[Contact form] Urgent VOA questions

[nonlinear]

JulieAnn McKellogg sent a message using the contact form at http://occupychi.org/contact.

Hi Occupy Chicago media team,

I have a few questions about Occupy Chicago. We are working on an interactive map of Occupy movements in the United States and wanting to get the facts straight from the organizers in each major location.

What's the largest number of occupiers you have had to date? What was the official start date of Occupy Chicago?

And can you provide me with a statement on what your next move is? And a spokesperson's name to link the quote to?

Also, is there a number to best reach your team on? We are also collecting audio from the different movements and would like to put in touch at a future date to set up an interview.

Thank you very much!

All the best,

JulieAnn

Voice of America, Washington D.C.
Multimedia Reporter
jmckellogg@voanews.com
202-203-4302 (w)
336-816-1246 (c)
Twitter: jmckellogg

[ciwp]

As the "Voice of America" is the US' official propaganda outlet, I don't see any reason why we should give them any information at all.

From Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voice_of_America

"Government
"Law

"Under § 501 of the Smith–Mundt Act of 1948, the Voice of America is forbidden to broadcast directly to American citizens.[34] The intent of the legislation is to protect the American public from propaganda actions by its own government.[35] Although VOA does not broadcast domestically, Americans can access the programs through shortwave and streaming audio over the Internet."

[...]

"Paying for appearances

"Recently, news media have reported that VOA has for years been paying mainstream media journalists to appear on VOA shows, although such practices are relatively common worldwide for media programs. According to El Nuevo Herald and the Miami Herald, these include: David Lightman, the Hartford Courant's Washington bureau chief; Tom DeFrank, head of the New York Daily News' Washington office; Helle Dale, a former director of the opinion pages of the Washington Times; and Georgie Anne Geyer, a nationally syndicated columnist.[59]

"In response, spokesmen for the Broadcasting Board of Governors told the newspaper El Nuevo Herald that such payments do not pose a conflict of interest. "For decades, for many years, some of the most respectable journalists in the country have received payments to participate in programs of the Voice of America," one of the spokesmen, Larry Hart, told El Nuevo Herald.[59]"

Notes:
34. ^ Buescher, John. "The 4th Estate as the 4th Branch." Teachinghistory.org, accessed 2 September 2011.
35. ^ Broderick, James F., and Darren W. Miller. Consider the Source: A Critical Guide to 100 prominent news and information sites on the Web. Medford, NJ: Information Today, 2007. ISBN 0910965773, 9780910965774. p. 388
59. ^ a b Casey Woods. "Report: U.S. paid many other journalists". Miami Herald.
http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/ne ... 513470.htm

VOA is a very shady pro-US propaganda organization, let them get their information from publicly available sources.