Agent 007 report # 5 from the RNC
Jim Bramlett
Sep 4, 2004
Dear friends:Below is Agent 007's final report, # 5, from the Republican National Convention. Thank you 007 for your insights and all your good work.
Jim
_____________________Jim,
As I have been privileged to attend both the Democratic and now the Republican National Conventions, I have learned a lot about the media. Some things I already knew, but have now witnessed first hand.
But before I get to that, I do want to comment on President Bush's speech. I watched it in its entirety from a vantage point of about 100 feet right in front of the president. The speech capped off a well-planed and well-executed convention. Don't get me wrong, after attending both conventions, the Democrats planned well too. It was the two radically different messages that made the difference. John Kerry, at the Democratic Convention put all of his eggs in the basket of his service for four months in Vietnam, winning Purple Hearts and other medals. President Bush in his speech, stood on his record of four years the Office of President of the United States, three of which were in fighting the war on terror. You can read the text of the speech at http://www.gopconvention.com/news/speeches.shtml. There was an excitement in the room that is hard to describe. The only thing I can compare it to are some church services that I have been in. I firmly believe that the hand of the Lord in on this man to lead our country at this time.
President Bush is running on recent experience and John Kerry is running on 30 year-old experience. So the voter must themselves update Senator Kerry's experience beginning with what h edidafterreturningfromSoutheastAsia.Thereismuch documentation on Kerry's anti-war activities just after returning from his four months in Vietnam. Kerry helped push North Vietnam's proposals for the United States to withdraw at a time when the two countries were still officially at war. Some view that as treasonous. So, what about even more recent activities of Senator Kerry. You can have a look at his voting record by going to http://www.kerryquotes.com/votingrecord.htm.
Now, on to my main subject. I have been working with a major TV network on a contract basis for both the Democratic and Republican National Conventions. This has not only allowed me to observe close up the inner operations of this major network, but to observe most of the other broadcast and cable news operations as well. My main responsibilities were to assist in the set-up of the massive infrastructure that has to be put in place to bring convention coverage to the nation. After setup was done, I was mostly free to move around and observe and to be on-call if needed. One of the things that networks do when they put in their large on-site infrastructure is to defray some of their costs by providing audio and video feeds and satellite transmission service to other domestic and foreign entities. The network that I was contracted with did that as well. They provided feeds and transmission service to a number of local TV stations throughout the country that had reporters on site at the two conventions. Additionally the same was done for the the Christian Broadcasting Network (CBN), the BBC and Al Jazeera, the Arabic language news channel based in Doha, Qatar. For the first time ever Al Jazeera had a live presence at a U.S. political convention. Al Jazeera first came to prominence by airing Osama Bin Laden's messages to the world. In doing this, Bin Laden would obviously use Al Jazeera to further his causes. Al Jazeera also garnered headlines by airing several terrorist-shot home videos of hostages being beheaded. Terrorism itself feeds on fear and what better way to spread fear than to transmit the hideous deeds of terrorists.
Most people do not realize that Al Jazeera has a Washington bureau. The gather stories and transmit them back to Doha, Qatar where they are seen in almost every country in Europe and the Middle East. Al Jazeera is also aired in the United States on some cable outlets as well as the Dish Network direct-to-home subscription satellite service. In Boston at the Democratic National Convention, the most radically liberal component of the Democratic Party clamored to interviewed by the network. The reports and interviews were in many ways anti-American and anti-Israeli in nature. Al Jazeera had translators on-site at both conventions, so the language problem was less of a barrier. In New York, Al Jazeera sought after the few radicals that managed to get press credentials and they gave much more coverage to the demonstrations and arrest of demonstrators than those events deserved. Their coverage may have been far more radical than I know of because of my lack of understanding of Arabic. I was able to monitor the English portion of translated interviews however.
I believe that he people of the United States can handle any opinion that is offered to them. This is a country of free speech by Americans. But I do not believe that we have to tolerate foreign entities coming here and trashing our country. Even the new interim government in Iraq has punished Al Jazeera by temporarily closing their Baghdad bureau (see http://www.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/meast/08/07/iraq.al.jazeera/) for airing images and reports that could incite violence. Al Jazeera is planning an English-language version of their news service to be aired here in the United States on an expanded level. They are also planning an Arabic-language children's channel. One can only imagine indoctrination that these new services would bring to the world. Legally it may not be possible for our government to force Al Jazeera to close its Washington Bureau, although this should not be a freedom of the press issue because Al Jazeera is not a U.S. entity. But it may have to be handled by Christians praying them out and using the same method to stop the new networks from being launched. We should all make that a matter of prayer.
As we all know, Al Jazeera and other foreign news services are not the only ones that are biased. Bias is alive and well here in the U.S. On Thursday at the RNC, my job was to be on call inside the Madison Square Garden arena. President Bush was supposed to begin his speech at around 10:06 PM Eastern time and the arena was to be "locked down" by the Secret Service at 9:00 PM, meaning no one in or out after that time until the president finished speaking. This was a very high security event. So, barring any problems, it looked as if I would be able to sit down and enjoy President Bush's speech. The problem was that the arena was pretty full and without an assigned seat, it might be difficult to find a good place to watch. After some searching, I found a spot at the ABC Radio news desk which had a good vantage spot about 100' right in front of where President Bush would be speaking. There was an available seat and I sat within three feet of the ABC Radio anchor, veteran Gill Gross and the well-known ABC-TV correspondent Sam Donaldson. I was able to watch their computer screens as they were being fed news copy and also observed their reactions to different portions of the president's speech. The bias was very evident. Once on their screen during the president's speech, a notice came on that only one TV station in Miami, Florida was carrying president Bush's speech. The others were carrying hurricane Frances coverage. They actually pointed at the screen and laughed at the fact that the president was not being carried on all the stations in that electorally important area. What they should have known is that when an impending emergency is in process such as with hurricane Frances, local TV stations will move into a very cooperative state with each other. If there is an important national story that is in progress, the stations will get together and one of them will carry it and the others will carry the local emergency. The ones that carry the local emergency will announce that the national story is being carried on XYZ station and to tune there to watch it.
I also heard Sam Donaldson imploring the Kerry people to "get busy answering some of the things that were said here in New York before it is too late." That doesn't exactly sound like an impartial reporter does it? In Boston, the bias was a bit more camouflaged. The reporters just simply echoed what was being said from the podiums there in the Fleet Center. This was simple for the press to do because they simply agreed with everything that was being said. However, in New York, it was very different. The mainstream press countered and criticized almost every conservative point that was made by the speakers. It was obvious and open bias.
There is a huge silver lining around all of this dark bias however. For the first time in history, The Fox News Channel cable service beat out ALL of the major broadcast networks in ratings for convention coverage. And the Fox News Channel is only available to a fraction of the number of homes that the major networks are. You would think that the networks would begin to get themessage.Thereisonething that does get their attention and that is ratings. A single rating point can mean millions of dollars and they got clobbered by what they consider a lowly cable service. Hopefully there will be some changes coming.
Despite the bias, apparently undecided Americans were able to get the message from the convention. Polls by several news agencies show President Bush leading by as much as 11 percentage points. For the first time since the presidential race became a two-person race, there is a clear leader.
007
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