Subj: FW: Knight Ridder DC editor gave to Kerry in April, CEO gave to Bush in '99
Date: 8/31/04 4:56:05 PM Pacific Daylight Time
From: TRidder@knightridder.com (Ridder, Tony)
To: MPetrelis@aol.com

On the issue of Ms Adcock she believed she was in compliance with the
ethics policy when she made her contributions. She will make no more.

As news desk chief, her job is to be the chief copy editor of the bureau,
moving story budgets, enforcing deadlines and doing final reads for
meaning, punctuation, spelling and grammar.

She does not assign stories,
direct reporters or set news policy in any way.

As I wrote in my earlier
e-mail we are tightening the policy to eliminate future confusion on the
question of political contributions.

Dear Mr. Ridder,

Thanks for your quick response and explanation about your donation to George W. Bush in 1999.

However, you didn't address my concerns over Beryl Adcock's donations to Kerry and the Democratic National Committee.

As a news consumer, I need to know if Adcock's financial support of Kerry and the DNC violates Knight Ridder's code of ethics and if her donations have been disclosed to readers.

In my opinion, it's in the best interests of Knight Ridder, and its commitment to fairness, balance and the facts, for you to explain Adcock's contributions.

Regards,
Michael Petrelis


Subj: RE: Knight Ridder DC editor gave to Kerry in April, CEO gave to Bush in '99
Date: 8/31/04 2:47:23 PM Pacific Daylight Time
From: TRidder@knightridder.com (Ridder, Tony)
To: MPetrelis@aol.com

My recollection of what happened five years ago is my wife gave $2000 to
the Bush campaign(1999) and half of it was attributed to me. Since then
neither one of us has contributed to a political campaign nor will we
contribute again as long as I'm CEO of the company. We will tighten our
ethics policy so there can be no ambiguity about newsroom personnel,
Publishers or corporate executives with newsroom oversight
responsibilities contributing to campaigns that our newspapers are
covering. I don't have a problem with other Knight Ridder employees
personally contributing to political campaigns.

P. Anthony Ridder
Chairman and Chief Executive Officer
Knight Ridder News
San Jose, CA

Dear Mr. Ridder:

The Knight Ridder company's code of ethics on political donations from editorial employees is clearly spelled out, allowing them, as private citizens, to participate in the political process, but to avoid any conflict of interest such donations may cause.

The code states:

"Knight Ridder employees, as private individuals, are free to contribute to and work for political parties, causes or candidates and to participate in debate on issues of the day. But it is very important to avoid situations that might raise a perception of bias in the context of newspapers' or other news-gathering units' responsibilities to report and comment upon such activities. This sensitivity is most obvious, of course, in the case of news and editorial employees and those with responsibility for those functions within a newspaper or other news organization . . . Political contributions by corporations are regulated by state and federal laws, and in some cases are prohibited. In no case may an employee's personal contribution be represented as a Company endorsement."

In searching campaign finance disclosure web sites, I've learned that many Knight Ridder executives and editorial staff employees have donated to candidates and campaigns, frequently listing their employer as Knight Ridder.

Of prime concern to me are donations from Ms. Beryl Adcock, the news desk chief for your Washington bureau, to both Sen. John Kerry's presidential campaign and the Democratic National Committee. According to Federal Election Commission records, Adcock apparently gave Kerry $1,000 back in April, and $550 to the DNC last year.

Do her donations to Kerry and the DNC compromise her integrity as a journalist for Knight Ridder?

One of your senior vice presidents, Ms. Mary Jean Connors, gave $2,000 in April to a Superior Court candidate in Washington State, according to records from the Public Disclosure Commission in Olympia.

You have also donated to a politician's campaign. FEC files show you gave George W. Bush $1,000 in 1999, helping him win the White House in 2000.

I have several questions for you regarding these and other donations from Knight Ridder executives and journalists.

When did the current code of ethics go into effect? Do the contributions in any way violate Knight Ridder's code of ethics? Has Knight Ridder disclosed the donations to readers, especially the contribution from Adcock?

A prompt reply is requested and duly appreciated.

Sincerely,
Michael Petrelis
San Francisco, CA
^^^

www.pdc.wa.gov

POWERS JAMES C
04/15/2004
$2,000.00
CONNORS MARY JEAN
LOS GATOS CA 95032
KNIGHT RIDDER SR VP


www.tray.com

Adcock, Beryl Ms.
4/19/2004 $1,000.00
Arlington, VA 22202
Journalist -[Contribution]
JOHN KERRY FOR PRESIDENT INC

Adcock, Beryl Ms.
5/27/2003 $200.00
Arlington, VA 22202
Knight RIDDER/Journalist -[Contribution]
DNC SERVICES CORPORATION/DEMOCRATIC NATIONAL COMMITTEE

Adcock, Beryl Ms.
12/23/2003 $250.00
Arlington, VA 22202
Knight RIDDER/Journalist -[Contribution]
DNC SERVICES CORPORATION/DEMOCRATIC NATIONAL COMMITTEE

Dabney, Deborah L. Ms.
6/30/2003 $2,000.00
Fort Worth, TX 76120
Knight Ridder/Manager -[Contribution]
BUSH-CHENEY '04 INC

Leavitt, Shawn
3/5/2004 $500.00
Oakland, CA 94610
Knight Ridder/Director Benefits -[Contribution]
JOHN KERRY FOR PRESIDENT INC

Leavitt, Shawn
6/14/2004 $250.00
Oakland, CA 94610
Knight Ridder/Director Benefits -[Contribution]
JOHN KERRY FOR PRESIDENT INC

CHALLINOR, JOAN RIDDER
9/28/2002 $1,000.00
WASHINGTON, DC 20008
KNIGHT RIDDER -[Contribution]
SHAHEEN FOR SENATE COMMITTEE

CHALLINOR, JOAN RIDER
6/28/2002 $500.00
WASHINGTON, DC 20008
KNIGHT RIDDER -[Contribution]
SHAHEEN FOR SENATE COMMITTEE

CHAPMAN, ALVAH JR
3/29/2002 $500.00
MIAMI, FL 33133
KNIGHT RIDDER -[Contribution]
LINDSEY GRAHAM FOR SENATE

Sexton, Hughie Mr.
3/25/2002 $1,000.00
Matthews, NC 28104
Knight Ridder/Photographer -[Contribution]
NORTH CAROLINA'S SALUTE TO GEORGE W BUSH COMMITTEE INC

CHALLINOR, JOAN RIDDER
9/28/2002 $1,000.00
WASHINGTON, DC 20008
KNIGHT RIDDER -[Contribution]
SHAHEEN FOR SENATE COMMITTEE

CHALLINOR, JOAN RIDER
6/28/2002 $500.00
WASHINGTON, DC 20008
KNIGHT RIDDER -[Contribution]
SHAHEEN FOR SENATE COMMITTEE

CHAPMAN, ALVAH JR
3/29/2002 $500.00
MIAMI, FL 33133
KNIGHT RIDDER -[Contribution]
LINDSEY GRAHAM FOR SENATE

Sexton, Hughie Mr.
3/25/2002 $1,000.00
Matthews, NC 28104
Knight Ridder/Photographer -[Contribution]
NORTH CAROLINA'S SALUTE TO GEORGE W BUSH COMMITTEE INC

CHAPMAN, ALVAH
7/9/1999 $250.00
MIAMI, FL 33183
KNIGHT RIDDER INC -[Contribution]
CARRIE MEEK FOR CONGRESS

CHAPMAN, ALVAH JR
6/30/1999 $250.00
MIAMI, FL 33133
KNIGHT RIDDER -[Contribution]
BILL NELSON FOR U S SENATE

JONES, ROSS
4/12/1999 $200.00
SARATOGA, CA 95707
KNIGHT RIDDER -[Contribution]
SUE KELLY FOR CONGRESS

JONES, ROSS
6/30/1999 $200.00
SARATOGA, CA 95070
KNIGHT RIDDER -[Contribution]
SUE KELLY FOR CONGRESS

LAFFOON, POLK IV
6/30/1999 $1,000.00
SARATOGA, CA 95070
KNIGHT RIDDER -[Contribution]
BUSH FOR PRESIDENT INC

LIU, TALLY
9/21/2000 $250.00
SARATOGA, CA 95070
KNIGHT RIDDER -[Contribution]
DAVE WU FOR CONGRESS

RIDDER, P ANTHONY
6/30/1999 $1,000.00
WOODSIDE, CA 94062
KNIGHT RIDDER -[Contribution]
BUSH FOR PRESIDENT INC

RODRIGUEZ, JASON
2/22/2000 $250.00
SAN JOSE, CA 95127
KNIGHT RIDDER -[Contribution]
MIKE HONDA FOR CONGRESS

STEVENSON, KAREN
10/20/2000 $250.00
BERKELEY, CA 94705
KNIGHT RIDDER INC -[Contribution]
AMERICA WOMEN VOTE 2000!

STEVENSON, KAREN
4/20/1999 $250.00
BERKELEY, CA 94705
KNIGHT RIDDER INC -[Contribution]
EMILY'S LIST

STEVENSON, KAREN
7/23/1999 $250.00
BERKELEY, CA 94705
KNIGHT RIDDER INC -[Contribution]
EMILY'S LIST

CHAPMAN, ALVAH H JR
11/7/1997 $250.00
MIAMI, FL 33133
KNIGHT RIDDER INC -[Contribution]
CARRIE MEEK FOR CONGRESS

FIELDER, VIRGINIA D
5/19/1997 $1,000.00
WAYNESBORO, TN 38485
KNIGHT RIDDER -[Contribution]
SCORSONE FOR CONGRESS

Date: 8/30/04 2:57:28 PM Pacific Daylight Time
From: publiceditor@news.oregonian.com (Publiceditor MailBox)
To: MPetrelis@aol.com

Dear Mr. Petrelis,

I applaud you for examining campaign contributions because it is
difficult and complicated work. But I want to let you know that none of
the folks you mention is an editorial staff member.

One person listed, Karen Sorenson, is a freelance writer who who writes
a weekly column purchased by the newspaper.
She is not an employee.

Another person listed, Tom Whitehouse, is an employee of The Oregonian,
but with the Human Resources Department for the newspaper, not the
editorial staff.

The rest of the people are either contractors with the advertising
department (the editorial staff produces no auto section) or the
circulation department. They have nothing to do with the editorial
staff.

The editorial staff of The Oregonian has guidelines that speak to
involvement in political campaigns. Those guidelines are clear: News
employees should vigorously avoid public displays of political
partisanship. They should not contribute to political campaigns or
causes or participate in public demonstrations of support or opposition
to political causes or candidates.

Please let me know if you need additional information.

Thanks,
Michael Arrieta-Walden

Michael Arrieta-Walden
Public Editor
The Oregonian
publiceditor@news.oregonian.com

Dear Mr. Arrieta-Walden:

A search of publicly available Federal Election Commission records at the Political Money Line web site, www.tray.com, for donations from editorial staff at the Oregonian reveals the following contributions.

I've also searched the Oregonian's web site and can't find any stories showing the paper disclosed an automotive editor has donated $500 this year to John Kerry and a journalist for the paper in March wrote a check for $1,500 to Jim Zupancic, a GOP candidate for Oregon's 5th Congressional District seat.

In light of these political donations, I wonder what your paper's policy is regarding editorial staff giving money to politicians and campaigns.

Does the Oregonian allow or prohibit such contributions?

If the paper does permit these kind of donations, does the Oregonian require the disclosures be disclosed to readers in print and on the web?

An explanation of the Oregonian's policies on these matters is respectfully requested and appreciated.

Sincerely,
Michael Petrelis
San Francisco, CA
Ph: 415-621-6267
^^^

www.tray.com

Hill, Robert L
3/2/2004 $250.00
Canby, OR 97013
The Oregonian/Automotive Editor -[Contribution]
JOHN KERRY FOR PRESIDENT INC

Hill, Robert L
6/20/2004 $250.00
Canby, OR 97013
The Oregonian/Automotive Editor -[Contribution]
JOHN KERRY FOR PRESIDENT INC

Sorenson, Karin
3/3/2004 $1,500.00
Lake Oswego, OR 97035
The Oregonian/Journalist -[Contribution]
ZUPANCIC FOR CONGRESS 2004 INC

Whitehouse, Thomas J
12/31/2003 $200.00
Lake Oswego, OR 97035
Oregonian Publ Company/Human Resour -[Contribution]
DEMOCRATIC CONGRESSIONAL CAMPAIGN COMMITTEE

Jones, Leona Mrs.
1/9/2002 $500.00
Ontario, OR 97914
The Oregonian/Newspaper Dealer -[Contribution]
REPUBLICAN NATIONAL COMMITTEE

Jones, Leona Mrs.
10/24/2002 $1,000.00
Ontario, OR 97914
The Oregonian/Newspaper Dealer -[Contribution]
REPUBLICAN NATIONAL COMMITTEE

RUSSELL, CANDACE T
3/15/2002 $200.00
PORTLAND, OR 97232
THE OREGONIAN -[Contribution]
GORDON SMITH FOR US SENATE 2002 INC

That Mr. Pates of the SF Chronicle certainly is a giving man.

We know he made many contributions to local and federal candidates, but, now there new information on donations he made to a candidate for Washington State governor. His most recent donation to her was in June.

Michael Stoll of Grade The News has written extensively on Pates' donations and the Chronicle response, and his stories can be found at http://www.stanford.edu/group/gradethenews/.

Pates has clearly made quite a number of contributions, and I wonder if know about all of his political donations. For all we know, he's also written out checks to candidates and cause in NY or MA or IL.

Here's a suggestion for the Chronicle: increase transparency and disclose all political donations from editorial staff on the paper's web site.

Let readers make up their minds as to whether the political giving in any way influenced coverage, by giving us a list of donations.

Editors should survey all editorial employees about any political contributions in the past three years.

The listings below come from the Public Disclosure Commission of Washington.

Check out their web site at: http://www.pdc.wa.gov/searchdatabase/.


Candidate/Committee Date Amount Contributor City State Zip Employer Occupation

GREGOIRE CHRISTINE O
11/03/2003
$118.00
PATES WILLIAM SAN FRANCISCO CA 94133
SF CHRONICLE JOURNALIST

GREGOIRE CHRISTINE O
06/07/2004
$100.00
PATES WILLIAM SAN FRANCISCO CA 94133
SF CHRONICLE JOURNALIST

I received a voicemail message two days ago from the woman who handles public inquiries for the Seattle Times, responding to my concerns about political donations from the paper's editorial and non-news staffs.

Unlike the New York Times, the Boston Globe and other publications that bar editorial staff from contributing to candidates and causes, the Seattle Times does not maintain such a prohibition.

I don't have problems with papers allowing reporters and editors to give to politicians, but do I think publication should go to great lengths to disclose such donations.

In my post the other day about donations from Seattle Times employees, I failed to include the following two listings from the company that owns the paper and its publisher, which come from www.tray.com.

BLETHEN CORPORATION
2/29/2000 $1,000.00
SEATTLE, WA 98111
-[[Receipt--exempt from limits]]
DCCCC NON-FEDERAL ACCOUNT #1

BLETHEN, FRANK A
3/13/1992 $500.00
SEATTLE, WA 98111
SEATTLE TIMES -[Contribution]
DANIEL K INOUYE IN '92

If you want to reach Kerry Coughlin at the Seattle Times, her phone number is 206-464-3318.

Here is the transcript of her voicemail message.
^^^

Wednesday, August 25, 2004, at 5:32 P.M.

"Hi Michael. It's Kerry Coughlin [public relations manager] at the Seattle Times. I had a chance to look at your message and also discuss it with [executive editor] Mike Fancher, so I'm responding for both of us. But I just wanted to get back with you.

"In looking at the list, one of the things we both noticed is that the majority of people on the list are non news employees. They are employees from elsewhere in the organization. And we don't have any policy at the Times prohibiting non newsroom employees from making a personal political organization. We don't do anything, we don't do it on behalf of the company, but they are not prohibited from making personal contributions because it doesn't affect anything with news judgment.

"And on the news side, there were a couple folks in there maybe, but we don't specifically prohibit news people from making contributions. It's not an absolute, firm, in all cases. We do discourage it, and the policy is clear, however, that staff members should make sure they avoid any active involvement in partisan causes that would compromise their credibility or the reader's trust in the newspaper's ability to report it fairly. But again, there's discretion there if it's something that they would not have anything to do with.

"For example on the list there might have been a reporter who was an arts and entertainment reporter and made a contribution outside of her coverage area to a legislative candidate. So we didn't see necessarily an issue.

But, anyway, appreciate the look at the list and we'll review the appropriate list of whatever contributions with any individuals and editors. But anyway, so, that's essentially where it is. And thanks for getting in touch with us. Bye bye."

Michael R. Fancher
mfancher@seattletimes.com
Executive Editor
The Seattle Times

Dear Mr. Fancher:

I've been researching political donations from Seattle Times executives and editorial staff, and, to my surprise, have discovered the following contributions on campaign finance disclosure web sites.

These donations from Seattle Times employees forces me to question if your newspaper has a policy prohibiting such political giving. If you do, then why are so many employees making these donating?

On the other hand, if the Seattle Times does not ban political giving by editorial staff, how does your publication maintain objectivity?

A search of the Seattle Times web site does not turn up a single disclosure in the paper about the donations, which I find troubling, as a news consumer dedicated to increasing transparency at news outlets.

Can you please tell me what the policy is at the Seattle Times regarding political contributions from executives and editorial staff?

A prompt reply is respectfully requested and appreciated.

Sincerely,
Michael Petrelis
San Francisco, CA
^^^

www.tray.com

Federal Donations:

Redlawsk, Mark A. Mr.
4/14/2004 $250.00
Silverdale, WA 98383
The Seattle Times/Computer Analyst -[Contribution]
REPUBLICAN NATIONAL COMMITTEE

KELLY, CAROLYN
12/10/2003 $250.00
SEATTLE, WA 98119
SEATTLE TIMES -[Contribution]
PEOPLE FOR PATTY MURRAY U S SENATE CAMPAIGN

PETERSON, DALE
6/8/2004 $1,000.00
SEATTLE, WA 98107
SEATTLE TIMES -[Contribution]
NETHERCUTT FOR SENATE

Tiller, Anne
2/9/2004 $900.00
Seattle, WA 98107
Seattle Times/Online Art -[Contribution]
CLARK FOR PRESIDENT INC

Runnberg, Lawrence
2/15/2002 $240.00
Maple Valley, WA 98038
Seattle Times/Zone Assistant -[Contribution]
WASHINGTON STATE DEMOCRATIC CENTRAL COMMITTEE

SCHILPEROOT, KRIS
12/29/1995 $250.00
SEATTLE, WA
SEATTLE TIMES -[Contribution]
WASHINGTON STATE REPUBLICAN PARTY-FEDERAL ACCOUNT

KELLY, CAROLYN
10/21/1994 $200.00
SEATTLE, WA 98109
SEATTLE TIMES -[Contribution]
RON SIMS FOR U S SENATE

BLETHEN, FRANK A
3/13/1992 $500.00
SEATTLE, WA 98111
SEATTLE TIMES -[Contribution]
DANIEL K INOUYE IN '92

- - -

http://www.pdc.wa.gov/

State and Local Donations:

LOCKE GARY F
08/09/2000
$950.00
KELLY CAROLYN
SEATTLE WA 98109
SEATTLE TIMES CHIEF OPERATION OFFICER

PAGELER MARGARET A
01/22/2004
$300.00
KELLY CAROLYN
SEATTLE WA 98119
SEATTLE TIMES MANAGING DIRECTOR

GREGOIRE CHRISTINE O
12/08/2003
$250.00
KELLY CAROLYN
SEATTLE WA 98119
SEATTLE TIMES COO

LOCKE GARY F
05/02/2000
$250.00
KELLY CAROLYN
SEATTLE WA 98109
SEATTLE TIMES CHIEF OPERATION OFFICER

LOCKE GARY F
05/02/2000
$250.00
NUMATA LARRY & S MAE
MERCER ISLAND WA 98040
THE SEATTLE TIMES VP AND CEO

GREGOIRE CHRISTINE O
07/16/2004
$200.00
JEUDE MAUREEN
EDMONDS WA 98020
SEATTLE TIMES MANAGER

GREGOIRE CHRISTINE O
12/01/1999
$200.00
JEUDE MAURINE
EDMONDS WA 98020
SEATTLE TIMES DATABASE MGR

GREGOIRE CHRISTINE O
05/22/2000
$200.00
JEUDE MAURINE
EDMONDS WA 98020
SEATTLE TIMES DATABASE MGR

MALENG NORMAN K
04/25/2002
$100.00
CURRENT SHARON A
SEATTLE WA 98177
THE SEATTLE TIMES CORP MARKETING

CARLSON JOHN E
05/26/2000
$100.00
DAZEY JAYDENE
DUVALL WA 98019
SEATTLE TIMES ROUTE DRIVER

CARLSON JOHN E
11/02/2000
$100.00
DAZEY JAYDENE
DUVALL WA 98019
SEATTLE TIMES ROUTE DRIVER

CARLSON JOHN E
09/21/2000 $100.00
DAZEY JAYDENE
DUVALL WA 98019
SEATTLE TIMES ROUTE DRIVER

SCHOOLS FIRST COALITION
01/29/2004
$100.00
LARGE JERRY
SEATTLE WA 98118
SEATTLE TIMES JOURNALIST

SOMMERS HELEN E
07/08/2004 $100.00
MACKIE JILL R
SEATTLE WA 98199
THE SEATTLE TIMES CO DIR OF GOVERNMENT AFFAIRS

CREELMAN PAUL
08/27/2001
$100.00
MARKERT KEVIN J
LA CONNER WA 98257
THE SEATTLE TIMES PRESS REPAIRMAN

CHASE MARALYN
12/03/2001
$100.00
MURRAY EMMETT
KIRKLAND WA 98033
SEATTLE TIMES EDITOR

LOVICK JOHNNY R
06/18/2004
$100.00
WRIGHT DIANE M.
EVERETT WA 98203
SEATTLE TIMES STAFF REPORTER

GREGOIRE CHRISTINE O
05/22/2000
$60.00
JEUDE MAURINE
EDMONDS WA 98020
SEATTLE TIMES DATABASE MGR

CARLSON JOHN E
09/28/2000
$50.00
GARRETT GREG
SEATTLE WA 98166
SEATTLE TIMES NEWSPAPER SENIOR DISTRICT ADVISOR

LOCKE GARY F
08/09/2000
$50.00
KELLY CAROLYN
SEATTLE WA 98109
SEATTLE TIMES CHIEF OPERATION OFFICER

CLIBBORN JUDITH R
08/13/2004
$50.00
STATON RHONDA BAILEY MS
MERCER ISLAND WA 98040
SEATTLE TIMES MARKETING REP.

SCHOOLS FIRST COALITION
11/13/2003
$50.00
THOMPSON LYNN
SEATTLE WA 98122
SEATTLE TIMES REPORTER

CARLSON JOHN E
08/29/2000
$50.00
WARN BRAIN AND RENITA
SEATTLE WA 98115
SEATTLE TIMES INTERNET SUPPORT TECH.

GREGOIRE CHRISTINE O
05/11/2004
$25.00
CHERNIS DIANE
SEATTLE WA 98115
THE SEATTLE TIMES EXECUTIVE ASSISTANT

GREGOIRE CHRISTINE O
07/23/2004
$25.00
DAHL CAROL
BRIER WA 98036
SEATTLE TIMES MARKETING RESEARCH

SCHOOLS FIRST COALITION
01/27/2004
$25.00
KHUU LUCY
SEATTLE WA 98144
SEATTLE TIMES MAILER

SCHOOLS FIRST COALITION
11/21/2003
$25.00
MACKIE JILL
SEATTLE WA 98109
SEATTLE TIMES NEWS

GREGOIRE CHRISTINE O
05/24/2004
$10.00
LUSK CHESTER
SEATTLE WA 98109
SEATTLE TIMES MAILER

GREGOIRE CHRISTINE O
08/09/2004
$10.00
LUSK CHESTER
SEATTLE WA 98109
SEATTLE TIMES MAILER

To make a long story short, Dan Savage himself told me about his recent $2,000 donation to John Kerry's presidential campaign.

Savage is the editor of one of Seattle'a alternative weeklies, The Stranger, and also pens a sex and relationships advise column for dozens of similar publications.

After he mentioned his donation to Kerry, I checked the publicly available Federal Election Commission records at www.tray.com and learned that Savage gave $2,000 to Kerry on June 26.

And Savage isn't the only masthead name from The Stranger to have done so. The publisher, Timothy A. Keck, also contributed $2,000 to Kerry back in June.

At the state level, Savage has given $1,850 to candidates and causes.

According the Washington State Public Disclosure Commission's web site at www.pdc.wa.gov, these are Savage's state level donations:

01/29/04
$250
Cindi Laws (Candidate for local transit agency)

10/09/03
$150
Seattle Districts Now (Voter reform action committee)

10/06/03
$200
James Constantine Dow (King County Council member)

11/05/02
$500
Rise Above It All (Public transit action committee)

10/11/02
$250
James Constantine Dow (King County Council member)

08/17/02
$500
Rise Above It All (Public transit action committee)

The Stranger endorsed Law and Dow's candidacies, and editorialized in favor of initiatives advanced by the political action committees, but the paper failed to note Savage's donations.

Savage's state level giving comes to $1,850, which, when added to his federal donation of $2,000, totals $3,850. Add publisher Keck's $2,000 check to Kerry to that amount, we find that the two men have donated $5,850 to various politicians and campaigns.

While none of the donations from Keck and Savage have been disclosed in The Stranger, and I suspect if readers knew about the contributions, many of them would applaud the giving by them. Heck, I bet quite a few readers would follow their example at the national level and also write checks to elect Kerry president.

Back in April, The Stranger ran a column about the political donations from the owners of its competitor, the Seattle Weekly, to the Bush/Cheney reelection committee. The Stranger's Josh Feit wrote that his publication's bosses, had not donated to either Bush or Kerry. (Source: www.thestranger.com/2004-04-22/city2.html)

Feit was correct, at the time, but now, four months later, that has changed. The publisher and editor of The Stranger have written checks out to Kerry, and the paper has a duty to disclose the donations in print.

The mainstream media, except for the Los Angeles Times which broke this story on July 31, has ignored the story of how the Department of Health and Human Services audited a federal grant to black gay AIDS expert Phill Wilson and discovered that $1 million had been mismanaged.

Following the example set by their mainstream counterparts, the gay and AIDS media have also failed to report on the audit and Wilson's role that brought it about.

Wilson, who usually has something to say to every reporter who calls him for a quote, has been unavailable for comment about the audit for almost a month.

Kudos to the University of Southern California's newspaper the Daily Trojan for investigating the audit and Wilson.

Now, if only gay, AIDS and mainstream media outlets would report on this we might get some answers from Wilson about how the federal grant was badly managed.
^^^




University and federal government dispute responsibility over failed AIDS research program. Audit recommends repayment of more than $1 million to the government.

By Zach Fox and James R. Koren
Published: Wednesday, August 18, 2004

The Department of Health and Human Services released a federal audit last month recommending that USC pay back more than $1 million in federal funds that were either misappropriated or poorly managed during a HIV/AIDS treatment educator training that was shut down in 2001.

The audit report states that the program failed to meet its primary goal of training peer treatment educators for minority communities, that money for the program was misspent and improperly accounted for, that USC failed to take care of the program's co-principal investigator's conflict of interest and that the program did research on human subjects without getting the necessary authorization.

The report said that the university made poor decisions in appointing personnel because Phill Wilson, the co-PI, had no experience in research, and the PI did not have experience with HIV/AIDS programs, was an associate librarian and did not actually participate in the program.

As a result, the report recommends that the university repay $1,024,308 of federal funds spent on the program.

The PI was Lynn Sipe, said Neil Sullivan, vice provost for research.

"The objectives were not accomplished primarily because USC used inexperienced personnel to implement critical aspects of the program," the report stated.

"I don't view that we assigned (them to the project). (HRSA) awarded a person they thought had the credentials," Sullivan said. "Lynn Sipe and Phill Wilson's credentials went in with their application. We don't assign them that, they do that on their own initiative."

Conflict of interest

Wilson had a conflict of interest since the research program subcontracted $500,898 worth of work to the African-American Aids Policy and Training Institute, a non-profit organization of which Wilson was the sole founder, director and president.

"Our people started having problems with this fellow, Phill Wilson," Sullivan said. "He's very aggressive, belligerent. He was a bad actor. He isn't the kind of guy that you want working on this project."


According to the audit, he was hired for the program at USC in January 2000, and the Health Resources and Services Administration, the granting agency, expressed concern about a conflict of interest in March 2000 at which point USC failed to take the proper steps to remedy the conflict.

The university does not play a role in hiring those in charge of any federally funded research projects, Sullivan said.

HRSA granted the federal funds for the program and asked HHS to perform an audit when HRSA shut down the program in July 2001 as a result of an on-site visit that raised concerns.

Currently, HRSA is doing their own review of the HHS audit report to see if it is appropriate, said Donald White, a spokesperson for HHS and the Office of Inspector General.

After HRSA expressed concern over the conflict of interest in March 2000, Wilson responded in October 2000 by resigning as president of AAAPTI but then took a role in the organization as chairman of the board and retained managerial responsibilities, the report said.

"Such a change appeared to be in name only," the report by HHS states.

Sullivan said that it was USC, not HRSA, who was the "whistleblower" on the conflict of interest. USC notified HRSA of the conflict of interest and HRSA said that they wanted the project to continue before they received evidence of the conflict, Sullivan said.

Even when HRSA had evidence of the problems within the program, they were slow to respond, Sullivan said.

"The feds (HRSA) weren't immediately responsive. We thought they would jump on this and shut off this guy's money and shut it down. They were really slow in responding to this. That more than anything caused this thing to continue longer than I think it should have," Sullivan said.

Wilson continued to manage AAAPTI, a violation of federal regulations, and it was the university that was responsible for ensuring regulations were followed, the report said.

"We believe the co-principal investigator's conflict led to program funds being spent on subcontractor activities that were unrelated to the training program," the report states.


Wilson's project was given office space at the University Archives, where University Archivist Claude Zachary was working daily.

Zachary said that he never met Wilson once throughout the 23 months that the program was being run and never saw anyone use the office space.

Wilson was not available for comment and did not return multiple messages. Sipe was traveling in Peru and also unavailable for comment.

Unapproved research

USC first recognized problems within the research program when the University Park Institutional Review Board, a USC check on research programs involving human subjects, realized that Wilson had not submitted the proper consent forms to ask the peer treatment educators questions about their treatment, sexual orientation and sexual behaving, Sullivan said.

UPIRB determined that such questioning of the educators, many of whom were HIV positive, constituted testing on human subjects, according to the report.

Wilson, however, disagreed and he "proceeded to contact, recruit, enroll, test and gather information from the peer treatment educators," the report states.

In order to allow the research aspect of the program to continue, Wilson would have had to get an approved consent and release form from the UPIRB.

The participants did sign a consent form, but not one approved by the UPIRB, which should be taken into consideration as a mitigating factor, according to a letter from Laura LaCorte, senior associate vice president of the office of compliance.

This violation was one of many contributing factors to HRSA's request for repayment of funds from the program.

The money

Because the research on the peer treatment educators was not approved by the UPIRB, HHS said the costs were unallowable.

With an original budget of $2.5 million, USC spent $1,266,882, most of which has already been reimbursed to the school, according to the report.

The report states that 85 percent of the money spent, $1,082,554, were not allowable expenses.


LaCorte's letter said the university does not agree with the amount of money the audit says is owes to the government.

The program, starting in September 1999 and originally slated to run for 31 months, was supposed to set up a training center at USC, develop a curriculum for training peer treatment educators, start mentor and internship programs, evaluate the program and duplicate the program nationwide, according to the report.

However, when it was shut down 23 months later in July 2001, the program had, "made limited progress in enrolling and providing training to 41 of the 50 expected first-year program participants," the report states.

The training the participants did receive had unclear goals, an illogical training sequence and incomplete documentation, no mentor or internship programs were started, the program was never evaluated by the participants and the program was not duplicated elsewhere, the audit states.

Furthermore, according to the report, because Wilson was not a faculty member, he was unaware of many potentially helpful resources, such as USC curriculum review committees, and the AIDS training center.

The audit found that workers from AAAPTI had been paid with the program's money for organizing an AIDS march, as well as setting up town-hall meetings in other states.

"One employee had moved out of state in April 2000. The individual appeared to no longer be working on the program full-time. However, salary payments were made through June 2000 and claimed under the HRSA award,"the audit reported.

USC responds

As far as keeping tabs on the project, almost all federally funded research programs have to submit reports on what they are doing to the government agency that supplied the money, which in this case would be HRSA, Sullivan said.

LaCorte's letter also questions the auditor's calculation of the amount of funding used to do unapproved research.

There is also some disagreement about expenditures that may or may not have been retroactively approved by HRSA.

LaCorte's letter states that some expenditures that HHS now wants USC to cover were approved by HRSA, but the audit says there is no record of retroactive approval for any disallowed funds.

Another point of contention is that both USC and HHS performed audits of the program's dealings with AAAPTI. USC's audit, done by the firm PricewaterhouseCoopers, showed that USC owes $28,775, according to the report.

The audit performed by HHS shows that USC needs to pay back $1,024,308 and should absorb another $58,246 in costs that had not yet been reimbursed to the university.

"We analyzed the PricewaterhouseCoopers report to determine if we could rely on it and determined that we could not," the report states.

The university plans to appeal to HRSA, who is currently reviewing the HHS audit, to reduce the amount it will have to pay back.

"We also would appreciate the opportunity to discuss this matter further with HRSA since the sponsor was actively involved with this project and aware of certain expenses associated with the project," LaCorte's letter said.

The complete audit report by the HHS is available online at http://oig.hhs.gov.

- Staff writer Kara Nichols contributed to this report.

Just like San Francisco a few years ago, alarming stories about alleged rises in HIV infection rates in Seattle, especially among gay and bisexual men, have thankfully been proved premature.

In both cities, it appears as though public health officials cherry-picked certain HIV data to promote a second wave of mass new HIV infections, data that now can't be verified.

When San Francisco HIV experts told the San Francisco Chronicle in 2000 that the city's gay community HIV rates was at "sub-Saharan levels" of transmission, frightening stories appeared around the world, giving the false impression that the Castro district was about to turn into a dusty Botswanan village, with coffins lining the streets.

At that time, millions of dollars in federal HIV/AIDS funds were at stake as Congress was reauthorizing AIDS treatment, care and prevention programs, so many critics of the San Francisco health department, myself included, believed the manipulation of HIV stats was done to increase federal funding for the city.

Perhaps Seattle's public health experts were motivated to do the same with their HIV numbers.

We should never underestimate the lengths local health departments will go to in order to keep federal funds flowing.

Kudos to the Seattle Weekly for investigating the HIV stats and reporting on the apparent new wave of infections that hasn't materialized.
^^^


August 11 - 17, 2004
Seattle Weekly

The AIDS Scare That Wasn’t
Seattle’s ‘new wave’ of HIV infections hasn’t materialized.

by Mark D. Fefer
Anyone who was around here last summer could be forgiven for believing that there’s a surge of HIV infections in Seattle. Thanks to a press release from Public Health/Seattle & King County in June 2003, a flurry of media stories announced: “Alarming HIV rise. . . . Infection rates are up sharply” (as a Seattle Post-Intelligencer headline put it). The health department said its data showed 40 percent more gay men had tested positive in 2002 than the previous year, and officials projected another 60 percent increase in 2003, suggesting a possible “new wave” of infections. The county’s top AIDS official, Dr. Bob Wood, called the situation “frightening,” “astounding,” and “the most dramatic increase since the beginning of the epidemic.” The Gay City Health Project, a local nonprofit, convened public forums to discuss the crisis, and King County Executive Ron Sims endorsed a “community manifesto” calling for more responsibility among gay men to combat what a press release called “skyrocketing rates of STDs and HIV.”

A year later, the alarm is looking a bit premature. Wood concedes that “what we had predicted didn’t turn out to be” and that the rate of new HIV infections appears “fairly level,” at around 2 percent to 2.5 percent of the city’s gay male population annually—a rate that has been static since 1997. “A year ago, we thought we were detecting an increasing rate of HIV infection,” says Wood. “That turned out not to be the case.”

Not that Wood is taking any comfort from the data. “The fact is [the rate of infections] is not going down,” he says, “and 20 years into the epidemic, we all hoped it would be.” Gay men are showing inordinately high (and climbing) rates of syphilis and gonorrhea—diseases that reflect a prevalence of unprotected sex and whose effects on the body make HIV easier to transmit. And Wood says that surveys of gay men indicate risky behaviors “have gone up considerably since the new AIDS treatments came along. . . . Things are all headed in the wrong direction,” he says gloomily. “It gives me heartburn.” With respect to HIV, however, Wood now says, “We don’t have solid evidence that there’s a second wave occurring.”

The health department’s alarming figures last year were based on gay men who visited the county’s sexually transmitted disease clinic and tested newly positive for the Human Immunodeficiency Virus that causes Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome. In 2001, there were 67 such men; in 2002, there were 94—hence, the frightening 40 percent increase. But 700 more men were tested in 2002 than the previous year, so it’s not surprising that there were more total “positives.” Taking into account that increase in testing produces a somewhat more modest jump of 29 percent.

Drawing sweeping conclusions based on data from the public health clinic, which is at Harborview Medical Center, is suspect in any case, Wood concedes. “This is not a representative sample of the whole population. These are people who come in because they have symptoms or are worried; a lot of them are coming back because they engage in risky behaviors.” As a result, he notes, the public health data “are kind of hard for us to draw strong conclusions from.”

Given that Washington, like many states, has mandatory HIV reporting, why is it so hard to get a firm handle on the numbers? In part, it’s because the law allows for anonymous testing. HIV and AIDS cases only become “reportable” by laboratories and doctors once a patient has sought some sort of care—which, Wood notes, can be a year or longer after a person has been diagnosed. And then, doctors might take their time filing a report. So while the county has data on the overall number of reported AIDS and HIV cases, these so-called “surveillance” figures are “not quite as sensitive to the front end of the epidemic,” Wood says. Even the public health data suffer from a time lag, because months or even years might elapse between the time a person is infected and when they show up for testing.

At this point, the real mystery might be why, with risky sex and STDs apparently on the rise, there appears to be no commensurate jump in HIV infections. A possible explanation is that some of the more risky behavior is occurring among, and between, men who are already HIV-positive. “It’s what we call ‘sero-sorting’—positives having sex with positives, negatives with negatives,” says Wood. At the county clinic, for example, nearly 70 percent of those who are diagnosed with syphilis also have HIV. “It could be that a lot of [positives] are having unprotected sex with other HIV-infected people,” says Wood.

info@seattleweekly.com

New Jersey's gay governor, Jim McGreevey, has forced newspapers to spill gallons of ink since he came out of the closet and resigned last week.

But he may not be the nation's only gay gov, if the rumors about Texas' Republican Gov. Rick Perry are true.

I was reminded of the gossip surrounding Gov. Perry and his sexual orientation by the revival of the thread about this subject on the gay sports web site outsports.com.

For all the details about Gov. Perry's alleged closet, including links to press stories and blogs about this, visit this link, and read the numerous posts.

If the link doesn't work, go to outsports.com, find the Politics and Religion chat board, then look for the "TX Governor Rick Perry separating from his wife?" thread.

I couldn't come up with a better introduction to Mark Glaser's interview with me than the one he has written. When you can, check it out!

-----------------
Forwarded Message:
Subj: Gadfly Stirs Hornet's Nest with Journos' Political Contributions
Date: 8/18/2004 12:12:43 AM Central Daylight Time
From: glaze@sprintmail.com
To: glaze@sprintmail.com
Sent from the Internet (Details)


Hi all,
Just a note to let you know that my latest column was
posted recently to OJR, this time taking an in-depth
look at do-it-yourself media watchdog, blogger and
AIDS activist Michael Petrelis and the trouble he's
caused digging up political contributions by various
journalists and publishers.

Quote: "As a news consumer I see tons of bias in what
does get into the news and what doesn't. I thought,
wait a minute. I'm a news consumer, I run a blog now.
I'm just going to put this out there. Dude, let's talk
about Poynter, AIM, FAIR, Online Journalism Review,
places with more people, more resources, more
credibility, less political baggage than this Nader
voter -- they haven't done it!" -- Michael Petrelis

Enjoy,
Mark

Gadfly Stirs Hornet's Nest with Journos' Political
Contributions


=====
Mark Glaser
columnist, freelance writer
Online Journalism Review, http://www.ojr.org
Online Publishers Association, http://www.online-publishers.org
TechWeb, http://www.techweb.com

Catherine Mathis
Director of Corporate Communications
The New York Times

Dear Ms. Mathis:

Newly available Federal Election Commission records on tray.com show that a New York Times food editor, Ms. Christine Muhlke, donated $500 on June 24 to Sen. John Kerry's presidential campaign.

I was under the impression that Times editorial employees were barred from making such contributions, yet I've recently discovered that a fashion editor with the Sunday magazine, Ms. Elizabeth Stewart, also donated to Kerry's campaign.

While neither Muhlke nor Stewart cover politics in any way for the Times, so there's no chance their donations could influence the paper's coverage of Kerry's bid for the White House, I must wonder how these editors could donate to a political candidacy and not face any reprimand from executive editors.

My questions for you are, how is the Times informing editorial staff about the policy prohibiting political giving, and what penalties, if any, do Times reporters and editors risk if they donate to candidates?

A prompt reply is respectfully requested and appreciated.

Sincerely,
Michael Petrelis
San Francisco, CA
^^^

www.tray.com

Muhlke, Christine
6/24/2004 $500.00
New York, NY 10014
NEW YORK TIMES/EDITOR -[Contribution]
JOHN KERRY FOR PRESIDENT INC

August 14, 2004

Arthur Bovino
Assistant to the Public Editor
The New York Times

Dear Mr. Bovino:

Several mistakes are made in the New York Times' story today about the nonprofit Commission on Presidential Debates, along with crucial omissions, that I believe should be addressed by national editors.

1. The New York Times article failed to inform readers that the commission is a tax-exempt organization, not just a bipartisan commission. (Source: http://www.guidestar.org/)

2. The paper reports the commission announced the debate schedule last month. Not true. The commission issued a news release about the schedule on November 6, 2003. (Source: http://www.debates.org/pages/news_031106.html)

3. Three column inches are devoted to the opinions of NBC News, a quote from the network, ego-stroking by your reporter of Tom Brokaw, and a response from Janet H. Brown of the commission. How are American democracy and journalism, served by this sort of focus on a retiring anchorman? Why were no voters of any political stripe asked how they viewed the choice of moderators?

4. The story identifies Ms. Brown as a "spokeswoman" for the commission. Basically true, but she is also the executive director of the nonprofit, tax-exempt commission. (Source: http://www.debates.org/pages/lead.html)

5. While the article and headline highlight the lack of a commitment from Bush and Cheney to participate in the debates, no mention is made of the fact that the commission's honorary cochairmen include former presidents Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton, but not George Herbert Walker Bush. (Source: http://www.debates.org/pages/lead.html)

6. The story notes a federal judge ruled this week on an FEC-related complaint against the commisison, but omits any reference to the separate federal complaint lodged against the commission. The Open Debates advocacy group of Washington, has lodged a grievance with the Internal Revenue Service accusing the commission "of illegally accepting corporate contributions in order to facilitate presidential campaigns." (Source: http://209.157.64.200/focus/f-news/1155930/posts)

7. And finally, the Times was journalistically delinquent in failing to report the commission has thus far not released the list of this year's corporate sponsors of the debates. (http://www.debates.org/pages/natspons.html)

I ask that my concerns, as a reader, shareholder, and American voter, be passed along to the proper national editors at the New York Times.

Much appreciated.

Regards,
Michael Petrelis
San Francisco, CA
^^^


The New York Times
Aug. 14, 2004

Panel Names Debate Moderators as It Awaits Bush and Cheney's Pledge to Take Part
by Jim Ruttenberg

The commission in charge of setting up the presidential debates names the list of moderators for the four events it plans to hold this fall. Now all it needs is for President Bush to agree to show up.

The bipartisan Commission for Presidential Debates said that Jim Lehrer of PBS, Bob Schieffer of CBS and Charles Gibson of ABC would each moderate one of the three presidential debates scheduled for late September and early October. Gwen Ifill of PBS is to moderate the vice-presidential debate.

Senator John Kerry of Massachusetts, the Democratic nominee, has agreed to appear at the three debates, and his running mate, Senator John Edwards of North Carolina, has agreed to appear at the vice-presidential debate. Mr. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney have not yet agreed.

Democrats noted that Mr. Bush told Larry King on CNN on Thursday night that "there will be debates, you don't have to worry about that."

On Friday, Mr. Bush's campaign manager, Ken Mehlman, said Mr. Bush was too focused on the Republican convention to make decisions concerning the debates, but Mr. Mehlman added, "I'm confident there will be a good series."

A senior aide to Mr. Bush said on Friday that the campaign saw no reason to lock itself into debate particulars at this point.

The debate commission has taken pains this year to give its plans an aura of inevitability, announcing that the schedule and formats are not negotiable and releasing its list of moderators early.

Last month, the commission announced the schedule of debates: the first, on Sept. 30, in Coral Gables, Fla.; the second, for the vice-presidential candidates, on Oct. 5 in Cleveland; the third, on Oct. 8, in St. Louis; and the last, on Oct. 13, in Tempe, Ariz.

Each debate will run 90 minutes; at three, including the vice-presidential one, the candidates will be seated at a table with the moderator. In St. Louis, the candidates will take questions from the audience.

The commission's announcement was a blow to NBC, the ratings leader of the three major television networks, which was the only one of them not to have an employee serve as moderator. The network had hoped that Tom Brokaw would moderate one last debate before he retired as anchor of its nightly news program after the election.

NBC News said, "We were surprised and deeply disappointed that no one from the No. 1 network news division was chosen. We have no shortage of strong potential moderators, led by Tom Brokaw."

Janet H. Brown, a spokeswoman for the commission, said it had avoided using anchors as moderators since 1988 for fear that they would overshadow the events. "It's important for the moderators to focus attention on the candidates," Ms. Brown said. On Thursday, a federal judge ruled that the Federal Election Commission should not have dismissed a complaint brought against the debate panel in 2000.

That complaint contended that the debate commission acted in a partisan matter in 2000 when it barred third-party candidates, including Ralph Nader, the Green Party candidate, and Patrick J. Buchanan, the Reform Party candidate, from the debate audience. The judge, Henry H. Kennedy Jr., said Thursday that the election commission should investigate the matter.

The debate commission said at the time that it had barred the two candidates because it feared that they would be a disruptive presence.

Mr. Nader nor Mr. Buchanan were included in the debates because each failed to meet a requirement that participants receive support from 15 percent of voters surveyed by five national polling organizations.

The same stipulation exists this year, so Mr. Nader is unlikely to participate in the debates. The commission had no comment on whether he would be allowed in the audience.

This is the first story to appear in the gay press on gay publishers and reporters donating to politicians. Kudos to the writer, David Webb, for writing an article about this angle to my research of Federal Election Commission recods.
^^^

The Dallas Voice
August 9, 2004

San Francisco activist tracks media members’ campaign contributions

Petrelis ‘surprised by the extent’ of donations; some executives take issue with his stance


By David Webb
Staff Writer


San Francisco AIDS advocate Michael Petrelis has shifted his attention to the political activities of reporters and other members of the news media.

His target? People charged with producing fair and balanced news reports who also contribute money to political campaigns.

“I’m surprised by the extent,” said Petrelis, who began monitoring campaign finance disclosure Web sites this spring. “My concern is that we need more transparency from the media.”

The media wields great political influence, he said. It should be standard practice for publishers, report-ers, broadcasters, editors and producers to reveal their political contributions so readers and viewers would be alert to biases, Petrelis said.

“I think readers should know about those donations,” he said.

The indomitable Petrelis, who began his very public career in Austin in the mid-1980s, pleaded guilty to two misdemeanor charges of harassing some officials of the San Francisco Health Department last year and is now on probation.
Petrelis is also under a restraining order to stay away from the offices and employees of the San Francsico Chronicle because he harassed reporters and editors who covered AIDS.

Petrelis said he became interested in the topic when he logged onto a campaign contribution site in an effort to determine if a reporter who covers AIDS had made donations. That could have revealed something about the reporter’s mindset, he said.

“He hadn’t made any contributions, but I discovered that lots of other people had,” Petrelis said. “That’s what got me started.”

Research of campaign finance records show that a total of 200 media employees, representing 91 reporters and editors and 109 publishers, have contributed money to the 2004 election cycle so far.

The activist said that he has checked out about 50 newspapers and magazines to determine if publishers, editors and reporters are making political contributions. It’s proved to be an eye-opener, he said.

He discovered that Katrina Heuvel Vanden, editor of The Nation, had donated extensively to political campaigns.

“She’s given tons of money for the past two decades,” Petrelis said. “I didn’t know she was so rich.”

Petrelis said that he was also surprised to learn that fashion editor Elizabeth Stewart at The New York Times Magazine had contributed $1,000 to the John Kerry campaign. The newspaper has a strict policy against political activity or contributions by newsroom employees.

“I certainly don’t think of The Times as a pro-Bush publication,” Petrelis said.
Petrelis said he determined that Hendrik Hertzberg, senior editor of The New Yorker, is “clearly for Kerry.” The editor, who writes political opinion pieces for the magazine, gave $900 to Kerry’s campaign, he said.

And it was no surprise to learn that William F. Buckley, publisher of the National Review, had contributed to Republican Party candidates, Petrelis said.

Petrelis said that he discovered that publishers and employees of GLBT publications also contribute to political candidates.

Former Washington Blade editor Lisa Keen, a freelance writer who covered the recent National Democratic Convention for PlanetOut, donated $250 to Sen. Carol Moseley Braun’s ill-fated presidential campaign. And San Francisco Bay Area Reporter publisher Bob Ross, who died last year, contributed $3,000 to congressional candidates, according to the campaign disclosure sites.

Window Media publisher William Waybourn, whose company operates four gay newspapers, in Washington, New York, Atlanta and Houston, has given a total of $6,950 to mostly gay political candidates, during the 2004 election cycle. Some of the funds went to the Gay and Lesbian Victory Fund. Waybourn is co-founder the victo-
ry fund and served as the organization’s first
executive director.

Waybourn said that he sees no reason to disclose his contributions in the four Window newspapers, because anyone who wants to know can find the information in other records available to the public.

“It’s not a matter of hiding anything,” Waybourn said. “I don’t write any stories, so there’s nothing for me to influence.”

Petrelis’ research also showed that Dallas Voice publisher Robert Moore contributed $250 to the Clark for President campaign.

No newsroom employees of the Voice have made any political contributions, the records show.

Moore said that the newspaper’s owners have always kept the newsroom “distinctly removed from any political activity in which we have personally participated.” He noted that he has never submitted an opinion piece for publication during his 20 years at the paper, which he co-founded in 1984. He also has never edited news copy, he said.

“To be honest, it’s not a question I’ve ever considered,” Moore said.
But the publisher added: “In disclosing your personal political donations, you would, by default, be making a public statement.”

Petrelis’ activities monitoring media contributions seem redundant, Waybourn added.

“It’s not a bad thing,” Waybourn said. “But when you have something that is already disclosed, someone else trying to disclose it is not going to change the dynamics.”

Both Waybourn and Moore said that their publications’ policies prohibit news employees, including editors, from making campaign contributions or participating in any political activity, which the men agreed would present a conflict of interest.

The Dallas Morning News has a similar policy, and research failed to turn up evidence of news employees making campaign contributions.

Petrelis said that he is not abandoning his role as an AIDS campaigner. But he plans to continue monitoring the political activities of the media and other selected contributors. He noted that he has always monitored the media’s coverage of AIDS issues.

Waybourn said that Petrelis has been asked by company officials to cease contacting reporters at Window Media newspapers because he had “screamed and yelled” at them.
Petrelis said he was unaware of any complaints about him harassing Window Media reporters.

“That’s news to me,” said Petrelis, who acknowledged that there is a restraining order barring him from contacting San Francisco Chronicle reporters. “I kind of think what William is trying to do is deflect attention from his donations.”

Petrelis said that he is abiding by the terms of his probation and has quit contacting both health department officials and newspaper reporters in San Francisco.

“Jailhouse orange is not my color,” Petrelis said. “I would say my activism has adapted. I don’t even litter.”

Petrelis said he hopes more people will start logging on to Web sites like www.tray.com to take advantage of the information offered about campaign contributions and the sources of politicians’ money. Campaign contributors can be tracked by name, occupation and employer name, he said.

E-mail webb@dallasvoice.com

Barney Calame
Deputy Managing Editor
The Wall Street Journal

Dear Mr. Calame:

This morning I reread Howard Kurtz's front-page January 18 story in the Washington Post about media personalities donating to politicians, and wish to bring the following passage to your attention.

"Wall Street Journal technology columnist Walter Mossberg got a waiver to contribute $3,000 to Democrat Shapiro, 'my best friend of 35 years,' and reporter Laura Landro gave $1,000 to [ex-Sen. Bill] Bradley. Managing Editor Paul Steiger said there was 'some screw-up' and that Landro's husband has assured him that he made the Bradley donation. The Journal's policy is that news staffers 'should not be active in either big-time national causes or national partisan politics,' Steiger said," reported Kurtz.

If Steiger's statement is true, then why did Eben Shapiro, an editor at the Wall Street Journal, give $1,000 to Democratic Victory 2004 in June, and Marc Frons, editor of SmartMoney.com, a joint effort between the Wall Street Journal and Hearst Magazines, contribute $250 to John Kerry's presidential bid?

Did either donation from these Dow Jones employees violate company policy?

I would direct my concerns to your publication's ombudsman, but since the Wall Street Journal does not have a readers' representative, I am sending this note to you.

Here are the recent contributions from Shapiro and Frons, which are available on tray.com

Shapiro, Eben
6/29/2004 $1,000.00
New York, NY 11105
Dow Jones/Editor -[Contribution]
DEMOCRATIC VICTORY 2004

Frons, Marc
3/18/2004 $250.00
Wilton, CT 06897
Dow Jones Inc./Executive -[Contribution]
JOHN KERRY FOR PRESIDENT INC

A prompt reply is respectfully requested and appreciated.

Sincerely,
Michael Petrelis
San Francisco, CA

The Village Voice in today's "Press Clips" column does an excellent job of covering up an audit by Health and Human Services of AIDS leader Phill Wilson's mismanagement of $1 million from a federal AIDS counseling grant.

In the pertinent passage, the Village Voice omits any reference to the audit and Wilson's troubles. "Turns out the logic behind the down-low is as creaky as the headlines are dramatic. 'The down-low is being wildly reported, but it's a story without facts,' says Phill Wilson, director of the Black AIDS Institute. 'It doesn't help us with AIDS prevention to vilify black men or to disempower black women.'"

You may recall that the New York Times in its front-page Aug. 7 story about African-Americans living with AIDS, also quoted Wilson and failed to mention Wilson's mishandling of federal funds.

I find it weird that both a mainstream daily and a leftist weekly can't be bothered to inform readers of known facts about a news personality, even though the personality's fiscal problems were the topic a story in the July 31 Los Angeles Times.

Perhaps the reason why the Village Voice and the New York Times journalists have so far been lax about reporting on the HHS audit involving Wilson is because they need him for good quotes. Or maybe these publications aren't aware of the audit and the Los Angeles Times article.

As I did with the New York Times, I will forward the Los Angeles Times news account to the Village Voice, in the hope the publication will correct its glaring omission about the HHS audit.
^^^

The Village Voice

Press Clips
by Ta-Nehisi Coates
Sex, Lies, Death
The irresistible pull of the down-low myth—uh, story—hooks reporters and their readers
August 11 - 17, 2004

If only to verify our existence, every so often media announce that the sky has fallen on black America. The latest cause célèbre for acolytes of Chicken Little is a reported rise in the "down low" lifestyle. Media outlets as diverse as The Advocate, USA Today, and The Oprah Winfrey Show have gathered their crack reporters to bring you the latest on this grave and gathering threat.

Outlet be damned, the blueprint of the down-low story is always the same: Black women are alleged to account for 72 percent of all reported cases of HIV between 1999 and 2002. The cause? The hordes of barebacking bisexual black men, driven underground by the black community's entrenched homophobia. For sure, HIV is a huge, disproportionate problem in the black community. But direct evidence exposing the down-low as the major causal factor is lacking.

Last month, Essence finished a two-part report with an article that carried this hand-wringing headline: "Do Black Men Still Want Us?" Answer—based on your covers, we crave Jill Scott like grits and gravy, but Mo'Nique will send us to rice cakes.

The down-low has all the makings of a sensation: Here is a tale of sex, lies, and death. Better still, here is a tale as old as America—the threat of Black Dick. In the olden days, the warlocks of lede, hed, and deck mostly saw the black phallus as a menace to white daisies. But in the era of equal opportunity, Black Dick has turned on its own.

The Washington Post headlined its down-low entry, last August, as "HIV Positive, Without a Clue," with the subhead of "Black Men's Hidden Sex Lives Imperiling Female Partners."

Turns out the logic behind the down-low is as creaky as the headlines are dramatic. "The down-low is being wildly reported, but it's a story without facts," says Phill Wilson, director of the Black AIDS Institute. "It doesn't help us with AIDS prevention to vilify black men or to disempower black women."

What drives activists like Wilson crazy is that despite the ink the down-low has generated, hard data is lacking. Researchers have no national count on how many men are living down-low, much less what down-low is. "If you answer research questions at a gay club, or if you're being interviewed in Essence by E. Lynn Harris, you ain't down-low anymore," says Dr. David Malebranche, an assistant professor at Emory University's Division of Medicine. "Everybody has different definitions and different perspectives on what this means."

The Times cited a study saying that one-third of all bisexual black men have HIV and another noting that in the Centers for Disease Control survey of a majority of the states, black women accounted for 72 percent of new HIV cases among women. "If you look at the numbers among black women and you look at how black women contract HIV, it's at least valid to talk about this as an issue," says Linda Villarosa, editor at large at Essence. Villarosa has had a few shots at the sordid tale—she authored a front-page Times article on the subject, and had a hand in the Essence version.

But the numbers are ambiguous. The oft-quoted figure about a third of all bisexual black men having HIV, according to Dr. Malebranche, was the result of research done in nightclubs in six major cities. "All you can say about those statistics," says Malebranche, "is that one out of three black men in those particular cities, who frequent those particular clubs, have HIV."

More questionable is the assertion about black women and new cases of HIV. The Times gets credit—unlike, say, Essence—for at least noting that its story is based on an amalgam of statistics from 29 out of50 states, as compiled by the CDC. Only half of the20 most populous states bothered to report. Large ones like California, New York, Illinois, and Texas—with almost a third of the country's population—aren't included.

The story's linchpin has been the accepted truth that the black community is acutely more homophobic than the rest of America. The down-low is stirring up emotions in "the often-homophobic black community," reported The Advocate. "Black men aren't allowed to have even the slightest feminine characteristics of the average metrosexual." Andre 3000, Prince, and Fonzworth Bentley apparently missed that memo. As did most of black America, whose rampant homophobia nonetheless puts it behind such bastions of tolerance as Bensonhurst, Hasidic Williamsburg, and the whole of Mississippi.

A study published last year in Public Opinion Quarterly concluded that "evidence that blacks are more homophobic than whites is quite limited." While blacks were significantly more likely to object to homosexuality, it found, they also were significantly more likely than whites to support laws against anti-gay discrimination.

What the down-low mythology demonstrates, more than anything, is an an adherence to the cult of black pathology. Black people are more homophobic, more misogynist, more anti-Semitic, more anti-intellectual, more violent, and generally a problem. The viewpoint persists despite facts on the ground.

Barack Obama rails against the stigma that brands a black kid with a book white—and yet on 125th Street seemingly a third of the vendors are selling books. Bill Cosby attacks black girls for popping out babies and being bad parents—even as the pregnancy rate among black girls falls precipitously. Ditto for the down-low. Corner pundits aren't particularly known for nuance. But when reporters start drinking the Kool-Aid, we've got trouble.

The presidential and vice presidential debates in the fall will be upon us soon enough, which is why I've been looking at the Commission on Presidential Debates, the Democrats and Republicans who control it, past corporate sponsors, and Gallup Organization because of its pivotal role in the debates. [1]

Although there are lawsuits pending against the commission, and all of its member have made substantial federal contributions to candidates and PACs, not to mention the lack of information on the commission's web site listing this election year's Big Business underwriters, my concern today is solely on the Gallup Organization, its
bosses and their donations, and the severe lack of transparency from the commission.

The commission's June 17 news release about the formats for the debates promises the "second presidential debate will use the town meeting format in which undecided voters, selected by the Gallup Organization, will question the candidates." [2]

I wanted to know the political leanings, if any, of Gallup executives and pollsters, as gleaned from Federal Election Commission files, and did a search at the Political Money Line with Gallup Organization as the query term. The hits below were returned. [3]

Jim Clifton, the chief executive officer of Gallup gave $2,000 last year to Herman Cain, an African-American GOP member who ran for U.S. Senate from Georgia. A global practice leader, whatever that may be, Curt Coffman, donated the same amount last year to Cain.

One of Gallup's senior vice presidents, Robert Nielsen, wrote a check for $250 to the Democratic Senatorial PAC in May 2004.

Another senior vice president, Max Larsen, is the largest Gallup donor with $2,750 in contributions to four Democratic candidates, including $1,500 to John Kerry's reelection bid.

Just goes to show you Gallup folks donates to both dominant political parties.

Of course, there's nothing illegal or ethically wrong with citizens, even if they work for a polling firm, making contributions to politicians.

But I believe the debate commission has civic duty to post these donations on their web site, to better inform votes about the political donating of everyone involved in putting on the debates.

And the commission must also list all of this year's corporate donors, along with all of the most recent donations from commission members, as listed with the Federal Election Commission.

At this point in the election cycle, it is shameful much transparency needs to be adopted and adhered to by the debates commission.

American democracy will be better served if the debate commission quickly implement full transparency.

Sources:
1. Commission on Presidential Debates
2. Press release from the commission
3. Political Money Line

^^^


CLIFTON, JAMES
6/25/2003 $2,000.00
WASHINGTON, DC 20037
GALLUP ORGANIZATION -[Contribution]
CAIN FOR US SENATE

COFFMAN, CURT
6/30/2003 $2,000.00
HIGHLANDS RANCH, CO 80126
GALLUP ORGANIZATION -[Contribution]
CAIN FOR US SENATE

NIELSEN, ROBERT
5/10/2004 $250.00
WASHINGTON, DC 20037
GALLUP ORGANIZATION -[Contribution]
DEMOCRATIC SENATORIAL CAMPAIGN COMMITTEE

Van De Walle, Patrice
2/25/2004 $250.00
London UK W9 3JS,
Gallup Organization/Director -[Contribution]
KAZA FOR CONGRESS

Raikes, Helen H Mrs.
3/31/2004 $200.00
Lincoln, NE 68506
Gallup/Research -[Contribution]
CURT BROMM FOR CONGRESS

Dawson, Brian
3/16/2004 $500.00
Lincoln, NE 68506
Gallup/Consultant -[Contribution]
JEFF FORTENBERRY FOR UNITED STATES CONGRESS COMMITTEE

Larsen, Max
9/30/2002 $250.00
Rockville, MD 20850
Gallup Inc./Researcher -[Contribution]
FRIENDS OF JIM MALONEY INC

Larsen, Max D.
9/30/2002 $250.00
Washington, DC 20003
Gallup Inc. -[Contribution]
VAN HOLLEN FOR CONGRESS

LARSEN, MAX
3/7/2000 $250.00
ROCKVILLE, MD 20850
GALLUP INC -[Contribution]
FRIENDS OF JIM MALONEY INC

LARSEN, MAX
6/28/2000 $500.00
LINCOLN, NE 68510
GALLUP INC -[Contribution]
NELSON 2000

LARSEN, MAX
6/29/1999 $1,000.00
LINCOLN, NE 68510
GALLUP -[Contribution]
KERREY FOR U S SENATE COMMITTEE

LARSEN, MAX
9/28/1999 $500.00
LINCOLN, NE 68510
GALLUP -[Contribution]
KERREY FOR U S SENATE COMMITTEE

August 9, 2004

Barney Calame
Deputy Managing Editor
The Wall Street Journal

Dear Mr. Calame:

Since the Wall Street Journal lacks an ombudsman or readers' representative, I am directing this email to you.

One of your reporters, Mr. Mark Schoofs, signed a petition in support of releasing 1960s radical Kathy Boudin from prison, which was published in the June 2001 edition of Poz magazine. The petition and the list of signatories is also on Boudin's web site.

Schoofs, number 63 on the list, is identified as a reporter for the Wall Street Journal, and many Poz magazine readers know he won a Pulitzer Prize for his stories on AIDS in Africa for the Village Voice.

My questions for you are -- does your publication allow reporters to sign political petitions, and identify themselves as Wall Street Journal reporters?

A prompt reply is requested and appreciated.

Sincerely,
Michael Petrelis
San Francisco, CA
^^^

Kathy Boudin's web site

POZ Magazine

June 11, 2001

To: The New York State Parole Board
Re: Parole for Kathy Boudin

Some of us have met, spoken or worked with Kathy Boudin in our capacity as longtime advocates for people with HIV, others have not. But all of us know well her groundbreaking AIDS work at Bedford Hills Correctional Facility over the past 15 years. She is, without doubt, one of our nation's most vital and important advocates for incarcerated women with HIV. No one who has ever witnessed, for example, Bedford Hills' legendary AIDSWalk, organized by Ms. Boudin and A.C.E., the AIDS counseling and education group Ms. Boudin founded, will ever forget how deeply inspirational it is. The idea that inmates solicit pledges from one another, families and friends, as well as guards and prison administrators, and conduct a day-long ceremony in the prison yard promoting PWA empowerment, HIV prevention and also an evening, memorial to those lost to AIDS is a moving example of what this terrible, epidemic has taught those who care enough to learn: that true compassion can heal historic conflicts and divisions. Literally, tens of thousands of women have benefited from the peer support, information and care initiatives Ms. Boudin pioneered at Bedford Hills. And not just women at Bedford Hills, but nationwide, because the programs developed by Ms. Boudin have become a model for other U.S. penal institutions. This lifesaving work would never have been done as early in the epidemic, nor as effectively, were it not for Ms. Boudin's creativity and commitment. It would be difficult to quantify, but it is certain that her work has not only extended and improved the lives of women and families with HIV, but has also saved New York State taxpayers a small fortune. Preventing HIV is vastly less expensive than treating it. Treating HIV-educated patients is less expensive than treating those who are uninformed or have not found the hope to care.

From what we have learned from women who have been paroled from Bedford Hills, Ms. Boudin's success is anchored in her ability to work appropriately within the system, knowing when to push and when to be patient. Also, she approaches AIDS work in a holistic manner, as apart of recovery and rehabilitation. AIDS does not exist in isolation, nor can care, treatment or prevention.

Kathy Boudin's work of service while serving her sentence of 20 years to life has given life and hope to many. This vocation for healing may never make up for past actions that cost lives, but it is proof that, far from posing any further risk to society, she is ready, and has earned her right, to become a greatly contributing member of society. Her advocacy is urgently—even desperately—needed by the larger community, as are her equally impressive skills as a writer, teacher and s pokes person.

As it enters its third decade, AIDS is no longer a fashionable charity. Meantime, it is estimated that at current rates of infection, 1 billion of the Earth's inhabitants will have HIV by 2010. AIDS advocacy worldwide urgently needs expertise to develop prevention and treatment strategies to address the lives of those at greatest risk of contracting the disease, many of whom are young women of color. Moreover, we need educators who understand the multiple burdens so many of these at-risk populations face, including the challenges of raising children in poverty, as well as addiction, homelessness and mental illness.

With all respect and sympathy to the families of the victims of her past crime, we urge the Parole Board to grant Kathy Boudin the opportunity to take her advocacy perfected at Bedford Hills Correctional Facility out into the greater world. There she is certain to help so many more women face the challenge of HIV in their families. We need her.

Respectfully,

1. Sean Strub, Founder, POZ Magazine
2. Walter Armstrong, Bditor in Chief, POZ Magazine
3. Joseph Bostic, NYC AIDS Housing Network
4. Ann Northrop, co-host, "Gay USA," Gay Cable Network
5. Bob Lederer, Producer, "Health Action," WBAI Radio, New York City
6. Lark Lands, Ph.D., POZ Magazine Science Editor
7. Gus Cairns, Editor, Positive Nation Magazine (UK.)
8. Megan Strub, Executive Vice President, POZ magazine
9. Eain A. Murphy Ph.D., Research Fellow, Columbia University
10. Allison Zack, POZ Life Forum Director, POZ magazine
11. Todd Bender, Product & Sales Coordinator, Twentieth Century
Re-Editions, Inc.
12. Mariama HE Nance, Brooklyn, New York
13. Chloe Jo Berman, New York City
14. Ruben Rodriguez, Hotline Services Supervisor, The Osborne Association
15. Renate Koch, ACCSI (Accion Ciudadana Contra el SIDA) -Venezuela
16. Edgar Carrasco, LACCA.SO Venezuela
17. Alberto Nieves, RVGT+ - Venezuela
18. Neris Ruiz, AMAS+ - Venezuela
19. William Barco, ACCSI - Venezuela
20. Robert Cisnei'os, Director, Hudson Valley Poverty Law Center
21. Dawn M. Stewart, Secretary Frontline Hepatitis Awareness
22. Karen Aberie, President, Aberie Unlimited, Hunter, NY
23. Jean Maclean Snyder, Trial Counsel, MacArthur Justice Center
24. Edward Steinhart, Ph.D., History Department, Texas Tech University,
Lubbock, TX
25. Barbara Huff, high school English teacher and Methodist, Austin, Texas
26. Debra S. Wright, Drug Policy Forum of Michigan
27. Rachel Maddow, Doctoral Candidate, University of Oxford
28. David Rupprecht, Novi, Michigan
29. John lversen, former Co-Chair, Oakland EMA HIV Services Planning Cc
30. Barbara Lubin, Director, Middle East Children's Alliance, Berkeley, CA
31. Maudslle Shirek, Vice Mayor, Berkeley, CA
32. Jackie Walker, ACLU National Prison Project
33. James Learned, Director of Treatment Education, Community Research Initiative on AIDS (CRIA)
34. Nina Reznick, Attorney at Law
35. Merrill Cole, M.F.A., Ph.D., University of Washington
36. Tammy Vitrano, Program. Director, Women Alive Coalition
37. Alan Haber, Cabinetmaker, Ann Arbor, Michigan
38. Patrick Califia-Rice, author and AIDS activist
39. Dominic Hamilton-Little, New York, NY
40. Romeo Sanchez, Alliance for Inmates with AIDS (AlliA)
41. James Russo, Catholic Social Services, Ann Arbor MI
42. Cynthia Skow, MSW; California Prison Focus
43. Jeff Graham, Executive Director, AIDS Survival Project
44. Asia Russell, Project TEACH Outside, Philadelphia Pennsylvania
45. Jeff Gustavson, member, ACTG Immunology Research Agenda Committee, Survive AIDS
46. Kate Krauss, Health GAP Coalition
47. Kevin O'Leary, Editor in Chief, Male Magazine
48. Anna Forbes, MSS, AIDS and Women's Health Policy Consultant; Instructor, Bryn
Mawr School of Social Work and Social Research
49. Heidi Dorow, Women's Institute for Leadership Development
50. Julie. Davids, Director, Critical Path AIDS Project
51. Susan Wolfson, Founder, SENSEI Health
52. David Gilden, Director of Treatment Information, American Foundation for AIDS Research
53. Charlie. Welch, New York, NY
54. Richard Elovich, Former Director of HIV Prevention, GMHC, NYC
55. Phill Wilson, Founde.r, African American AIDS Policy and Training
Institute
56. Katie Szymanski, Assistant Editor, Bay Area Reporter
57. Shawn Decker, AIDS Educator and Activist
58. Gwenn Barringer, AIDS Educator and Activist
59. Emily Mills
60. RonniLyn Pustil, CATIE (Community AIDS Information and Treatment Exchange
Canada)
61. Steve Schalchlin, composer/lyricist
62. Sarah Schulman, activist and author, People in Trouble.
63. Mark Schoofs, staff reporter, Wall Street Journal
64. Illith Rosenbimn, activist
65. Bill Dobbs, member, Queer Watch
66. Daniel Wolfs, author, Men Like Us: The GMHC Complete Guide to Gay Men 's Sexual, Physical and Emotional Well-being
67. Frank Pizzoli, Founder, Positive Opportunities
68. Mark deSollaPrice, Author, Living Positively in a World with HJV/AIDS
69. Susanna Martin, SLAM High School Organizing Program
70. Rebecca Neren berg, Managing Editor, HEPP News (HIV and Hepatitis
Education/Prison Project)
71. Anne S. De Groot, MD, TB/HIV Research Lab, Brown University
72. Molly Snyder-Fink
73. Terry A. Klipers, M.D., M.S.P., Prof. at The Wright Institute
74. Augustus Nasmith, Jr., Past President, AIDS, Medicine & Miracles
75. Nikolas Stein, Paralegal, Southern Center for Human Rights, Atlanta, GA
76. Noa Kielurnan, Queensbury, UK
77. Cathy Olufs, Treatment Advocate, Women Alive Coalition
78. Brenda Calderon, Treatment Advocate, Women Alive Coalition
79. Marina Gornez, Treatment Advocate, Women Alive Coalition
80. Nancy MacNeil, Executive Director, Women Alive Coalition
81. Alma Alvarez, Fiscal Manager, Women Alive Coalition
82. Beverly Mosley, Board of Directors President, Women Alive Coalition
83. Mary Lucy, City AIDS Office, Los Angeles
84. John A. Beck, Senior Supervising Attorney, Prisoners' Rights Project, Legal Aid Society
85. Dave Powell, organizer, Met Council on Housing; Board President, ABC-No-Rio Community Center (LES)
86. Judy Greenspan, Chairperson, HIV in Prison Committee of California Prison Focus
87. Dawn Dawson, New York City
88. John Kirn, Project Coordinator, SLAM/United Student Government, Hunter College
89. Rebecca Denison, WORLD (Women Organized to Respond to Life-Threatening Diseases), San Francisco
90. Thomas Scott Tucker, author and activist
91. Larry Gross, Professor of Communications, University of Pennsylvania
92. Lauren Cornel!, Deep Dish Television, NYC
93. Beth Feinberg, Justice Network on Women
94. Milton Zele.rmyer, Staff Attorney, Legal Aid Society, NYC

August 9, 2004

Jack Rosenthal
Public Editor
The New York Times

Dear Mr. Rosenthal:

In Linda Villarosa’s Aug. 7 front-page article, Patients With HIV Seen as Separated By a Racial Divide, several vital statistics are omitted from the story, which I believe should have been included, along with crucial information related to an expert quoted in the story. [1]

Villarosa didn’t mention these important statistics from the Centers for Disease Control:

- AIDS is the sixth leading cause of death for African-American males, according to 2001 data, the latest available from the federal agency.

- CDC data also shows AIDS is the tenth leading cause of death for African-American females.[2,3]

I don’t take issue with the HIV/AIDS statistics presented by Villarosa, but I do feel she had a responsibility to place them in the larger context of AIDS mortality statistics for blacks.

As you’ll recall, Villarosa had a strikingly similar AIDS and blacks article in the New York Times on April 5, also on the front-page, which failed to reference leading cause of death statistics from CDC. Her two page 1 AIDS articles bring much-needed attention to the plight of African-Americans living with the disease, and those at risk of contracting the virus. [4]

But I can’t locate any front-page articles in the New York Times on the other diseases afflicting and killing blacks in larger numbers than AIDS. Where are the comparable stories on African-Americans dying of heart disease, cancer, stroke and homicide?

Also, the Aug. 7 article quotes Mr. Phill Wilson, executive director of the Black AIDS Institute in Los Angeles, and an expert in HIV prevention and treatment matters.

What is missing from the passage about him is information about a recent Department of Health and Human Services audit that found Wilson and his collaborators at the University of Southern California hadn’t properly managed more than $1 million from a federal grant to assist African-Americans with AIDS. [5]

The Los Angeles Times on July 31 reported on Wilson and USC being asked to return $1 million to HHS. That story stemmed from a 48-page audit issued on July 9 by HHS and available on the web. [6]

Actually, maybe it wouldn’t have been appropriate for Villarosa to tell New York Times readers about Wilson’s lax controls and conflict of interest documented in the federal audit in the Aug. 7 news story.

Perhaps what’s called for instead is a separate article just on the HHS audit, the mishandling of $1 million in AIDS research money by Wilson and USC, and the detrimental impact the mismanagement had on black patients with AIDS.

(On a related side matter, only the 1999 and 2000 IRS 990 forms from the Black AIDS Institute are posted on GuideStar.com, the most comprehensive and up-to-date site on the web for tax returns from all charities.)

Since the New York Times frequently seeks out Wilson for quotes on AIDS issues, and has for years, as a simple search of the paper’s archives shows, the paper now has a duty to give readers the facts about the HHS audit, which fully places blame for the fiscal problems at his feet.

Frankly, in keeping readers ignorant about the audit and Wilson’s mismanagement, some could say the New York Times is showing favoritism toward one newsmaker.

A prompt reply is requested and appreciated.

Sincerely,

Michael Petrelis
San Francisco, CA

Sources:
1. NY Times
2. CDC mortality stats on black men
3. CDC mortality stats on black women
4. NY Times
5. HHS audit
6. LA Times

Los Angeles Times
July 31, 2004 Saturday
SECTION: CALIFORNIA; Metro; Metro Desk; Part B; Pg. 3

Los Angeles; USC Told to Repay Funds for Program;
Officials admit errors in plan to train HIV/AIDS counselors but disagree on the financial figures.

BYLINE: Stuart Silverstein, Times Staff Writer

Federal auditors are calling for USC to pay back more than $1 million in government funds because of the university's lapses in managing a program to train HIV/AIDS counselors for minority communities.

USC's program was shut down by federal officials in 2001 in response to concerns about conflict of interest, improper research procedures and misuse of federal funds.

The resulting audit, released this week, uncovered further evidence of those problems and said the program failed in its goal of training HIV/AIDS counselors, or "peer treatment educators."

USC, which brought some of the problems to the government's attention, acknowledged making mistakes and said it had followed recommendations from regulators to overhaul its practices.

The university, however, is challenging auditors' recommendation to repay or forfeit $1.08 million of the $1.27 million in federal funds spent on the effort. While agreeing that some of the university's expenses should be disallowed, USC said other costs have already been federally approved. In addition, USC said it sought to end the program after one year but agreed to keep running it at the request of its federal partners in the initiative.

One of the major flaws cited by auditors with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services was the university's failure to resolve a conflict of interest involving a official hired by USC to run the project.

That official, identified by the university as Phill Wilson, managed the effort for USC while he also headed an AIDS awareness organization that was a subcontractor to the program, the auditors found.

According to the audit, part of the allegedly unauthorized spending charged to the government involved money that was improperly diverted to unrelated activities of Wilson's nonprofit organization, the African American AIDS Policy and Training Institute.

In other cases, the auditors found that padded or inadequately documented expense claims were submitted for such things as wages, travel, consulting services, public relations, and Internet and video services.

No referral has been made for a criminal investigation, according to Donald White, a spokesman for Health and Human Services' Office of Inspector General, which conducted the audit.

Wilson, 48, was hired by USC to manage the program and left the university's payroll when the effort was shut down. He is now director of a Los Angeles-based AIDS charity, the Black AIDS Institute, which he described as a successor to the African American AIDS Policy and Training Institute.

Although Wilson resigned as executive director of the African American AIDS Policy and Training Institute apparently in response to conflict-of-interest concerns, the audit found that, in fact, he continued to manage the organization.

The auditors contended that the apparent conflict of interest opened the door for money to be diverted to other activities of Wilson's organization. Those included soliciting sponsors for an AIDS march and conducting town hall meetings in various states to spur political action related to HIV issues. Wilson's organization claimed $501,000 in expenses, about 40% of the total.

When reached by The Times, Wilson said he could not comment on the audit because he had not read it. After being e-mailed a copy of the report, he failed to return follow-up phone calls seeking his response.

The audit indicates that another large part of the questionable $1.08 million in spending was deemed unauthorized because of the program operators' failure to have participants sign the appropriate informed-consent forms meeting USC and federal requirements.

The forms, the audit said, were required because the 41 first-year participants being trained as HIV/AIDS counselors, many of whom were infected with the virus, were asked various research questions related to their health and sexual behavior. Informed-consent forms are intended to protect the privacy and well-being of people who serve as research subjects.

Auditors said the participants signed consent forms, but not the ones approved by USC's institutional research board, which supervises research involving human subjects. As a result, the board never authorized the program's research.

The audit also said the research continued because Wilson -- whose formal title on the project was co-principal investigator -- disagreed with the campus research board's position that the participants were research subjects protected by the university policy. The report found that Wilson was "not an experienced researcher," but that after being hired by USC, he proceeded to "contact, recruit, enroll, test and gather information from the peer treatment educators."

White said the case was being referred for further review to the U.S. Health Resources and Services Administration, which was USC's partner in the program, and the Office for Human Research Protections, another unit in the Health and Human Services Department.

USC, meanwhile, plans to appeal to the Health Resources and Services Administration to reduce the sum it will need to pay the federal government.

"We've acknowledged some culpability here; we've acknowledged that we made some mistakes. It's just a question of the amount that's due," said Laura L. LaCorte, senior associate vice president in the office of compliance at USC.

"We really had tried to take some proactive steps in this case, and I think successfully did. The person responsible is no longer here," she added, referring to Wilson.