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November 6, 2006
Special News Release
Response to CNN
newscast
To Whom It May Concern at Time Warner, Turner Broadcasting and
CNN:
As I ponder what I saw on the CNN Open House segment involving
our small, Midwestern community, I feel a deep sadness and also
a sense of satisfaction. Let me explain.
Throughout this great country’s history, we have lost hundreds
of thousands of lives fighting to protect the democracy upon
which we are founded. We have proven over and over again
throughout the decades that even the precious price of life is
not too great to protect the inalienable rights upon which our
democracy is built. Two of those fundamental rights are freedom
of speech and freedom of the press. However, did our forefathers
create these rights without intending individual responsibility
and accountability? I hope not.
I preface my explanation of sadness with these comments, because
these sacred rights are taken to a fragile threshold on a daily
basis by the media. To my specific point comes the November 4th
and 5th CNN Open House segment that included Danville, Illinois.
A story with less than five minutes worth of sound bites and
pictures as a part of a 30-minute segment with an intended
pre-election message of gloom and doom in the national housing
marketplace. To the reporters and producers of CNN, it was a
pure and simple objective. You flit into communities, take reels
of footage, do hours of interviews and conveniently pull out
those brief photos and sound-bites that fit your intended
purpose. That is your business. That is your “right.”
Exercising your “right,” you did use factual published national
trade statistics, you did allude to the displeasure by community
leaders as to how these statistics are misused and not
representative of the true situation; and you did use clips from
two interviews at a local coffee shop that underscored your
focus of gloom and doom. All the while you did so using a
photographic backdrop of boarded up housing structures. What is
disturbing is that you were also armed with the visual and
factual knowledge that:
1. Dilapidated
structures are a reality but not indicative of the housing
stock as a whole;
2. Danville has numerous subdivisions of $200-$400,000+
homes;
3. You saw quaint, established older neighborhoods with
homes of $130,000 - $225,000;
4. You were given facts about 10 new housing subdivisions
currently underway throughout the county;
5. You interviewed numerous local residents in a downtown
coffee shop that gave you a variety of personal opinions,
positive and negative, as to the state of the local housing
market and reasons therefore.
In those few brief
moments of air-time with your verbal and visual selections, you
were able to “craft” a story that fit your purpose. In the
spirit of “a picture is worth a thousand words,” you did not
have to verbally cross the legal line to make your point; you
were able to quietly do it with selective visuals. You did not
have to prove the interviewee statement that new jobs average
$7.50 an hour (which is far from the truth), and you did not
have to state that the area economy is experiencing a 32-year
low in unemployment with a growing labor force. What you did was
your “right.” Is this the “right” that so many have died for?
On a personal level, let’s say I was a well-known national
professional given the right to do a story on the living habits
and lack of ethics of professionals associated with the national
media. I come to your personal home for an interview. You agree
because you know, while you are not perfect, this allegation
does not represent who you are as a member of that profession.
In fact, when I come into your home, I find a clean and pleasant
setting in all but a couple of rooms. You have an impressive
list of character references that personally vouch for your
character. However, out to prove the intended point of my story,
I choose to only use the film of the rooms in disarray, and I
choose to use an interview of the neighbor who holds negative
perceptions of you because I do not have to validate the
statements made by that neighbor. I then broadcast to the
country that suspicions have been confirmed about your living
habits and lack of character and ethics. Would you consider this
a fair representation or manipulation?
I am especially sad because I know our experience with the media
is not an anomaly. However, my satisfaction comes from the fact
that I am in a business where I spend 100% of my time working
with a terrific team of community-minded people to build
individuals and communities up with real change and progress,
not to tear people and communities down for ratings, no matter
the cost.
Respectfully,
Vicki L. Haugen
President & CEO
Vermilion Advantage, NFP
28 W. North Street
Danville, IL 61832
Emailed to:
gerri.willis@cnn.com
sara.lane@cnn.com
Mailed to:
Time Warner, Inc.
One Time Warner Center
New York, NY 10019
Turner Broadcasting System
1 CNN Center
Atlanta, GA 30303
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