Tuesday, April 26, 2011

We are "news blind" - Tucson media ignore news

William Heuisler
Tucson Crime Prevention Examiner

1) Neither the Arizona Daily Star nor local TV news has demanded to know who is responsible for the hundred million dollars missing from “Rio Nuevo” projects.

2) Neither the Arizona Daily Star nor local TV news has mentioned Superior Court case # C 20085016 where Pima County admitted under oath to wrongdoing and security lapses in the two billion dollar Regional Transportation Authority (RTA) election.

3) No media outlet has bothered to mention how Brian Crane, chief computer tech for Pima County Elections, admitted buying “election flipping” software, called Crop Scanner, prior to the largest, most expensive bond election in Pima County History.

4) No one reported when Pima County affirmed in testimony that the RTA election was a, "discrete incident of past wrongdoing” (Ford v. Dem. etc, 2010).

5) No one questioned Attorney General Goddard who first had “sufficient cause to investigate” but changed his mind a week later. Not one reporter wants to know why Attorney General Horne, “…declines to initiate another (?) investigation”.

Our Constitution protects press freedom. Shield laws in 30 states protect journalists from compelled production of confidential/unpublished information. The press is protected. What about the press’s duty to protect the public with information?

And newspapers knew about the corruption back in 2007. Garry Duffy, reported for the Tucson Citizen: “No one seems to know what happened to a computer tape record of the May 16, 2006 (RTA) election… The county elections director made the revelation in his testimony Wednesday in a Pima County Superior Court trial... The case goes to the heart of the democratic process – the security of voting and vote counting…” (Duffy, 2007)

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1) Neither the Arizona Daily Star nor local TV news has demanded to know who is responsible for the hundred million dollars missing from “Rio Nuevo” projects.

2) Neither the Arizona Daily Star nor local TV news has mentioned Superior Court case # C 20085016 where Pima County admitted under oath to wrongdoing and security lapses in the two billion dollar Regional Transportation Authority (RTA) election.

3) No media outlet has bothered to mention how Brian Crane, chief computer tech for Pima County Elections, admitted buying “election flipping” software, called Crop Scanner, prior to the largest, most expensive bond election in Pima County History.

4) No one reported when Pima County affirmed in testimony that the RTA election was a, "discrete incident of past wrongdoing” (Ford v. Dem. etc, 2010).

5) No one questioned Attorney General Goddard who first had “sufficient cause to investigate” but changed his mind a week later. Not one reporter wants to know why Attorney General Horne, “…declines to initiate another (?) investigation”.

Our Constitution protects press freedom. Shield laws in 30 states protect journalists from compelled production of confidential/unpublished information. The press is protected. What about the press’s duty to protect the public with information?

Garry Duffy, the Citizen reporter who
actually did report about the missing data
tape at Pima Elections.
And newspapers knew about the corruption back in 2007. Garry Duffy, reported for the Tucson Citizen: “No one seems to know what happened to a computer tape record of the May 16, 2006 (RTA) election… The county elections director made the revelation in his testimony Wednesday in a Pima County Superior Court trial... The case goes to the heart of the democratic process – the security of voting and vote counting…” (Duffy, 2007)
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The Citizen is gone. The “heart of democratic process” story is forgotten. Not a printed peep now about an ongoing civil suit and Pima County’s admissions of “wrongdoing”. Nothing is reported about a two billion dollar fraud on the taxpayers of Pima County.

Two billion is how much from each county taxpayer?

Do local TV and newspapers have a duty to inform their public when millions and billions of tax dollars are lost, or when official corruption occurs? Are the news media in Tucson malingerers? Are they willfully blind, or have they just taken sides against taxpayers?

Duffy, G. (2007. Tucson Citizen. Record of votes in ’06 RTA election missing.

http://tucsoncitizen.com/morgue/2007/12/06/70793-record-of-votes-in-06-rta-election-missing/

Ford v. Democrat Party of Pima County (2010). Justia.com US Law. Arizona Court of Appeals, Division two, unpublished decisions. Case # C 20085016

http://law.justia.com/cases/arizona/court-of-appeals-division-two-unpublished/2010/cv20100001memo.html

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