Cindy Sheehan is NOT a tool of the left!

Here is my comment about this KPIX Channel 5 story about Cindy Sheehan on Friday night, August 12, 2005

News Director
KPIX-CBS

I’d like you and everyone reading this blog to note the way your story tonight on Cindy Sheehan was directed and stage managed even more than it was insinuated that Cindy’s message was directed.

Your producer (or your affiliate’s producer) made a big deal about how someone told her to show her face and how some “anonymous” woman gave her some advice on how to hold her sign. Clearly this footage was designed to show that Cindy was a tool. The “Cindy is a tool of the left” is one of the current talking points of the right-wing talk radio pundits. Your producer worked very hard to attempt to prove it by focusing on those moments with the sign.

Unidentified woman that KPIX producer didn't bother to identify

Why didn’t the producer find out the identity of the anonymous woman? Maybe she was another Gold Star mom. Maybe she was a photographer’s assistant from a competing TV station. By choosing not to identify that woman the story insinuated Cindy was being used by “liberal extremists” or other forces. And by the way, since when has telling someone to not block their face with a sign been high-level strategic advice?

Cindy holding the sign and blocking her face. Was it a common sense suggestion to lower it, or an evil plot by Michael Moore's henchmen?

Here’s the point: Cindy’s message was her message before your cameras and other people were there and it will be her message after you (or your affiliate) have left Crawford Texas. The question should be: Why is the President so afraid to talk to her? Why is it news? Is it because he rarely has to provide real answers to real people in a public setting? Instead of the left using her, perhaps she is using the left to help get her message out. The President doesn’t attend funerals, he has photo ops, not real press conferences and he only speaks to stage managed, pre-screened audiences. Mrs. Sheehan is speaking from the heart in an articulate fashion and a meeting would show just how disconnected he is from the people.

Your producers should know by now that any public criticism of the President has always been met with blatant smears and insinuation. No one is good enough to avoid the attack. The smear process is as regular as clock work and your producer followed the standard smear script. Ask yourself, has ANYONE criticizing the President been allowed to speak WITHOUT being smeared? Must you ALWAYS balance criticism of the President with a smear of the critic?

Of course this smear has been a bit more difficult to believe than the rest because reasonable people know it is unseemly to attack grieving mothers of dead children.


Your producer also fell into the “If we cover the parent of a dead child against the war we need to interview the parent of a dead child for the war” trap. This is a false equivalency. Maybe if you did a survey of the parents of all 1836 dead and found 50 percent for the war and 50 percent against it, it would be appropriate to have on the man who was fine with the war and his son dying in it. Then you also might ask yourself, “Did we have to look hard for that parent or was he supplied to us by “the extreme right” or the military? Are you questioning if he is a tool of the administration? Did your cameraman give him any advice on how to sit during his interview? If you are going to use the false equivalency gambit, please go all the way.

I do hope in future stories of people critical of the war or the President you will consider how you frame your story and notice if you are being the unwitting tool of the right wing smear merchants.

Sincerely,
Spocko

After I sent that letter I did a bit of research about the man who was "the parent of a dead child for the war". What is interesting is that he might have been coached as well, he also has an agenda and it looks like he might have a problem with the grieving mother of his dead son.
the parent of a dead child for the war

Who pitched him to appear? Who coached him on what to say? Why isn't Ken Ballard's MOTHER his ex-wife who is angry at the miltary speaking?

Dear News Director:

Just an addendum to my earlier comment about your Sheehan story below. I questioned the choice of Tom Ballard as the counterpoint spokesperson to Cindy Sheehan. Why didn’t you use Ken Ballard’s MOTHER? Could it be because she would have supported Cindy? Ken Ballard’s mother, Karen Meredith, is divorced from his father, Tom Ballard. Karen Meredith identified herself as a single mom while raising Ken. In addition, if you would have done some research you might have found that Karen Meredith is also unhappy with the military. Note her comments in an article last year by Cox News service.

Tears fall before words.
LINDA SPILLERS
Courtesy of Cox News Service

Karen Meredith of California stands at the gravesite of her son, 1st Lt. Kenneth Ballard, Tuesday at Arlington National Cemetery.

It's her first visit since she buried First Lieutenant Kenneth Michael Ballard, a fourth generation soldier, last fall.

Still fresh, like the soil churned behind her son's grave for another row of dead, is her anger. Anger at the way the Pentagon refused her sole wish when her son was killed by a sniper last May to photograph his casket returning from Iraq.

Meredith wanted to capture the way fellow soldiers respectfully draped the American flag across the casket, tucking the sides just so, and the way an honor guard watched over him as he was unloaded from a cargo plane.

But the Pentagon firmly said "no." It was against regulations and would violate the privacy of family members of other slain soldiers.

"It's dishonorable and disrespectful to the families," said Meredith. "They say it's for privacy, but it's really because they don't want the country to see how many people are coming back in caskets."

The Pentagon's reasons for denying the media access to the caskets returning to Dover Air Force Base are widely reported and legally contested. What isn't so well known is that the Pentagon refuses to allow the families of dead soldiers access to the caskets returning to Dover and other military bases.

"It's bad enough that they won't let the country see the pictures of the caskets, but a grieving mother?" asked Meredith. "It's unforgivable after what I lost."

The Department of Defense defends its policy, which was created in 1991 by then-secretary of Defense Dick Cheney. The policy protects the privacy of families who have lost loved ones in the war and who may not want their son or daughter's casket inadvertently photographed, said Lieutenant Colonel Barry Venable, a Defense Department spokesperson.

What families of dead soldiers really want is "the expeditious return of their remains," not photographs at Dover, Venable said.

The department strongly discourages family members from coming to Dover to watch the caskets of the dead unload. "It's a tarmac, not a parade ground," Venable said. The caskets arriving at Dover are similar to the "hearse pulling up to the back of a funeral home," he said.

Meredith says she was prepared to lose her son in battle. What she wasn't prepared for was the way the military treated her when he died from a sniper's bullet in the head. She doesn't understand how a single photograph of his casket for her own personal album would violate her own privacy.

"It is ironic that this policy denies us the very freedoms of the press and speech my son — and so many like him — gave their lives to protect," Meredith says.

You did an exclusive Eyewitness poll for your story that showed that a large percentage of the Bay Area, 68 percent, support Sheehan’s stand off in Crawford Texas, 28 percent oppose it. Now perhaps if you followed your polling data you would have had on TWO grieving mothers who were against the war and one grieving mother who supported it. Or perhaps having on Karen Meredith followed by her ex-husband would also show that although families don’t agree about how their dead son’s life was used, there are more grieving mothers of dead children who want answers and don’t want to wrap themselves in a comfortable fantasy that the President started this war for a noble cause.

I understand the format you used “this side says X so we need to have the other side say Y”, but when your own polling data shows that the 50-50 format is not representative of the weight of the opinion, maybe you should consider how you structure your story.

Sincerely,
Spocko