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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 --------------------------------------------------------------------~->August 22, 2004 Please Distribute Widely Dear Colleague, The following report appears on The Narcosphere at: http://narcosphere.narconews.com/story/2004/8/22/12858/1420 A State of The Narcosphere Report By Al Giordano Posted on Sun Aug 22nd, 2004 at 12:08:58 PM EST As your publisher, I'm very, very, pleased with how The Narcosphere and the copublishers who make it run has performed in recent weeks. The minute-by-minute, play-by-play coverage of the Venezuela referendum - both from our informational War Room in Caracas (thank you to Francisco Quintero and the tech support team at Cyber Ram on Av. 2a de las Delicias for letting us take over before, during, and after election day, and also our friends at Apporea.org, Z-Net, Venezuelanalysis.com and Indymedia Colombia, Puerto Rico, and England, Forum magazine of Brazil, as well as Venezolana de Televisi�n, VIVE TV, and Radio Nacional Venezolana, for hooking up in our permanent online chatroom, sharing information, and participating in our vision of "the informational war room" in Caracas) and from our copublishers spread across Am�rica and the world, and also the Lord High Webmahster and managing editor Dan Feder at his post in Bolivia to keep everything running smoothly - who, together, showed that the Authentic Journalism renaissance is an idea whose time has come! Since the referendum results have been known, less than a week ago, there have been 18 Reporters Notebook entries on The Narcosphere by nine of our journalists, 45 substantial comments by our copublishers, plus seven Narco News stories by six journalists, not just from Venezuela but also from Bolivia, Colombia, and other lands. (60 new reports in six days! See http://narcosphere.com/ and http://narconews.com/ ) Now that we are no longer at our "secret" Caracas bunker, I can tell some war stories from those unforgettable days... 1. The Exit Polls: I'm proud that Narco News did not publish exit polls, although we had the information, by early afternoon, that the pro-Chavez forces were winning by between 55 percent and 61 percent, according to reliable exit poll data that was shared with us. As we have seen since, the Commercial Media in Venezuela is eager to broadcast any distortion to destabilize and discredit Am�rica's most successful, participated, and fair election process in history. The "67% for Chavez" numbers floated, and then erased, by Vheadline publisher Roy Carson turned out to be false. And so did the "60% anti-Chavez" numbers floated by political consultant Eric Ekvall in the mid-afternoon. Narco News had the real numbers but obeyed Venezuelan election law, which brings me to my next point... 2. Shooting Down the Big Lie: In the afternoon of Sunday, August 15, as it was evident that Venezuela experienced a record turnout by voters in the referendum on the tenure of President Hugo Chavez, over on the opposition-led Caracas Chronicles blog, political consultant and New Age products distributor Eric Ekvall, posting only under the name of "Eric," posted false exit poll numbers, claiming an opposition victory of 60 percent and dishonestly claiming that among his sources was the Carter Center. He also claimed that in the working class neighborhood of 23 de Enero (where Chavez, the results later showed, won almost 70 percent of the vote) that the Carter Center told him that the anti-Chavez side was winning by 54% to 46%. We knew that this was untrue. We also knew that it was illegal. I picked up the phone and called the office of Communications Secretary Jesse Chacon for comment - his job is similar to that of FCC chair Michael Powell in the U.S., except that Chacon has expanded low-power Community Radio stations from 25 to 80 community broadcasters in just two years, whereas Powell is dedicated to snuffing them out - on what Ekvall had cynically done to manipulate and tarnish the process. It was news to them, but wow did they act fast. Within FIVE MINUTES Chacon took to national TV to decry false and illegal exit polls on the "Chimbo Internet," and the public was inoculated against Ekvall's latest attempt to promote a Big Lie. While it is possible that Ekvall was working off the numbers generated by the extremist partisan group Sumate under the banner of Penn, Schoen & Berland, it is now clear that he was blowing smoke in his online claims that the Carter Center had Chavez losing in one of his strongest neighborhoods. The party is over for Ekvall's ability to manipulate the process ever again. 3. The Hannah Baldock Story: This one will go down in the annals of Narco News history... another inaccurate - whether dishonest or just unbelievably stupid and gullible, we may never know - "journalist" published, at around 8 p.m., a story in the Independent of London, four hours before polls closed, claiming Chavez had lost the referendum. Narcosphere readers now know how that story turned out: Narco News readers flooded The Independent with email protests, and the daily had to erase its inaccurate story from the Internet. The British "reporter" Hannah Baldock disappeared from view. And Reed Lindsay took over the reporting duties for that paper. Throughout the foreign and national correspondent community in Venezuela - where gossip runs fast, cell phones are constantly ringing, and everybody talks to everybody else - the story of the Fall of Baldock ran like a mighty river... putting all the usual suspect journos on notice that no funny business would be gotten away with on this election day. Thank you, Hannah, for volunteering as the poster girl of what happens to dishonest or gullible journalists who repeat what Power tells them without questioning the facts. 4. A Morning Warning to AP: Earlier that morning, Ron Smith and I headed out to the aforementioned 23 de Enero neighborhood where Chavez was going to vote. There, we met up with Narco News 2003 J-School professor Renato Rovai of Brazil and other autenticos... all in the same fenced-off press corral as the Commercial Media. There was a guy there with a baseball cap that said AP, and a press pass that said Associated Press (he might as well have worn a "kick me" sign on his back) and his nametag revealed him as the seldom accurate, rabid anti-Chavez spinner Juan Pablo Toro. It was about 10 a.m. and I approached him, extending my hand and smiling, and in my best gringo-Venezuelan accent, in Spanish, I said: "Juan Pablo! How are you? I'm Alberto Giordano with Narco News and guess what! Today and tonight we're operating an informational war room with 20 fast internet connections and international journalists to review every word that you write, and if you attempt any lies, we will shoot them down immediately! So, tell Selsky, and Owens, and Toothaker and the rest of your professional simulators from AP that Narco News is in town, and there is to be 'no funny business!'" (I said the "no funny business" part in English, for dramatic effect.) Toro couldn't get away from me fast enough! But the message was delivered. And he kept looking at me all morning long with a sour, depressed, look on his face, then looking away when I'd smile at him. The Narco News Informational War Room, thus, I am pleased to report, was a successful innovation in rumor control and getting the true facts out, as well as a long overdue check and balance against the common abuses by a Commercial Media long accustomed to getting away with disinformational murder. All it takes is a cyber cafe... and a group of talented fast-class honest journalists... and a global network of copublishers... and a cell phone... and, viola!, authentic democracy and authentic journalism join together to make history. Thanks to everyone who participated. We'll do this again and again and again and again until all the Commercial Media - and dishonest spin doctors like Ekvall and his ilk - finally realizes that its black magic hocus-pocus form of inventing and spinning "news" no longer works... not while Narco News is in town! Yes, The Narcosphere has arrived as a new model for rapid response and initiative in service of the public and the truth. Bookmark it today: http://narcosphere.com/ from somewhere in a country called Am�rica, 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 Suscr�bete gratis para alertas de nuevos reportajes en espa�ol: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/narconewsandes Inscreva-se para alertas gratuitos de reportagens do �ltimo minuto em portugu�s brasileiro: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/narconewsbrasil _________________________________________________________________ Add photos to your e-mail with MSN 8. Get 2 months FREE*. http://join.msn.com/?page=features/featuredemail 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! 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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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