election law on Sunday: It violated the law against releasing “exit poll” data before polls had closed. In the firm’s own press release, Penn, Schoen & Berland admitted that they knew they were releasing the supposed “exit poll” information while voting was still underway: “New York, August 15, 2004, 7:30pm EST – With Venezuela’s voting set to end at 8:00pm EST according to election officials, final exit poll results from Penn, Schoen & Berland Associates, an independent New York-based polling firm, show a major victory for the ‘Yes’ movement, defeating Chavez in the Venezuelan presidential recall referendum.” The careless and malicious approach that Penn, Schoen & Berland displayed with the Venezuela referendum on the continued tenure of President Hugo Chávez can be seen by the hour when the firm put out its press release: Voting in Venezuela had already been extended another two-and-a-half hours, until 10 p.m. (it would later be extended past midnight) so that all the millions of Venezuelan citizens still waiting on line to vote would be able to cast their ballots... Read the whole report at... http://www.narconews.com/Issue34/article1046.html ...there, you can read exactly how Penn, Schoen & Berland violated the ethics code of the American Association of Public Opinion Research... and its history, in a previous Latin American election (Mexico 2000) of also violating legal and ethical codes. What we see here is a pattern of unethical behavior by the company also commonly known as Penn & Schoen when it works in Latin America... and the hour has come to blow the whistle. Penn, Schoen & Berland's claims of a Chávez defeat on Sunday - five hours before polls closed! - are the basis of Venezuela opposition claims of fraud: the Penn & Schoen "exit poll," alone, was inaccurate by a total of 36 percentage points! And the smear attempt against the democratic process also attacks the reputation of the U.S. company, SmartMatic, that worked so hard to make Sunday's election the fairest, most heavily participated, and, in fact, only presidential recall vote in American history! Observers as diverse as Jimmy Carter, Cesar Gaviria and the Organization of American States were on hand and saw a fair and free election. Even Chávez-hater José Miguel Vivanco of Human Rights Watch has acknowledged that the result is clean! Penn & Schoen and their clients stand alone in implying otherwise with their bad faith numbers games. But what we have subsequently discovered is that Penn, Schoen & Berland also failed to make another important disclosure: that it counts among its clients a different company that also makes touch screen voting machines! See the update on the Narcosphere: http://narcosphere.narconews.com/story/2004/8/19/164538/470 Get it? Penn, Schoen & Berland work for one touch screen machine company while peddling dubious "exit poll" data (data, we have since learned from AP, was not collected by company employees, but, rather, by the activist group client's members, another violation of standard polling methodology that the company failed to disclose) that smears another touch screen machine company's good name. How cynical does it get? It is time to put United States and British polling companies on notice: Stop playing dirty in Latin America! The same professional standards that apply in those countries should apply South of the Border, too. Anything less is an obscene form of colonialism. Coming soon... Some reflections on the J-School in Bolivia... and new reports still coming in from the scholars and professors in that historic ten days in coca-growing country... Some radio reports have already been posted to our front page: http://www.narconews.com/ (To those of you to whom I owe email responses to pending matters during my weeks on the road, I am starting today to reply and will be in touch shortly.) from somewhere in a country called América, Al Giordano Publisher The Narco News Bulletin http://www.narconews.com/ [EMAIL PROTECTED] Narco News is supported by: The Fund for Authentic Journalism P.O. Box 71051 Madison Heights, MI 48071 USA http://www.authenticjournalism.org The Fund receives online donations at this web page: http://www.authenticjournalism.org Apply for your co-publisher's account, here: http://www.narconews.com/copublisher/application.php Subscribe for free alerts of new reports: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/narconews Suscríbete gratis para alertas de nuevos reportajes en español: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/narconewsandes Inscreva-se para alertas gratuitos de reportagens do último minuto em português brasileiro: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/narconewsbrasil _________________________________________________________________ The new MSN 8: advanced junk mail protection and 2 months FREE* http://join.msn.com/?page=features/junkmail Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/narconews/ <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/ www.ctrl.org DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER ========== CTRL is a discussion & informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic screeds are unwelcomed. Substance—not soap-boxing—please! These are sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory'—with its many half-truths, mis- directions and outright frauds—is used politically by different groups with major and minor effects spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought. That being said, CTRLgives no endorsement to the validity of posts, and always suggests to readers; be wary of what you read. CTRL gives no credence to Holocaust denial and nazi's need not apply. Let us please be civil and as always, Caveat Lector. ======================================================================== Archives Available at: http://www.mail-archive.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED]/ <A HREF="http://www.mail-archive.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED]/">ctrl</A> ======================================================================== To subscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email: SUBSCRIBE CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED] To UNsubscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email: SIGNOFF CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED] Om
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