Ron The Cop

 A comment to editors of the Spokesman-Review and the facilitator working on the new code of ethics.

Dear Mr. Floyd, Ms. Savalli and Dr. Jackson,

As I said at the recent meeting the $64 question is whether the S-R will abide by its Code of Ethics once affirmed.  The onus is upon the S-R to demonstrate to its readers that it will follow the code and that this is not just some PR exercise.  The readers are not dumb as you think.  The readers will ultimately decide the credibility of the S-R as a trusted/reliable  source of news, commentary, and thought of the day.

The traditional media no longer holds the preeminent position of the  du jour source of the news.  See the article below. We are experiencing a major communication reformation as great or greater than that of Martin Luther’s time (Hugh Hewitt’s Blog and Glenn Reynolds’ An Army of Davids).  The new media does not require large capital investments e.g, printing presses and transmission networks of the traditional or mainstream media.  The new medium of expression is essentially free for all to participate.  The currency of the new media is the validity, reliability, and predictability of the information provided in one’s own daily life.  The sources that best meet those needs will attract readers and grow  Those sources which lack credibility and/or don’t correct misinformation quickly will die.

As I said this new virtual medium functions as the “new town square.”  As so presciently stated in this article from the new media:

. . . we lived in Thomas Jefferson’s America, noted for its unlimited and uninhibited free expression, lively debates in which ideas were attacked and defended, and a free people who thought for themselves rather than having “the truth” as seen by elites imposed upon them.

IMHO we are witnessing the effect of this fundamental shift with the low ratings this past weekend of the Oscars.  The people are no longer enamoured  or in awe of the elitist aristocracy.  As I concluded at the meeting, continue to censor civil thoughts and expression as you choose but the business paradigm is rapidly changing – adapt or you will die.

Det. Ron Wright (Retired)
Friends of Mark Fuhrman Blog

*****
HT PJM – Link to full article

[BOLDED TEXT – My Emphasis]

The Power of New Media on the Presidency

February 27, 2008 12:01 AM

From clicks to votes.

Old Media only looks alive and influential, argues Steve Boriss. In fact, New Media has played a decisive role in this presidential election.

[…]

Ironically, the progress made by New Media as a political force can be measured in terms of how far back in time it has taken us. There have been better times in history for citizens seeking information on political candidates than the last few decades, when we have endured a monolithic, center-left, establishment-loving mainstream media. Once, America was served by an abundance of news outlets providing different opinions to different groups of the like-minded. That’s what French historian Alexis de Tocqueville saw in the early 1800’s when he marveled at how our “Newspapers make associations, and associations make newspapers.” Before that, we lived in Thomas Jefferson’s America, noted for its unlimited and uninhibited free expression, lively debates in which ideas were attacked and defended, and a free people who thought for themselves rather than having “the truth” as seen by elites imposed upon them. 



[…]

A New Two-Party System — But the most striking impact of New Media in this cycle has been the emergence of a new two-party system. It will no longer just be Democrats vs. Republicans, but also the Political Class vs. the People. The Political Class includes Old Media, powerful incumbents on both sides of the aisle, political operatives, lobbyists, and all others who suck-off the teat of the federal government. The People are the New Media-fueled citizens who are now listening to that multitude of voices competing in a freewheeling marketplace of ideas. What is shocking is that in this cycle, the Political Class actually lost.

[…]

But, all is not lost for those who fear our fragmented future of ideologies and identities — those who prefer unity and an occasional reach-across-the-aisle. New Media may break us into pieces, but it will also unite all of us, from far-left to far-right, against a common enemy — the Political Class. So, New Media will not just take us back to the old days before Old Media. It is also a new revolution that will take us back to the old, but timeless, ideas of America’s oldest revolution.





Steve Boriss blogs at The Future of News. He works for Washington University in St. Louis, where he is Associate Director of the Center for the Application of Information Technology (CAIT) and teaches a class called “The Future of News.”

Cross-posted at Rocket’s Brain Trust

An Army of Davids Strikes – Spokane, WA

UDPATE – SCROLL FOR UPDATES

To All Good Citizens of Spokane:

“All that is required for evil to prevail is for good men to do nothing” [Link]

As many of you now know the Mark Fuhrman Radio Show was axed by KGA1510 AM (Citadel Broadcasting) in Spokane, WA. While many including the Spokesman-Review (Owned by the Cowles family) have brushed this off as just business a matter, the Mark Fuhrman Show was an important independent voice in the Spokane media market dominated by the Cowles family. Mapleton Communications LLC is purchasing KGA and other Citadel owned stations in Spokane. Apparently Fuhrman’s independent voice was a factor in this sale. After reading the below information, you decide in what manner of “business” this was.

I have information from a reliable source that the Fuhrman Show was in play from the very first contact by Mapleton representatives with Citadel about purchasing KGA. IMHO this was a “hit” plain an simple by a criminal enterprise to cover its ongoing robbery of the citizens of Spokane. This criminal enterprise has so thoroughly and systemically corrupted the political and governmental bodies in Spokane to a level I’ve never witnessed before in my entire thirty-five year law enforcement career.

Terresa Monroe-Hamilton of Media Mythbusters has been kind enough to host at the MMB blog these key informational pieces:

Censorship – All the News Fit to Print (if we like it…)

Timeline for the River Park Square Scandal

BREAKING – Mark Fuhrman’s Radio Show Axed!

There is past pattern and practice re the squelching of investigator reporters in Spokane who have cut to close to the bone of the River Park Square fraud (RPS). The Cowles family was the principal RPS developer. I have documented my suspicions based on my education, training, and experience in a demand letter to Mapleton Communications LLC:

. . . to commission a formal due diligence analysis to determine whether or not there is any involvement in this sales transaction by the Cowles media, Cowles Family Trusts of Spokane, its agents or subsidiary interests either overtly or covertly. Similarly I hereby request that you provide me with a copy of this analysis prior to closing of this transaction. The reason for this request is that Cowles cross ownership of media in Spokane appears to already violate the regulatory scheme, and perhaps the letter, of FCC regulation of the public airways that it holds in trust for the public. Not only would such a violation be serious in of itself, evidence suggests that violation could be part of a much broader ongoing criminal enterprise. For this reason I am now researching the filing of a complaint with the FCC.

There is evidence to suggest that the Cowles family is also using its ownership of the Spokesman-Review to control and censor the free flow of information to misinform the people who would if so informed hold their elected and appointed governmental officials accountable:

Coincidently there is a move to systematically censor comments in the Spokesman-Review blogs re the cancellation of the Fuhrman Show that provided links to useful alternative sources of information such as Camas Magazine. In fact S-R [Editor] Steve Smith responded to a post re the squelching of Tom Grant with such wanton and reckless disregard for the facts that some termed libelous[*]. When challenged by Tom Grant, Smith had to issue an online apology in the S-R Blogs. On one hand Mr. Smith’s careless shooting from the hip would call into question his fitness to be the editor of a major metropolitan newspaper or perhaps on the other hand and more sinister a calculated hit to misinform the readers as to the credibility of Tom Grant to sway public opinion away from what Camas Magazine [www.camasmagazine.com] has amassed in their archives as the product of Kooks, Nutsos, Conspiracy Theorist, or from the realm of little green men. Mr. Smith has regularly referred to the award winning independent investigative journalists Larry Shook and Tim Conner of Camas Magazine as being such.

* As a sidenote Prof. Glenn Reynolds a Univ of TN law professor (AKA Instapundit – the granddaddy of all bloggers) has a new law review article re blog libel:

Libel in the Blogosphere: Some Preliminary Thoughts

This self-censoring is no new phenomena as this practice goes back decades as an entrenched “No Surprises” policy regarding references to the Cowles family in the S-R’s newsroom as reported by Larry Shook in “Spokane’s Toothless Watchdog” (Seattle Weekly, April 13th, 1983. Archived at Camas Magazine under “Past as Prologue”):

The Cowles media, over the years, have practiced what Spaniards under Franco called autocensura, self-censorship. More than one Cowles reporter has been heard to say that inside the paper one simply learns what can and cannot be written about without actually being told. Bob Jebb, a former editorial writer at the Spokesman-Review, now living in New Hampshire, says he found it very difficult to write about any local issues because of the sway various financial interests seemed to have over the paper. He says Cowles and former managing editor Jim Bracken “used to try to discourage me from writing about just about anything. But they would never say you can’t write something. They would just discourage me. Or I would write an editorial they didn’t like and they would say, ‘We can’t use it…’” Jebb eventually resigned in protest.

Reporters, too, talk about a “no-surprise” policy whereby any story containing reference to the Cowles family businesses must be seen by the publisher before appearing in print. One Chronicle editor is quick to point out that this policy is fairly common within the industry–but in a town where the publisher controls nearly one-third of all downtown real estate, as Cowles does, it may take on a slightly different significance.

Read and decide as to the journalistic integrity and professionalism of Tim Conner and Larry Shook in this damning investigative piece in the archives of Camas Magazine, “Inside Job.” This report on its face alone should have led to federal indictments of the players a long time ago:

Three years ago the River Park Square developer and allies in city government confronted a multimillion dollar collateral shortfall. The money was found at city hall and carefully removed. Almost without a trace.

Mind you Connor and Shook have challenged on many occasion the Spokesman-Review to refute any of the information and documentation that they have amassed in their seven year investigation of the RPS fraud. Editor Mr. Smith will not respond or refute the evidence Connor and Shook have gathered. Mr. Smith broadly waves them off and dismisses them out of hand as Kooks, Nutsos, or Conspiracy Theorists. More telling is that none of the parties involved that have been fronted by Connor and Shook have sued for libel.

I for one will not wear as I walk the streets of Spokane a sign on my back that says “Rob Me!” IMHO the RPS fraud is nothing more than a street robbery perpetrated by a clever group of thugs.

Good people of Spokane its time for us to collectively rise up and storm the Bastille to restore the heart and soul of Spokane and to restore a government that WE THE PEOPLE empower to govern.

POWER TO THE PEOPLE – An Army of Davids Strikes

RBT

Update:
Larry Shook of Camas Magazine sent along this additional follow-up. Also there is a Mark Fuhrman fan site in the works that should be online shortly at:

www.friendsofmark.org

*****

Thanks for sharing this with me. It’s worth noting that while Steve Smith, the current editor of The Spokesman-Review, dismisses as empty conspiracy theory charges that his employers used their newspaper to suppress evidence of fraud in their River Park Square project, that is exactly the danger that some of the paper’s own reporters complained of, albeit perhaps implicitly. In any case, the mountainous evidence produced as part of the RPS securities fraud case and IRS investigation removes any doubt that the essential character of the RPS deal was fraudulent. Similarly, the evidence shows clearly that the Cowles family’s use of its media was an integral part of that fraud. I believe the fraud rises to the level of criminality because of the abundant evidence showing that the developer and city officials INTENDED to violate the law. That aside, consider the following brief excerpt from “All In The Family,” the Camas story that took first place in the media reporting category in the national Alternative Newsweekly Awards in 2002:

Reporters understood their stories were sent “upstairs” for more than spell-checking.

Spokesman-Review readers learned from Alison Boggs’s story the next morning only the barest facts. The city council had given its final approval to the $100 million downtown redevelopment project, even though “the garage’s parking revenues could be put at risk because of parking validation programs.”

In other words, the city council ordered the Coopers and Lybrand study (at a cost of $80,000), then ignored its serious warnings. Spokesman-Review editors ignored them, too, against the recommendation of a veteran reporter.

Rewriting River Park Square

Four years later, Camden brought this up at Chris Peck’s public roundtable discussion. The reporter was agitated enough that EWU journalism professor William Stimson, one of the invited guests, thought Camden “had something he wanted to get off his chest.”

Reporter Oliver Staley had something he wanted to get off his chest, too. Another guest asked publisher Stacey Cowles if River Park Square stories had received special editing treatment from him or his sister. No, said Cowles; he only checked the stories for spelling. (At least one Spokesman-Review reporter found Cowles’s statement insulting. It was generally assumed, said the reporter, that the policy of sending River Park Square stories “upstairs” involved more than spell-checking.)

On the spot Staley registered his disagreement with Cowles’s offhand assurance. The young city hall reporter then said a River Park Square story of his had been rewritten over his objections.

When asked recently about this incident Staley explained that the story in question was fairly innocuous. It merely pointed out that the Spokane Nordstrom store would not have many of the lavish features of the Seattle flagship. Staley’s recollection was that Nordstrom itself wanted this understood so as not to falsely raise expectations in Spokane.

“I feel that if we were writing about a new Bon Marche,” said Staley, “I don’t think the story would have raised any eyebrows. But it did raise eyebrows, and I was given an opportunity to either rewrite it or not run it. I said, ‘I think we should run it, but I’m not going to rewrite it.’ It was rewritten.”

Staley wouldn’t tell me who rewrote it. (Chris Peck subsequently told me the story was rewritten by a business editor.)

Why was it rewritten?

To satisfy concerns of River Park Square’s “landlord,” said Staley. Was that a reference to Betsy Cowles?

“That’s how it was related to me,” said Staley. “My understanding is it was read by both Stacey and Betsy, and both Stacey and Betsy had concerns about it… I was not in a room with Stacey and Betsy. There was a sort of a shuttle diplomacy kind of a thing, where my stories would be taken upstairs and discussed and brought back.”

Were stories involving the Cowleses handled differently from other stories?

“Oh, clearly,” he said. “They’re the only sources who pre-approve the story.”

According to Staley, the attitude toward reporting on River Park Square has since changed at the Spokesman-Review. Until 2000, he says, there had been a “top-down philosophy that… this is not a story that we are going to aggressively report.”

Staley says he isn’t exactly sure why the newspaper decided to begin reporting more thoroughly on River Park Square. Whatever the reason, by the time he and Camden began working the story, the mall deal was set in concrete.

Staley says Spokesman-Review reporters have long “chafed” about the problem posed by their owners’ involvement in River Park Square. “As you can appreciate, it’s not something you’re really enthusiastic about. It’s a real uphill battle in terms of morale. It’s kind of hard to muster the enthusiasm to wade into a situation that’s a real conflict of interest.”

It’s worth reading “All In The Family” in its entirety (www.camasmagazine.com ) in order to fully appreciate the nature of S-R editor Steve Smith’s protestations. Best, Larry

Update II:
I posted a link to this piece in the S-R’s editorial blog, “A Matter of Opinion.” As you can see this comment was immediately killed. I sent a protest to S-R OP-ED Editor Doug Floyd who also moderates this blog. S-R Editor Mr. Smith responded.

Read and decide if someone is protesting a little much:-)

RBT

*****

*The Mark Fuhrman Show?*

I see in today’s paper there was an OP-ED letter lamenting on the demise of
the Mark Fuhrman Show and wondering if he will reappear on another local
station. I was going to post a note in the lively Fuhrman discussion
thread< http://www.spokesmanreview.com/blogs/opinion/archive/?postID=3145>a
few days ago but the comments are now closed.

I just updated my blog with this piece that on the significance of the loss
of the Furhamn Show. It has new link to a Fuhrman fan site that is in the
works.

RBT

Subject: Mr. Floyd – Blatant Censorship at A Matter of Opinion yet again!

Mr. Floyd,

I appreciate your reply of the other day. I just posted the following
self-explanatory comment in the Friday loose thread at A Matter of Opinion
This is a screen print with your server’s time stamp on it that goes back to
this thread however my comment disappeared within minutes of its posting.

Unless I’m mistaken this is blatant censorship. There wasn’t anything
objectionable here except that Mr. Smith may not favor the contents of my
link over. How about letting the readers decide for themselves? This
selective censorship in the S-R Blogs is becoming very annoying. Filter or
kill what you wish but as I’ve said before this is not Russia, China, Iran,
or Saudia Arabia the last time I checked.

If you’re going to host blogs then it should be incumbent you to follow the
generally accepted blog customs re killing comments. Further if your going
to kill comments you should announce to the readers that you have done so.
To not disclose the killing of comments misinforms your readers.

I’ve been tolerant. I don’t flame. I’m generally very civil although my
credibility has been challenged many times by Mr. Smith however I haven’t
complained.

In a free society critical debate of issues of the day is what sets us apart
from ideologies that have failed e.g ., our current war with Islamofascism
which is still stuck in the 7th Century after disapproving/squelching of
criticism of those in power.

There is an interesting legal issue developing here re this selective
censorship. If this continues I may come out of character as RBT and
challenge the S-R Editorial staff from my real persona re your involvement
in something you may not be aware.

RBT

On Dec 2, 2007 3:14 PM, Steve Smith < SteveS@spokesman.com> wrote:

RBT,

This will be my last communication with you re: your postings. In a free society, you are free to express your opinions where you want and where you can without government interference. You have numerous resources at your command. As you have noted, the blogosphere is bigger, in your view more accurate, and more activist than our newspaper or anyone other element of the so-called MSM. You are free to accesss the Internet. You are free to publish pamphlets, post bulletins on phone polls, write The Inlander, the CDA Press and talk on the radio.

But newspapers are not absolute open forums. We have many rules regarding content we publish. We reject letters to the editor for any number of reasons. We reject advertising that fails to meet standards. We are in charge of the content we publish or post. That isn’t censorship, that is editorial control. You may mount a legal challenge. You will lose.

Our blogs exist at our pleasure. We have opened our doors for unprecedented examination of our internal workings and processes. But we have banned some posters for inappropriate postings. We have banned you from certain topics because there is nothing new. We will await events. You should, too.

We have told you we will not let you use our blogs to post your looney tooney conspiracy theories. We won’t let you use our blogs to call our owners criminals, our journalists criminals or worse. We won’t let you link to Camas. We won’t let you make vague threats or recruit fellow travelers to take some unspecified but “you’ll-regret-it-Spokesman-Review” investigation. We have also told fellow posters of the restrictions we have placed on you.

RBT, you know the rules. Follow them and post on the many other topics here or go away. Keep this nonsense up and we’ll simply ban you altgether.

As to going public under your real name, do it. We know who you are. Most folks on Hucks know. Go for it. Your credibility isn;t tied to your name, but to your actions.

If you want to challenge us legally for anything we’re involved in, just do it. No more vague threats and hinted at actions. Put up or, with all due respect, shut up.

If you don’t like this decision, blame me. No need to write the others, this is now my call and I have made it. Take it public. Mail your buddies. Use your blog. Call The Inlander, The Washington News Council, the WSU journalism department. Call President Bush. Call whoever you want. You will get the attention and respect you deserve.

So, RBT, please take off your tin hat long enough to understand what I’m telling you. Got it? Good.

steve

Mr. Smith,

I don’t know if you’re responding to my post to Mr. Floyd. Your call but my opinion still stands – this is censorship. You ask me to put up. I will address that in the near future.

Instead of attacking me as some “loon” how about for once addressing where the folks at Camas are in error or have their facts wrong. Seems to me this is what the paper of record in Spokane owes and is obligated to its readers.

My read of their stuff is that they are not conspiracy theorists. Trust me I’ve dealt with a number of conspiracy theorist professionally.

RBT

*****

Larry Smith of Camas Magazine had this oberservation:

Thanks, Ron. Again, I personally consider Smith’s rhetoric too tedious and transparent to bother with. He writes:

“But newspapers are not absolute open forums. We have many rules regarding content we publish. We reject letters to the editor for any number of reasons. We reject advertising that fails to meet standards. We are in charge of the content we publish or post. That isn’t censorship, that is editorial control. You may mount a legal challenge. You will lose.”

It seems to me that he makes an interesting assertion here. Namely, that newspaper’s are above the law. Fraud is illegal. “Editorial control” for the purpose of furthering fraud must necessarily be illegal, too. Again, I believe the evidence is overwhelming that the River Park Square transaction turned on multiple commissions of fraud. The bondholders cited 91 instances of securities fraud, and the city agreed with them by paying $45 million to purchase their claim. As I have also said, I believe an abundance of evidence exists on the Camas site showing that The Spokesman-Review’s “editorial control” had the effect of furthering the River Park Square fraud. Again, I believe that the Camas editorial package “Inside Job,” all by itself, proves that point. Smith can rale all he wants about the outrage of accusing his paper of suborning fraud, but until he, his employers and colleagues face and refute the evidence that that’s exactly what happened, his protests are empty.

If I’m right, that the evidence shows that The Spokesman-Review was used in the commission of a massive public fraud, that the paper is an integral part of systemic public corruption in Spokane, I doubt that a legal challenge based on that evidence would “lose,” as Smith so confidently predicts.If the legal challenge is ever brought, and the evidence is found true, but the law is not enforced, the real loser will be American democracy itself. Even Smith should be able to comprehend what an unspeakably tragic event that would be. Meanwhile, his stance seems to be that he has no journalistic duty to look at the evidence himself. He seems to be saying that that’s the job of others. And he seems to be gambling that they won’t do their job. I guess he’s just playing the odds, which is what gamblers do. Best wishes, Larry Shook

STAY TUNED – The gloves are about to come off:-)

 

Cross-posted from Rocket’s Brain Trust

 

To the Citizens of Spokane – Time to take a stand!

Shades of the Incinerator Project?

This S-R article caught my attention and the ongoing irony.

In case you missed it, I’ve included it at the bottom. This is perhaps the latest installment of or as Larry Shook reported in “Sewer Wars” in the Valley. Or as I have noted the Spokane Valley is the new “Chinatown.” This is the period genre movie of the water wars of the City of Los Angeles at the turn of the century. Except in the Valley it’s all about the effluent discharged in the Spokane River and who’s going to pay for the sewer infrastructure mandated now by the EPA. Coincidently the players own a lot of property between Spokane and the stateline. Further one only need review the migration of the players’ attorneys as being City Attorney of Spokane Valley e.g., Stan Schwartz of Whitherspoon & Kelly.

This article even mentioned the public/private incinerator! Some believe this incinerator project was another public/private project that was subverted to enrich a few unfairly at taxpayer expense. I’m not adverse at all re quasi governmental/private joint ventures. But when as the IRS re the RPS bonds that the,”Casino was rigged,” I’m not. The public took all the risks and when it went sour the players left the table with the pot leaving the public holding and empty bag like the victims in a classic pigeon drop con game. Where are the “usual suspects” in this deal? BTW I’ve scanned Larry Shook’s article and am hosting it on my server at:

http://www.rocketsbrain.com/files/Sewer_Wars.JPG
http://www.rocketsbrain.com/files/Sewer_Wars_2.JPG
http://www.rocketsbrain.com/files/Sewer_Wars_3.JPG
http://www.rocketsbrain.com/files/Sewer_Wars_4.JPG

This article caused me to take some time to collect my thoughts re RPS et al and its meaning and impact to the citizens of Spokane. Further I’m going to start the email group that I’ve had on hold at YahooGroups.

Subscribe to friendsofmarkfuhrman

As you know IMHO Mark Fuhrman was “taken out” because he was cutting close to the bone on the River Park Square on his KGA Radio Show just like Tom Grant was previously. After all Mark brought us all together, was instrumental in Ozzie’s election, probably caused Hession to lose the mayoral election e.g, the Ormsby loan, provided a forum for Mary Verner to address the public, S-R Steve Smith showed his “true colors” re the S-R’s objectivity, and most importantly provided a forum for Mayor Talbot, Tom Grant, Cherie Rodgers, Tim Connor, and Larry Shook to unveil the River Park Square fraud. IMHO this is an ongoing street robbery of the citizens of Spokane by a group of street thugs albeit it clever ones who were aided by dirty attorneys that suborned their illegal acts. This fraud alone approaches $100M and is costing $1.5M dollars annually.

This is all well documented at Tim Conner’s and Larry Shook’s website:

www.camasmagazine.com

And don’t miss the soon to be published book re the adventures of Cherie Rodgers as documented by Larry Shook at:

Girl from Hot Springs

regarding the tragic death of Jo Savage in “Death by Parking.” Sheriff Bamonte and I believe that the Savage death was no less than a negligent homicide and should be investigated and prosecuted as a First Degree Manslaughter.

Terresa Monroe-Hamilton and I have created a companion Mark Fuhrman fan website to continue Mark’s hard hitting work on RPS. As many of you know it’s my opinion the S-R by its self-censorship and selective filtering, blocking, and censorship of important info re RPS et al is being used as an instrumentality of the the ongoing criminal enterprise to conceal its illegal activity from the public who otherwise informed would hold their elected and appointed officials accountable for their criminal acts. Perhaps we can bring back Mark in this virtual world via Net Radio and/or podcast interviews link from this site.

I will begin to post relevant material at this fan site in the very near future. Please pass the word on the email group and the fan site to your friends. Fortunately for us the demographics of Spokane are changing. The new comers will soon realize as I have that the systemic level of political/governmental corruption in this town is the worst I’ve seen in my 35 law enforcement career. IMHO this is an self perpetuating ongoing criminal enterprise. It acts collectively as some river parasite on the citizens of Spokane sucking its life blood and soul. The effect is it has stunted the real growth of Spokane through restraint of trade. It gains and unfair competitive advantage with its illegal acts over other businesses already here or other businesses seeking to relocate here and chose not to.

The newcomers don’t suffer from this accepted culture of victimization in Spokane by these robber barons and will tolerate it no more. With the advent of the “new media” e.g., the Net/Blogosphere, we now have a mechanism to build a ad hoc network of concerned citizens to restore a “normal” political/governmental/business environment in Spokane. There is a head of steam building and the rabble are gathering their shovels and pitchforks to storm the Bastille to restore a civil society.

Please spread the word. You are no longer alone. WE ARE THE PEOPLE. United WE THE PEOPLE can restore our government we empower and hold those accountable who have violated our trust.

RBT
AKA “Ron the Cop” a regular of The Mark Fuhrman Show

*****

Saturday, January 19, 2008

Firms to compete for sewage contract
Facility will be in Spokane but process wastewater for Spokane Valley

John Craig
Staff writer
January 17, 2008

Two international corporations will lay out proposals March 14 for making Spokane Valley’s sewage among the cleanest in the nation.

Spokane County officials will receive offers from Denver-based CH2M HILL and Paris-based Veolia Water for designing, building and operating a state-of-the-art sewage treatment plant to process Spokane Valley wastewater.

Although 85 to 90 percent of the new plant’s flow will come from the city of Spokane Valley, the 8 million-gallon- per-day plant will be located in the city of Spokane – at the former stockyard property near Freya Street and Boone Avenue – and owned by Spokane County.

[…]

Read More Here [Not for commercial distribution – check with copyright holder]

Cross-posted from Media Mythbusters

Into The Fray – The Cowles Dynasty and the Media

Oct 30th, 2007 by Terresa Monroe-Hamilton

Cross-posted at NoisyRoom.net:

Currently, I am looking into pulling together a timeline for media incidents concerning the Cowles’ Family Dynasty in Washington state. Larry Shook of Camas Magazine is the go-to source on this subject. As he points out, the Cowles have ruled the Spokane area with an iron financial fist for better than a century and along with marking their territory, they allegedly control the media. Below, you will find an excerpt from Larry Shook’s upcoming book, ‘The Girl From Hotsprings.’ Who says local politics are boring? You’ve got all the ingredients for a great story here: an all-powerful family, disappearing informants, money changing hands and one guy who is out to tell the truth no matter the cost. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you Larry Shook – let the games begin:

Excerpted from
The Girl From Hotsprings,
Copyright 2008 by Larry ShookThe excerpt below is taken from the first chapter of my forthcoming book, The Girl From Hotsprings, which will be published in 2008, Copyright Larry Shook. I read a portion of the material below on the Mark Fuhrman radio show on Friday, 10/26/07.

The context of this excerpt is that in December 2003 I was trying to get in touch with former Spokane, Washington City Councilman Chris Anderson. The evidence suggests that Mr. Anderson was run out of town by the powerful Cowles family, a media dynasty that has controlled Spokane’s media for more than a century. (See “Newspaper Monopoly Town,” www.girlfromhotsprings.com.) For an account of Mr. Anderson’s disappearance, see “Missing Man” at www.camasmagazine.com. Mr. Anderson’s sin appears to have been his opposition to the massive public subsidy of the Cowles family’s River Park Square shopping mall. I had been told that a man named Mike Matheson was Anderson’s best friend; if anyone could persuade Anderson to talk to me it would be Matheson. But as soon as I told Matheson the reason for my visit to his house, he grew agitated. I feared he was about to evict me. The story picks up there.

At the mention of River Park Square, Matheson relaxed. He said he had heard of our work. At that point, a lot of people had.

“As you know, Chris Anderson was the only city councilman who opposed River Park Square,” I said. “All the public knows about him is what the newspaper reported.”

Matheson and I kicked around the subject of River Park Square: How the controversy surrounding it had engulfed Spokane for years, even making national headlines—The Wall Street Journal ran a front page story about it; Time and Forbes magazines blasted it as “corporate welfare.” How the Cowles family, The Family, the mall’s owner, had used its newspaper to front for the development (“Cowles Clan’s Many Interests,” read one of the Journal’s heads); how, as Matheson and I both understood, The Family also used its newspaper to drive Chris Anderson from town.

“I wish I could help you, but I can’t,” said Matheson.

Reporters learn to take such answers with a grain of salt. You want to gently give sources a chance to think things over. Many people, you learn, do have this still small voice inside them that they listen to. And every now and then—often enough to make patience worthwhile—that little voice changes their minds about helping reporters. Most people, in my experience, are willing to aid and abet the truth—so long as they can duck its backscatter. I don’t mean that as cynically as it sounds. The world is imperfect, impure. It can take people hostage. Spokane, in its own special way, was the most impure place I had ever seen. I wasn’t alone in thinking that the River Park Square scandal revealed the extent to which the Cowles family holds Spokane hostage. An entire American city held hostage by its newspaper, of all things.

Still, Chris Anderson obviously had a powerful conscience. And he was clearly a fighter. And Mike Matheson didn’t strike me as a shrinking violet.

“Did Chris ever talk to you about River Park Square?” I asked him.

He studied me for a moment, then nodded his head.

“Chris comes to me and he says, ‘Mike, I’ve opened a can of worms, and it’s really bad.’”

Right. I knew that. In fact, I probably knew things about the can of worms Anderson had kicked over that Anderson himself didn’t know.

This was because of all of the reporting we had done. We had many hours of tape-recorded interviews with people who would go on the record. We probably had as many or more hours of off-the-record interviews. The latter gave us a glimpse of the submerged part of the massive iceberg known as River Park Square that Spokane’s ship of state had been steamed into. That’s right; it was deliberate. Spokane’s public officials had steered their constituents right into that iceberg, and now the passengers of Spokane were expected to save themselves by putting up as much of their municipal funds as necessary to bail themselves out. Literally. In the secret insidious details of River Park Square was the proviso that the city would lay off policemen, firemen, raid the park budget, close libraries if necessary, all to pay for the expansion of the Cowles shopping mall.

And then there were all the documents we had acquired. Sheaves and reams of them, documents by the cord, it seemed. Documents that were never supposed to see the light of day.

Like the “divide and conquer” memo River Park Square developer Betsy Cowles had written on March 9, 1995. That memo had become an exhibit in the federal securities fraud trial that our reporting helped trigger. I say that, because our reporting was cited as evidence in the complaint filed by four of the nation’s leading financial institutions.

In this particular memo, written to her project manager (a man named Bob Robideaux), Cowles laid out a strategy strongly suggesting that she intended to commit several kinds of fraud. She planned to leverage some $100 million in public funds to redevelop her family’s shopping mall, and the paper trail showed that she didn’t mind coloring outside the lines to get the money.

Betsy Cowles is a lawyer, and the evidence suggests that she knew full well, or should have known, that she would be defrauding bond purchasers, the U.S. Treasury, and the taxpayers of Spokane. For non-newspaper owners this would typically be a delicate situation. Provable intent to violate law in such circumstances is one thing that can trigger a criminal indictment quicker than you can say federal grand jury. And in most parts of the country, an elected official trying to stop criminal fraud would be a hero. Cowles’s memo to Robideaux, however, suggests that the recalcitrant Councilman Anderson was no hero to her.

“The only way we are going to get all of this done,” Cowles wrote Robideaux, “is to divide and conquer as much as possible.”

Her target for division and conquest: none other than the elected government of Spokane, Washington, second-largest city in the state.

Cowles picked out one councilman, a realtor, for an early “informational meeting,” but whatever information she wanted to share with that councilman she didn’t want spread around. “I think I want to hold off on meeting with the other council members at this point,” she wrote “because I don’t think we are ready for too much information to leak too quickly. But I do think they should be on our hit list. When the time is right and depending on our message, for efficiency sake we might divide up the list. You take half and I take half (we can draw straws as to who gets to talk to Chris A.!).”

A hit list? Talk to Chris A? About what? It’s interesting to speculate what an aggressive federal prosecutor—a Ken Starr, say, or a Patrick Fitzgerald—would do with questions like that.

A cornerstone of Cowles’s River Park Square financial strategy called for the sale of $31.45 million of bonds backed by the municipality of Spokane. The bond proceeds would go to Cowles real estate companies. The problem with Cowles’s concern about too much information about her project “leaking” out is that it flew in the face of federal securities law. Federal securities law requires full disclosure of all known material facts about risks associated with purchasing securities. Get cute in withholding information like that and you could get slapped with a securities fraud suit quicker than you can say Securities Exchange Commission.

Elsewhere in the divide and conquer memo, Cowles touched on other important secrets of her deal suggestive of an organized criminal conspiracy involving her family’s various companies and various public officials. Among the secrets: the way a downtown street had been vacated that the city would lease back from the Cowleses at an exorbitant rate; the details of how more than $45 million of city parking meter revenues would be used to secure the bonds; the hidden subsidy of a $23 million federal loan to build a new Nordstrom department store; the secret refusal of the Cowles family to honor federal guidelines and put up collateral for that loan.

While this single memo was a drop in the bucket of evidence that Cowles had engineered a stunning fraud, it did go to the heart of what the IRS would later call a “scheme.” A scheme that used “smoke and mirrors…. to hide the true nature of the transaction.” A scheme concocted by a developer (that would be Ms. Cowles) who “had, and continues to have, a particular relationship with the City of Spokane… such that it was in a position to control or influence its activities.” A scheme in which “the casino was rigged… in order to unjustly enrich and profit the developer.”

But it didn’t matter. Cowles, the City of Spokane, and virtually everyone else associated with River Park Square were sued for securities fraud in the spring of 2001. The IRS, also citing our reporting, was investigating whether the RPS bonds violated federal tax code.

When investors in the Cowles garage sued, and the IRS launched its investigation, the drama surrounding the Cowles mall changed. Fraud is a loaded word. In the everyday sense it means deception. In the legal sense it means someone’s legally protected rights were violated in a way for which there is a legal remedy. A legal remedy is a socially codified mechanism for restoring victim losses and giving perpetrators consequences meant to dissuade or prevent future perpetration. Convicted perps—Martha Stewart, Andy Fastow, Ken Lay—are paraded before the media in a ceremonial perp walk, their hands conspicuously cuffed. Their public humiliation is meant to reinforce what Piaget called “externalized morality.” This is the same reason cops give us speeding tickets. It’s an object lesson: no one is above the law. And yet no one was talking to Chris Anderson, perhaps the only eyewitness who might talk about what critics would call the “heist” that city officials had helped the Cowles family bring off in broad daylight.

By the time I rang Mike Matheson’s doorbell I had a mountain of documentation suggesting that Betsy Cowles had, at the very least, perpetrated the kind of fraud that represents intentional deception. But it’s socially unacceptable to say that sort of thing in Spokane because of her wealth and power.

Betsy Cowles is a daughter of American publishing royalty. Her father, grandfather and great grandfather had been directors of Associated Press, the most powerful news organization in history. And they commanded a media empire that gave them virtual suzerainty over a sizeable chunk of the American west. And her widowed mother re-married to the great Punch Sulzberger, former publisher of The New York Times, the nation’s newspaper of record, perhaps the most influential single publication in history. (Arthur Ochs “Punch” Sulzberger, of course, was also the man who risked jail to bring the world the secrets of the Vietnam War contained in The Pentagon Papers.) But neither he nor anyone else at The New York Times was lifting a finger to expose the secrets of what his new wife’s family had done in their remote barony. Because of her connections, Betsy Cowles would never be held to account for what she did in Spokane, said the town’s smart money. Not even for a woman’s death in which Betsy’s actions, those of her uncle Jim, and those of certain city officials would eventually implicate them all. That’s what the smart money said. That’s what the smart money had told me again and again. So far the smart money had been right.

And that is the subtext of the story that made me yearn to talk to Chris Anderson.

It looked to me as though Anderson had fought a brave and lonely fight. I have a warm place in my heart for people like that. The world takes people hostage, yes. But not everyone. Some people learn to free themselves, and they set a powerful example, and I wondered if Chris Anderson was one of these. It also seemed that Chris Anderson had been an eyewitness to an astonishing financial crime that wound up, as a famous retired sheriff would eventually charge, being a crime against a person, too.

A reporter’s business is documentation. I already had enough documentation to have helped launch a securities fraud suit and an IRS investigation. But there is no documentation like the tape-recorded account of an eyewitness. I desperately needed an eyewitness.

Let me be clear about something here. The story I am about to tell you is complicated. It’s also important. It’s also flat-out fascinating as an exhibit of human nature and the vulnerability of democracy in America (and everywhere else, for that matter) to corrupt media.

In Spokane, the corruption had taken the form of a kind of simony. Simony, recall, is the sale of ecclesiastical pardons. According to the New Advent Catholic Encyclopedia, “Simony is usually defined as ‘a deliberate intention of buying or selling for a temporal price such things as are spiritual… While this definition only speaks of purchase and sale, any exchange of spiritual for temporal things is simoniacal… The various temporal advantages which may be offered for a spiritual favour are… usually divided in three classes. These are: (1) the munus a manu (material advantage), which comprises money, all movable and immovable property, and all rights appreciable in pecuniary value; (2) the munus a lingua (oral advantage) which includes oral commendation, public expressions of approval, moral support in high places; (3) the munus ab obsequio (homage) which consists in subserviency, the rendering of undue services, etc.”

By the time I called on Mike Matheson, I had overwhelming evidence, much of it already published by my colleagues and me, that Betsy Cowles’s River Park Square mall was a textbook example of media simony. Those who facilitated her deception, including a man who would become the U.S. attorney for Eastern Washington, were rewarded with favorable press in her family’s newspaper. Those who opposed it, including an elected mayor, were subjected to vicious editorial attack. Ironically, the simony that helped drive the Cowles mall even corrupted a prestigious Catholic university.

If I ever confuse you or bore you or cause you to distrust me by not documenting the outrageous things I’m about to tell you, then I have failed. It means I wasn’t equal to my task. But if this story makes sense to you and you ever once feel like a mere armchair observer, then you, gentle reader, are the one who has failed.

So when I say I needed an eyewitness I mean you needed an eyewitness. Because, under the law, I work for you. The First Amendment—by my lights the grandest canon ever sprung from the suffering breast of humanity—is about much more than looking for semen stains on ladies’ dresses.

The other day a radio talk show host asked me, tongue in cheek, I suppose, if I ever felt like I was in the middle of a Robert Ludlum novel. The question surprised me; I chuckled and said the thought had crossed my mind. But that wasn’t true. Ludlum wrote fairy tales. Never once from the moment I started reporting on Betsy Cowles’s shopping mall did I feel like I was in the middle of a fairy tale.

If what I have written so far and what I am about to write is not true—if I have made up or adulterated documentation for my reporting for the malicious purpose of harming people—then I have a problem. It’s called libel. In this case it will be a very big problem. Because it will mean that I have libeled some very wealthy, very prominent, very powerful, very litigious people.

If I write the truth, on the other hand, my problem is different. It will mean that there is an American family, and an American city, that is beyond the law because of the ensorcellment power of The Family’s media. And that is a problem we all share. If you think not, if you think Spokane’s problem doesn’t affect you, I suggest you keep thinking. Keep thinking until you come to this question: how likely is it that Spokane and the Cowles family are unique in the human experience?

The book continues from there. Other excerpts can be read at www.girlfromhotsprings.com.

Not quite done here for today folks. Following is a very interesting exchange that I was forwarded this morning from Rocket’s Brain Trust. It is from Larry Shook concerning events with the Cowles’ Dynasty and the money trail left behind. This definitely caught my eye this morning and will be worked into the timeline. I believe this is for the Mark Fuhrman show. RPS stands for ‘River Park Square.’

Subject: Follow the money

Rebecca:

If you and Mark–or your listeners–are interested in being informed monitors of the never ending soap opera-like RPS drama, you might want to watch the sub-plots unfolding around a couple of issues.

The first issue has to do with my public charge that RPS evidence suggests that the Cowles family uses its media, particularly its daily newspaper, as an instrument of fraud in an on-going criminal enterprise to misappropriate public money for its own business interests. As I told you when I first appeared on your show last August, because I’m wrapping up more than seven years of research in completing my book on the RPS episode, I’m prepared to speak plainly, when asked, about my conclusions. In the book itself I’ll speak as plainly as I know how.
The second issue concerns the so-called “audit” of Spokesman-Review coverage of RPS done by the Washington News Council. As Tim Connor’s audit of that audit points out, the News Council’s work, instead of answering all the important questions, posed significant new ones. As Tim reported, the News Council simply made up important facts that go to the heart of the RPS scandal. One concerns the huge law firm, Preston Gates and Ellis. (And, yes, the Gates in this firm is Bill Gates, Sr., father of the world’s richest man.) (And, yes, Preston Gates and Ellis is the same blueblood Seattle law firm that got entangled in the Jack Abramoff scandal.) After Betsy Cowles, Preston Gates and Ellis (particularly Spokane attorney Mike Ormsby and Eastern Washington U.S Attorney Jim McDevitt) would probably be considered the top suspects in the RPS securities fraud case. This was because the firm represented the seller of the RPS bonds in ways that entailed several alleged commissions of federal securities fraud. (The seller of the RPS bonds was the Spokane Downtown Foundation. Both bond purchasers and the IRS cited evidence that this supposedly independent non-profit organization was itself nothing but a fraud, a storefront created by the Cowles family for no other purpose than to peddle the RPS bonds. See “Fraudville, USA,” and “The Casino Was Rigged” at www.camasmagazine.com) In purchasing the bondholders’ lawsuit—a suit that alleged the fraud that constitutes the heart of darkness in the RPS deal—the City of Spokane essentially admitted the fraud and confessed to its role in it. Again, misters Ormsby and McDevitt were key players in Preston’s RPS activities.

Spokesman-Review editor Steve Smith promised to lay to rest charges that his paper effectively suborned fraud with its RPS coverage by commissioning an “independent audit.” His auditor: the Washington News Council. One of the News Council’s key members: Preston Gates and Ellis. Another of its key members, the international PR giant, Hill and Knowlton, the firm the Cowles family turns to for public relations counsel from Rockey Hill and Knowlton. The facts made up in the Smith/News Council audit: 1) The IRS “reversed” itself and ruled that the RPS bonds that funneled millions of dollars of excess profits into Cowles real estate companies didn’t violate IRS code after all. 2) The IRS left the tax-exempt status of the bonds intact. 3) Cowles double-duty real estate/First Amendment attorney Duane Swinton didn’t have a conflict of interest. Those three assertions are wrong, concocted out of whole cloth, and illustrate the highly contagious nature of the RPS fraud. (See “All In The Family,” www.camasmagazine.com.)

The facts are, 1) the IRS didn’t reverse itself, according to the IRS itself; 2) not only were the bonds ruled taxable, Preston Gates and Ellis itself paid the taxes, effectively under the table in an arrangement that makes the sum a secret–yes, one more secret added to the RPS “Official Secrets” folder; and 3) the Washington State Bar Association finds evidence of Swinton’s conflict of interest so compelling that it has agreed to investigate it as a result of a bar complaint filed by Tim Connor.

I believe the RPS perps are playing the public–and this includes law enforcement and government regulators at all levels–for suckers who are too dumb to understand the RPS shell game, and too scared of the Cowles family to take them on over it. Like all shell games, this one is complicated only until you understand how it’s done. Tim Connor’s report on the News Council audit (see “The Verdict” at www.camasmagazine.com) helps expose what looks like a new level of cover-up in the RPS “scheme.” Scheme was the IRS’s word.

All of this raises a new follow-the-money opportunity for citizen observers and government investigators. Was Preston Gates and Ellis money laundered into the Washington News Council to fund its dubious audit of the Cowles newspaper? And is Preston money being laundered into the campaign of Spokane Mayor Dennis Hession right now in the form of the $10,000 loan from Preston lawyer, and erstwhile RPS fraud defendant Ormsby, as a way of saying, “Thank you, Your Honor, for keeping the RPS fraud good and buried”? Is this loan a reminder to the mayor to, “Remember the slogan, Your Honor–we have to put River Park Square behind us”?

At the very least, as retired economic crimes detective Ron Wright points out, these are important questions for criminal investigators from the U.S. Department of Justice to explore. Of course, Spokane Police Chief Anne Kirkpatrick could ask the Criminal Investigation Division of the Washington State Patrol to launch such a probe right now, but that’s another matter.
By helping your listeners understand and follow these sub-plots you can continue to shine a light into the RPS mineshaft. Thanks for your interest and efforts.

Sincerely, Larry Shook

Cross-posted from Rocket’s Brain Trust

SCROLL FOR UPDATES

I should preface this post with a comment from a previous post here to explain my passion re seeking “The Truth”:

IMHO the S-R is being used as an instrumentality of an ongoing criminal enterprise to conceal the illegal acts of its owners [River Park Square and other projects] through its own self-censoring of stories and censoring of alternative info and reader comments. The systemic level of political/governmental corruption in Spokane is the worst I’ve witnessed in my 35-year law enforcement career.

RBT

*****

Dear Dr. Tallent [new S-R Ombudsman]

I thought I would welcome you to the “club.” I hope your tenure is longer than Steve Blewett’s. Notwithstanding what Mr. Smith has told you, Mr. Blewett’s departure probably had more to do with him actually considering a complaint filed by award winning investigative reporter Tim Connor re Mr. Smith’s shooting from the hip re the River Park Square mess. You may be interested in reviewing the reporting and documentation that both Tim Connor and Larry Shook have amassed at their online magazine:

www.camasmagazine.com

I suspect you will be hearing directly from Mr. Connor in the near future.

Since I’ve been relegated to the realm of little green men, I’m forwarding my complaint directly to you. I have my doubts it will reach you:-)

Again welcome to the club. I’m including a draft bio to show I’m a “wacko” that has the education, training, and experience to have a professional opinion on RPS.

Det. Ron Wright (Retired)
Riverside PD

PS: Here’s the link to the Orange County Register’s web page (Orange County, CA) re the Mitch Gold multi-million dollar charity fraud that was national in scope in which I played a small part. See in the right margin:

RAID REPORT: A police detective describes what he saw during a raid on a Mitch Gold boiler room.

*****

From: rocketsbrain
Date: Jan 25, 2008 1:44 PM
Subject: A complaint for the new S-R Ombudsman
To: Gary Graham

Mr. Graham, Managing Editor
Spokesman-Review

Re: News is a Conversation – Censorship

I thought my comment [below] was civil and to the point re having an ethics code. No point in having one if those involved are won’t follow it. Mr. Smith immediately pulled my post and sent me a personal rant unbecoming of that of an Editor of a paper that is soliciting comments. In what’s becoming common place he again called me a a wacko much like he has award winning investigative journalists Tim Connor and Larry Shook as well as former Sheriff Bamonte and others. Mr. Smith essentially libeled award winning investigative TV journalist Tom Grant a while back in the S-R Blogs for which he issued an apology of sorts.

i still think you’re a whacko. you have no credibility with me on this issue and my blog will not be a place for your repeated digressions.

I think I made my point:

Without a commitment of those involved to abide by the Code, this is an exercise in futility.

If you’re going to have a Code of Ethics then it’s incumbent for those involved to abide by the Code. I do believe I have the professional education, training and experience to have an opinion re RPS et al and the lack of investigative zeal on the part of S-R. Mr. Smith attempts to marginalized me in a vary paternalistic manner. It would be more appropriate to let my comments stand and let the readers decide for themselves as to my veracity and my qualifications and thereby to decide the worth of my opinion. This assuming if I don’t violate the normal blog etiquette and general conventions re obscenity, name calling, and/or personal threats. To do otherwise IMHO is censorship plain and simple which violates the very core values of the Society of Professional Journalists.

Cheers,

Det. Ron Wright (Retired)

*****
Personal note from Mr. Smith
*****

you are at it again. no dice.

you may cmment on substance, you may make suggestions for changes in the code.

but i won’t let you beat your dead horse. especially on things you know nothing about.

and, trust me, i still think you’re a whacko. you have no credibility with me on this issue and my blog will not be a place for your repeated digressions.

you call it censorship. fine. take that charge wherever you want. but if you don’t watch it, you won’t be posting on the blog at all.

we are clear on that, correct?

steve

*****

Wow! That was quick. My comment in Mr. Smith’s thread on soliciting comments on the new S-R Code of Ethics was censored already!

RBT

*****

More from the S-R ethics debate.

RBT

*****

Bruce,

You asked the $64 question.

My question is: what is the process of the newspaper when stories are perceived by readers as biased, when it can be simply explained away as a difference of perception? How is this accountability to readers to be actually assessed?

Sorry if Mr. Adams and I digressed a bit but both of us have had our comments in this thread, censored, without a trace. I won’t go into specifics but feel free to visit my blog for more information (Click on my screen name below). Naturally we are a little gun shy when it comes to discussing a Code of Ethics. Without a commitment of those involved to abide by the Code, this is an exercise in futility.

Ideally an independent Ombudsman is what you’re asking for but the last S-R Ombudsman perhaps was straying to close to the “darkside” and was abruptly terminated. We are watching closely how this new Ombudsman will respond to reader complaints and criticisms.

Both Mr. Adams and I along with others believe the S-R has failed in its responsibility to its readers on stories where the S-R owners have an active involvement/interest. Mr. Smith has with a broad brush dismissed us as loons. He has called us conspiracy theorists, wackos, and little green men without refuting our challenges. Kinda like what attorneys do by blowing smoke to the jury when they can’t dispute the facts.

It’s a fine line that Mr. Smith must walk. Will he bend to the interests of the owners or will he exercise his journalistic independence based on the Code of Ethics of the Society of Professional Journalists. It’s humane nature not to bite the hand that feeds you. Sophe was dead on with this quote:

While minimizing bias and telling the truth are ideal, it is not reasonable to believe that employees would take on the owners of the paper, biting the hand that feeds them. Nor should reporters be expected to do so. This is an inherent conflict of interest. An independent resource for such reporting should be obtained, one that the owner or editor cannot just terminate upon displeasure.

This is why I linked to the OCR story on the Mitch Gold fraud. One to demonstrate that I do have the training, education, and experience to a professional opinion. Secondly to show how a major paper of record took the leading role in a very complex fraud that many governmental agencies were reluctant for a number of reasons to deal with.

Det. Ron Wright (Retired)
Posted by rocketsbrain | 24 Jan 8:05 PM

Update I:
More re Mr. Smith and hypocrisy re professional journalistic ethics

Mr. Smith and I had another exchange of opinions in S-R Blog HBO. I sent this along as an update to Dr. Tallent the new S-R Ombudsman. See the bolded comment.

*****

Dear Dr. Tallent,

Please see this excerpt of the thread at S-R HBO where Mr. Smith’s comments re blogs were cross posted. Mr. Smith is again attempting to marginalize me in an attempt to dismiss my professional opinion re the S-R coverage on RPS. It would be refreshing if Mr. Smith would refute anything that Tim Connor and Larry Shook have documented at their site re the RPS et al fraud.

If Connor and Shook are so wrong with their reporting/documentations why is it that the Cowles Companies haven’t sued them for libel? The answer is they can’t. They can’t afford to be cross-examined during the depositions. The “truth” will come out.

Det. Ron Wright (Retired)

 

Cross-posted at Rocket’s Brain Trust 

To All:

This comment is from the thread at S-R’s HBO [Spokesman-Review’s blog Huckleberries Online] thread re the former S-R Ombudsman Steve Blewitt. Two regular HBO commenters, Sam and Bob, asked relevant questions of me.

I just posted this comment. It’s self-explanatory. I doubt it will remain long.

UPDATE: – It’s was pulled. Apparently blog moderator Dave Oliveria was overruled as he was going to let it stand.

Ron the Cop
Friends of Mark Fuhrman

*****

Here’s the link to the thread.

DFO,

Please bare with me for a moment and allow me to answer both Bob and Sam. The issue of the S-R Ombudsman is just the tip of the iceberg of a much larger game afoot. Strike this comment if you feel it necessary.

Bob and Sam

I’m truly honored by your confidence in my skills & abilities. Yes, this is a very complex conspiracy fraud case involving many Machiavellian players who have compromised their professional ethics and breached the publics’ trust. When this is boiled down though in simple terms, this nothing more than a common confidence game like a “pigeon drop.” The IRS in as much said so when it concluded that the “casino was rigged” when it disallowed the nonprofit tax exemption status for the first bonds.

Actually many people before me have already done the groundwork. Disregard the editorial comments of Camas Magazine, the documents in their archive speak clearly and stand-alone on their face. Base on my read there are people who should be in the slammer. What needs to happen now is for the feds to do their job, not become politically co-opted in the process, impanel a federal grand jury, summon and interview witnesses under oath, if warranted then issue indictments of the principals and bring this case to trial. Anything less will be a travesty of justice.

As I said in my letter to the editor some months ago the inaction and passivity on the part of US Attorney Jim McDevitt spoke volumes to me as to why no federal criminal investigation gained any traction. McDevitt’s potential involvement was well known and yet this was first broken on the Mark Fuhrman Radio Show. Mr. McDevitt subsequent recusal will now allow this process to proceed.

And to my new friend cub reporter Jimmy Olsen, Sam, there has been a method to my apparent OCD madness in my persona as Lt. Columbo. I’m sure I’ve given you a considerable case of cognitive dissonance. One was to open a legitimate public debate. Another was to draw out the principals to force them to play their hands in the open. The third was to draw flak while other actions were being pursued. Unfortunately for my many new friends here at HBO, because of the uniqueness of HBO and the S-R Blogs, they became a forum to carryout this mission. I have now accomplished my goals.

As I said there are other areas being actively pursued beyond the current federal criminal review. I’m not at liberty to discuss them here and now. I will post “new” news when appropriate here when DFO initiates a relevant discussion on Spokane and in my blog. I will now come out from undercover and sign any further comments with my real signature.

As to why Sam, I moved to Spokane for its many fine attributes however there is one thing sorely lacking that is clearly evident to me in my short tenure here. I feel compelled to help restore a healthy political/governmental landscape and a true free market place where businesses will choose to locate here.

And to close:

“All that is required for evil to prevail is for good men to do nothing”?

Det. Ron Wright (Retired – Badge No.1)
Riverside PD, CA

PS I will continue to comment as “RBT” in matters of neo-con tinfoilery:-)

 

To All Rocketsbrain Readers:

Friends of Mark Fuhrman Blog and email group

Terresa of Noisy Room and Media Mythbusters Blog now has our joint blog up and running. I will be cross-posting previous Spokane et al posts over here.  Also if you’re not already subscribed to the Friends of Mark Fuhrman Yahoo egroup, you can join here:

Click to join friendsofmarkfuhrman

This is the unofficial fan site of Mark Fuhrman Radio Show that was squelched in my opinion by the “usual suspects.” This blog and email group are dedicated to pursuing among other things the River Park Square fraud et al in Spokane, WA and other related topics that you will never read about in the Spokesman-Review. Read regular updates from Fuhrman Show regulars, Larry Shook, Tim Conner, Cherie Rodgers, former Spokane Mayor John Talbott, Dick Adams, “Ron the Cop” and others.

Ron the Cop
Friends of Mark Fuhrman

AKA RBT of Rocket’s Brain Trust