Here is a copy of an e-mail that went out from the peacenicks:
From: Stephen Dear
Sent: Sunday, February 16, 2003 8:27 AM
To: Progressive Students and Faculty
Subject: [progress] RE: Call and complain to Time Warner channel 14 -- AND WUNC!
There's more. WUNC 91.5 FM's announcer at 8 am Sunday morning read a
story that said protesters claimed that there were 7,000 people at the
rally and then they described the counter protest and ran an extensive
quote from a counter protester! No quotes at all from any speaker or
protester. A new low. Listening to WUNC is a form of masochism.
Please complain to WUNC at 966-5454 and if no one picks up press 2 for
their programming comment line. I told them they have lost me as a
listener.
Steve Dear
-----Original Message-----
From: Todd Morman
[mailto:tmorman@nc.rr.com]
Sent: Saturday, February 15, 2003 6:39 PM
To: Progressive Students and Faculty
Subject: [progress] RE: Call and complain to Time Warner channel 14
I've posted the first round of pics from the rally and some commentary
at my
site, www.monkeytime.org. More to come.
Todd
-----Original Message-----
From: Todd Morman
[mailto:tmorman@nc.rr.com]
Sent: Saturday, February 15, 2003 5:52 PM
To: Progressive Students and Faculty
Subject: [progress] Call and complain to Time Warner channel 14
At 5pm today, the local all-news channel 14 run by Time Warner reported
the
size of the march as "several hundred." I kid you not. Worse, however,
the
story (like the N&O story yesterday) contained the phrase "a patriotic
counter-protest" to describe the small pro-invasion gathering, and
failed to
mention the small size - 65 people (yes, I counted carefully), thus
spreading a highly distorted view of what happened today. A number of
people
must have complained, because channel 14 changed its estimate to
"several
thousand" in the 5:30 story. Two Raleigh police officers gave estimates
to
the folks I was with of a crowd at "5 to 6 thousand" and "about 7
thousand"
people.
The correction was important, althought 14 didn't acknowledge the error.
The
continued use of patriotic to describe pro-invasion protestors, and the
complete lack of any scale to show viewers what really happened downtown
today, is incredibly poor journalism.
News Channel 14's phone number is 882-4000. Press "1" to get the folks
in
the newsroom now. The first story was about as outrageous an undercount
as
I've ever seen in my life. I have plenty of video footage that documents that thousands of people were present today.
Todd
p.s. Please post details about any coverage!! Videotape it if you can!