Petrelis Files

Dear Friends:

After another computer crash, the fourth in six months, on top of numerous viruses, worms, help from two techies, a visit from SBC to restore my DSL services, hours on the phone with AOL, SBC and SMC, shelling out money for PC assistance and new equipment, too much spent reinstalling programs and recovering lost documents, I've decided to take a break from the web.

Starting on Friday, my modem and DSL connection will be unplugged, for at least a week, probably longer. I will not be sending or reading emails, surfing the web, nor posting to my blog.

As someone who has never learned to drive a car, and doesn't own a cell phone, heck, I've used friends' cell phone no more than 8 - 9 times, I like to distance myself from some aspects of modern life.

If you need to reach me during this hiatus, please do so the old-fashioned way -- on the telephone. My number is 415-621-6267.
- - -


Rupert Murdoch
Rupert@newscorps.com
Chairman
News Corporation

Dear Mr. Murdoch:

One of your Fox News commentators, Mr. Neal Gabler, on the July 24 broadcast of "Fox News Watch" called for the creation of web site where donations from media personalities to politicians are permanently available for the public.

This idea of Gabler's is one I wholly support, and proposed a variation on that idea back on April 13 to Mr. Arthur Sulzberger Jr., chairman of the New York Times, at his company's annual shareholders meeting.

As a shareholder, I suggested that Reporter's Disclosure Page section be added to the Times web site informing readers of outside activities on the part of editorial staff that may influence their reporting. Unfortunately, Mr. Sulzberger rejected this call for increased transparency at his publication.

Mr. Gabler proposed "a kind of clearinghouse, a Web site, where every possible potential conflict of interest is listed on that site. And the address of that site runs occasionally at the bottom on crawls on all the networks and all the cable networks, and even in print, so that if you want to know whether somebody is having lunch with somebody or is invested somehow or is a friend of somebody or is giving money to somebody, you can find that out. Absolute full disclosure."

I ask you to establish a Disclosure Page on the Fox News web site showing, at minimum, visitors your Federal Election Commission files, along with those of other Fox News executives, reporters and commentators.

If you and Fox News were to do this, other media outlets would be pressured to meet the standard set by your corporation -- full disclosure of political contributions.

How would it look if your set an example with the disclosure page, and the New York Times didn't follow suit?

I'm not persuaded the American public needs a single web site devoted to tracking and disclosing media personalities' political giving.

Instead, it should be every media outlet's civic and journalistic responsibility to meet the highest standards of transparency, which means full disclosure on the outlet's site, permanently post for anyone to read.

Below is the transcript from Fox's "New Watch" of July 24.

I ask for a prompt reply.

Sincerely,
Michael Petrelis
San Francisco, CA
^^^

FOX NEWS WATCH
July 24, 2004

Host: Eric Burns
Panelists: Cal Thomas, James Pinkerton, Neal Gabler, Jane Hall


Segment Two: Should Journalists Make Financial Contributions to Campaigns?

BURNS: An editor for the "San Francisco Chronicle" has been suspended
for making a $400 contribution to John Kerry's presidential campaign. And
according to other reports, the editor of "The New Republic" gave Kerry
$2,000. A "New Yorker" senior editor gave Kerry $900. A "Wall Street
Journal" writer gave Kerry $300, a "Time" magazine editorial assistant gave
Nader $1,200. And our boss, Rupert Murdoch, gave Bush $2,000, but in the
past has contributed money to the senatorial campaigns of Kerry and Ted
Kennedy. In fact, here are the logos of some of the news organizations
whose employees have donated money to political candidates in recent years.
Problem?

HALL: Duh, as my students would say, yes. You know, I think that
journalists should be prohibited from giving political contributions. And
if I understood this correctly, some of the contributions that this follow
-- tracks on this blog from "The New York Times" came after "The New York
Times" issued a ban. I mean, I think we should be fair and look up what
Fox News people did, look up what anybody did. This is a no-brainer, as
far as I'm concerned. It makes us as look as if we are tainted.

BURNS: Anybody disagree?

PINKERTON: Yes.

BURNS: OK.

PINKERTON: Well, first of all, hats off to Mike Petrollus (ph),
crusading blogger out there, who did a lot of work that nobody else wanted
to do on this score. Second of all, look, I think if you make a deal with
your employer and your employer says, "No you can't contribute" then you
do, then you're breaking a deal with an employer. However, in general, I
don't think employers or anybody, including journalists, should demand that
you deprive yourself of your citizenship rights. I think they should be
disclosed. I think that the.

BURNS: Well, how would you disclose it? Jim, let's say someone's
writing an article. In that article, if he's writing an article about
Kerry, he gave Kerry $500.

PINKERTON: Yes, I think that would good. And it should also, of
course, go to the Federal Election Commission like it does. But look, I
mean it's revealing. I would rather know that somebody is pro-Democrat or
pro-Nader, or for that matter, pro-Bush, by not seeing where they gave
money and then trying to decipher what their spin might be in their
article.

GABLER: First of all, not all these people are journalists, No. 1.

BURNS: Right, but they're all in.

(CROSSTALK)

GABLER: I think what can make a distinction here between straight
reporters who should not have an investment, I think, in a story because it
may cloud their judgment, and opinion writers, of whom some of these people
were, who, you know, are out there saying they support Kerry or support
Bush, so giving money is really no big deal.

But look it, there are a million different potential conflicts of
interest, from the investments you make to the kind of the tax cuts you
got, from George Bush or that you might possibly get from Kerry, to the
person you're married to. NBC's Andrea Mitchell is married to the
Republican policy maker, the head of the Fed, Alan Greenspan.

Now, here's what I propose: what I propose is that we have a kind of
clearinghouse, a Web site, where every possible potential conflict of
interest is listed on that site. And the address of that site runs
occasionally at the bottom on crawls on all the networks and all the cable
networks, and even in print, so that if you want to know whether somebody
is having lunch with somebody or is invested somehow or is a friend of
somebody or is giving money to somebody, you can find that out. Absolute
full disclosure.

THOMAS: Well, first of all, I've never given a dollar to a politician
willingly. I do it through my tax dollars too often. But secondly, there
are many ways to make contributions to politicians, and journalists do it
all the time, by the nature of the stories they select, the kinds of
coverage they give, the types of questions they ask candidates they like as
opposed to the kinds of questions they ask candidates they don't like.

BURNS: Which is to say what, Cal, money is just one more.

(CROSSTALK)

THOMAS: Money is just one of the -- and I agree with.

BURNS: (UNINTELLIGIBLE) and it's OK?

THOMAS: Yes, well, I wouldn't do it. And I think, you know, there --
CBS has guidelines against it, which have been violated in the past. "The
New York Times" has guidelines. But look, Linda Greenhouse, who covers the
Supreme Court for "The New York Times" once participated in a pro-choice
demonstration before the United States Supreme Court. So maybe she didn't
give any money to a pro-choice candidate, but is this clouding her
coverage? "The New York Times" thought so and reprimanded her, and
properly so.

HALL: OK, well then if we're going to do this, let's also list all
the advertisers that people are scared of offending. Let's list all the
cigarette advertisers and look at women's magazines.

THOMAS: I'm all for that.

HALL: .and how much coverage they give to lung cancer. That is, you
know.

BURNS: But if this -- if the information on this Web site, when we're
looking.

HALL: This Web site is going to get bigger and bigger.

BURNS: .at gets to be longer than "Anna Karenina," no one's going to
read it.

PINKERTON: Well, somebody will. And I'm still reeling from Neal's
suggestion -- I should say I ride in the elevator every so often with
Senator Bunning of Kentucky, who lives in my building in Washington. So
there, there's another one.

GABLER: Do you exchange pleasantries because I want to know that!

BURNS: What about the very notion though that Jim suggested earlier?
Do it, make the contributions unless you have a specific prohibition in
your contract, but reveal them?

THOMAS: Yes, I don't.

BURNS: Is that the best solution to this narrow issue of giving
money.

THOMAS: But you know, it's not just politicians, though. For
example, my good friend, Bill Press, gave a $1,000 to the Gay and Lesbian
Victory Fund. Now, that wasn't a person. That was an ideology, a
political point of view. So should it be limited just to campaigns or to
causes?

PINKERTON: Yes, all charities. I mean, it would never stop.

BURNS: So the problem here is once we start, the slope is so
slippery.

PINKERTON: Right. But I think we should start at least. I do think
just contributions to candidates ought to be disclosed. But I think they
ought to be permitted. I don't think people should lose their citizenship.

GABLER: Well, the best solution would be abstinence, in this, as in a
number of things. However.

HALL: As opposed to don't ask, don't tell.

GABLER: But I'd like to see that Web site.

BURNS: "Anna Karenina," too much information. It's time for another
break. We'll be back with our "Quick Takes."

ANNOUNCER: The verdict was last week, but the media blitz with all
the columns and editorials and opinion pieces is still going on, so is FOX
NEWS WATCH after these messages.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)