Andy Martin condemns NBC News “franchising” in Chicago

U. S. Senate candidate Andy Martin criticizes the hiring of outside “franchise” writers to provide content to NBC without any vetting, accountability or standards by NBC. Martin says NBC is becoming an increasingly left-wing news organization, perhaps shadowed by MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann and other agents of the hard left. Andy also says NBC’s own internal Chicago “political experts” Carol Marin and Mary Ann Ahern “eat what they are fed by Mark Kirk.”

ANDY MARTIN
Republican for U. S. Senator/2010
“He Works for all the People of Illinois”
Suite 4406, 30 E. Huron Street
Chicago, IL 60611-4723
Toll-free tel. (866) 706-ANDY
Toll-free fax (866) 707-ANDY
Web site: http://www.AndyforUSSenator.com
E-mail: mailto:AndyforIllinois@aol.com

Please donate:

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November 5, 2009


Mr. Frank Whittaker
Vice President
WMAQ-TV
Chicago, IL 60611
via fax (312) 527-2470


Dear Mr. Whittaker:

What is happening to NBC News?

A couple of weeks ago, Carol Marin stole one of my stories and allocated it to my opponent. I guess that’s the definition of chutzpah. It sure ain’t the definition of “news.”

Then over the weekend Mary Ann Ahern said I didn't exist.

Guess what: I am the only candidate for United States Senator in the Republican party who has run statewide before (Mark Kirk hasn’t). I carried or nearly carried (close) 45 counties, and received almost a quarter of a million votes. Last year. Mary Ann Ahern is either corrupt or incompetent in ignoring my existence. Which is it?

The latest insult to the traditions of NBC News surfaced today. I was reading an entry on your web site “Mark Kirk Goes Rogue,”

http://www.nbcchicago.com/news/politics/Mark-Kirk-Goes-Rogue-69273997.html

and I was stunned to find at the end of the story it was posted by someone called Steve Rhodes who runs some sort of web site, The Beachwood Reporter. http://www.beachwoodreporter.com/

“Beachwood” is receiving money from outside sources to fund its operations. So NBC is using on its own web site “news” generated by someone who is being funded by third parties and reportage is by Steve Rhodes, whose journalistic credentials are nowhere to be found.

Who vets Mr. Rhodes’ views, credentials or qualifications? You are the VP of “News.” Do you know what Rhodes' credentials are? Do you know all of his funding sources? You are receiving “content” from an outside franchise without any apparent oversight from NBC management in Chicago. At least when we point the finger at Marin and Ahern we have some idea who signs their paychecks. Who signs Rhodes’ paycheck?

What’s left of NBC news? The more you hollow out the organization and “franchise” news to liberal local web sites, the less people will turn to you. At least when they read my Internet newspaper and blogs, www.ContrarianCommentary.com, they know who is writing and what our point of view is.

I am not in the business of defending Mark Kirk, “the Kirkster” as we call him, but when Kirk is attacked by someone who is obviously a typical liberal (Rhodes) then I am concerned by the increasingly left-wing slant of NBC News. Moreover, no one knows Rhodes’ credentials to be a political commentator, and nowhere are they stated either on your web site or his.

What if you were carrying my comments from http://www.contrariancommentary.com/, without any disclosure or attribution as a conservative? Would that be fair? I don’t think so. But then real conservatives have ethics and integrity; liberals don’t.

Rhodes claims to know Kirk has “internal polls,” which no one has previously stated Kirk has, and Rhodes then trashes Kirk’s opponents by claiming they are not “credible.”

The only genuine ”news" story Kirk has generated recently, ignored by the Marin/Ahern combo, was that the Kirkster issued a bogus "poll" listing all of his primary opponents except me.

I wonder if he left my name out because I am the only Republican who has run statewide before? Or maybe I was in the "internal poll" but not in the publicly released "poll?" A case of news management? 100% Would your political bloodhounds Marin and Ahern be interested in Kirk’s lacuna? Not at all. They are a press release service for Kirk. These dogs not only don't hunt, they eat what they are fed by Kirk and nothing else.

I have a more credible statewide voting record than Kirk, because I have run statewide and he hasn’t. When are you going to report the facts instead of merely parroting Kirk’s propaganda?

More and more people trust the media less and less. The Rhodes/Beachwood example is Class A evidence why so-called “mainstream” media are dying. You hire liberals to attack Republicans, and demand that Kirk remain a liberal or face criticism from Rhodes & Co. Rhodes in turn has his own political agenda, which is not balanced by any conservative voices. WMAQ-TV has become a one-sided liberal megaphone for the left.

I was hired by NBC News in 1967 and seriously considered accepting the offer. But the NBC News of 1967 no longer exists. People like Bill Corley are no longer welcome at NBC. NBC wants bubbleheads that steal stories and manifest total ignorance of politics as “political” commentators.

What you have today at NBC news is a dying franchise being operated by outside contractors. It’s sad.


Sincerely yours,


ANDY MARTIN

AM:sp

P. S. I personally wrote this letter, not some outside contractor.

U. S. Senate candidate Andy Martin on WMAQ-TV’s “Portrait of the Candidate”

Andy Martin, who was once hired by NBC News in Chicago, pokes fun at WMAQ-TV’s sketch of his campaign. Martin also owned a TV station that became an NBC affiliate.

ANDY MARTIN
Republican for U. S. Senator/2010
“He Works for all the People of Illinois”
Suite 4406, 30 E. Huron Street
Chicago, IL 60611-4723
Toll-free tel. (866) 706-ANDY
Toll-free fax (866) 707-ANDY
Web site: http://www.AndyforUSSenator.com
E-mail: AndyforUSSenator@aol.com

Please donate:

www.AndyforUSSenator.com

Blogs:

www.AndyforUSSenator.com
www.AndyforUSSenator.blogspot.com
www.AndyforUSSenator.wordpress.com

www.MarkKirk.us

www.IllinoisHighSpeedTrains.com

COMING:

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November 4, 2009

Susan Ball
WMAQ-TV
Chicago, IL 60611
via fax (312) 527-5925

Dear Susan:

I was amused by your thumbnail sketches of the candidates for state office. And, yes, I am a “corruption fighter,” so you got the big picture right.
http://www.nbcchicago.com/news/politics/
Andy-Martin-for-US-Senate-68582972.html

But I felt that your overall essay was skewed by the fact you consulted pro-Obama news media to write a story about me. Obama is not neutral or objective about me, and neither are his sycophants in the media.

Last weekend Channel 5’s Mary Ann Ahern actually pretended I didn’t exist. Recently Channel 5’s Carol Marin stole one of my story lines and attributed it to my principal opponent. What is it with you women?

So rather than complain, I thought I would help you become a better news writer, and offer you a short course in Andy Martin.

Together we can rewrite your biography about me to show your viewers a clearer picture of my accomplishments and character. When people find out the facts about Andy Martin, they want to support me.

I would have started your sketch of me with the observation that I have been involved in broadcasting for 41 years. (I could go even further back and tell you when I was hired by NBC News in Chicago, but that’s another story). I am the youngest person ever authorized to own a TV station (you can check FCC records for that one). And so I am probably the “dean” of media in Illinois by virtue of my longevity and experience. I started when “video” meant two-inch wide tape.

I was part of the first major sex discrimination case at the Federal Communications Commission, and worked to create advancement opportunities for women. Four decades ago. (Source: FCC Docket Number 19801).

You mentioned a TV commercial I produced about George Bush in 1999, ten (10) years ago. You left out the most interesting part of the commercial. My commercial predicted Bush would invade Iraq. My prediction was made in 1999. Now that’s solid news judgment. I knew Bush before Bush knew Bush. I don’t just toot my horn; I have a public record you can consult to confirm my claims.

You also missed the larger point. You were writing about a TV commercial I produced a decade ago. How many advertising people have produced TV spots that others are still writing about a decade later? Not many. One of my political enemies (I am not sure which one yet, Kirk or Obama) is currently broadcasting a TV spot I made 13 years ago. They just can’t get enough of Andy’s TV ads. That should tell you I understand the broadcast medium as few others have over the decades.

You claim that I have written “rumors” about Barry Obama’s Muslim religion. Ultimately, of course religion is a disposable diaper for Obama. When it suits his purposes he’s a Muslim, see e.g. http://www.youtube.com/watch_popup?v=tCAffMSWSzY#t=28

And when it suits his purposes he’s a “Christian.” Obama has been in the White House for ten months, and still hasn’t “found” a church in Washington. I doubt he ever will. Obama is an opportunist, not a Christian.

But Obama was a Muslim. He was raised Muslim from the age of 6-10. The fact that Obama was raised as a Muslim in Indonesia is not a "rumor," it is a fact. There is general nationwide agreement that I was the first writer to highlight that fact. The reality is, Obama can’t airbrush the truth away, at least not when I am pursuing the truth, and neither should you. You should have said, instead, that I focused attention on Obama’s secret life and his unknown family connections, and was the first to do so. I’ll plead guilty any day—to telling the truth about Barry Obama. How about you telling the truth about me?

In 2008 Obama and his henchmen paid me the ultimate compliment: they created a dirty tricks operation to undermine my efforts to tell the truth about Obama’s past. It’s not every day that a local boy is the target of a smear machine orchestrated by a presidential campaign but I am bigger and better known because I took Obama’s lies and threw them back in his face.

Obama confirmed what every Illinois Republican should know about me: I am the real McCoy, a tough, successful political infighter they can trust to seek the truth and bring it to public attention. I’ve been doing that all my life. Mine was the first name on Barack Obama’s “enemies list.”

Isn’t it ironic that Obama’s strongest and most successful critic is now a solid candidate (no, Mary Ann Ahern is not right, I do really exist) to succeed to his senate seat? Maybe that’s why David Axelrod is having fits. His smears seem to have no effect on me. Now there’s an interesting story line for you.

Your station is located in Chicago, which has at its core a struggling urban diaspora. Who has been working hard to recruit minorities and fight for civil rights in the Republican Party? You guessed it. Andy Martin.

I am unusual for another reason: I have been an urban educator who taught in an urban university. Few people (in either party) who run for national office have ever stood in a college classroom and actually taught in a minority community. For me it was not a political gimmick. I enjoyed the work. I’ll bet many of your viewers would admire my college teaching. How come you left it out?

Finally, you took my “I am a colorful person” quote slightly out of context. Of course people such as Obama dislike me when I expose the truth about their past. They prefer to hide the truth about themselves and the media often ignore the facts. I can be “colorful” in telling their stories. Just ask the people of Hawai’i, many of whom have “adopted” me because I was the first writer to research the truth about Obama’s Hawai’i years.

But, more deeply, politics usually attracts boring, careerist people. I am not a boring careerist. I have lived an unusual life and I bring my lifetime of experiences with me to the campaign, and hopefully into the Senate.

I spent part of 2003 living in Baghdad, researching and writing about the flawed, failed strategy there--long before the mainstream media realized they had been cheerleaders for a bunch of incompetent politicians in the Green Zone. I coined the phrase the "Emerald City" to describe the "greenies." How many candidates for the Senate have lived in Baghdad, and been on Paul Bremer’s enemies list for being the first to write about his incompetence? Not many.

I am proud of the enemies I have made throughout my life. These enemies all exist because I wrote unpleasant truths and took action to bring the truth to public attention. That’s the kind of person we need as a Senator.

Well, enough of Professor Martin’s first class in “Chicago media truth telling about Andy Martin.” I am sure you will agree that the truth about me, almost all of which was missing from your portrait, is a lot more interesting, and a lot more invaluable to every voter in Illinois, both Republican and even Democrat, than the one-dimensional picture you presented.

Now if I could only get Carol Marin to stop stealing my material, and Mary Ann Ahearn to wake up and smell Andy’s campaign (lavender is the scent), maybe Illinoisans could elect a “real” U. S. Senator who would work for them instead of the special interests, and really fight the crooked political structure in Washington.

After all, I have a documented lifetime record of fighting corruption, way back to 1968 when I exposed and opposed the crooked Illinois Secretary of State. No other candidate in either party has my established record of fighting corruption. No wonder they are envious of my background.

Who can match my record? The Kirkster? Be real. The Kirkster represents everything that is wrong and bad about politics. But you guys at Channel 5 love the little guy. I wonder why.

Finally, decades ago, the Chicago Tribune realized (and wrote) I was an “absolutely brilliant campaigner.” Actually, they were right. I like to rub their noses in that quote, because their current political writer, Rick Pearson, is a creepy fellow who gives me the willies. Pearson takes his orders from the corrupt “Combine.” The Combine doesn’t like corruption fighters, so Pearson doesn’t like me.

But because I have a legacy of “brilliant campaigning” to live up to, I intend to put on a campaign for the U. S. Senate that is going to shake up this state and shake up the state of corruption in Washington.

Or, as we broadcasters would say, “Stay tuned.”

Best wishes,

ANDY MARTIN

AM:sp