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Faulking Opinions - Jun 24, 2005 - Printable Version
- Is Dateline Caving to Pressure From DTCC?
by C. Austin Burrell
Investrend reports in today’s edition that the Dateline segment is being re-edited (I choose to describe it as “reconfigured”) on orders from GE. Given the near fanatical approach taken by NBC on avoiding “interference with the News process” throughout the many months (18+ at last count) the piece was being compiled and produced under an exclusivity agreement, I find this to be rather inconsistent.
If I presume that the re-production of this segment is being “re-balanced” to be more neutral, which I can only presume based on past experience (I am 80-20 this piece will now be far less accurate and impactful.), then what we are seeing is the parent of NBC caving to pressure from DTCC, or in a best of all possible scenarios, much more appropriately seeing the DTCC threats to be a signal of both guilt and weakness, and they are therefore toughening up the piece.
Is there a precedent for such a scenario as the latter? Euromoney Magazine, a highly respected and very professional international publication whose 140,000 subscribers are a Who’s Who of International Business, Banking and Finance was called “Sloppy” by DTCC’s Associate General Counsel after three articles in April. Did they cave in? Not Hardly. Rather, they published an inane letter from this DTCC Counsel, Larry Thompson, which they then allowed to be annihilated in detail by a response from Robert Shapiro, the respected Washington economist, who pointed out the blatant bias, omissions of fact, and outright lies contained in the Thompson letter criticizing Euromoney’s articles. I had hoped that Thompson’s slander would be answered by Euromoney simply publishing their recorded interview of Thompson, but they rather chose to take the high ground, something no one would ever expect DTCC to do. Watch for another letter to the Editor to be published next month.
Who can calculate the damage done to this cause by the exclusive given by plaintiff’s counsel to Dateline for so many months? Who do we see about that? I don’t believe it is Dateline producer Sharon Hoffman, but rather, it is her superiors who will have to ultimately pay the piper. Ms. Hoffman has demonstrated genuine respect for the news process, irrespective of the eventual outcome of her piece. I think she should have interviewed others, or even had simple off-the-record conversations with those who could have given her more industry and victim perspective. She didn’t see it that way, and she is most certainly entitled to her opinion.
To repeat myself (I am reminded of the great quote of Mark Twain “Suppose I were an idiot. Now suppose I were a member of Congress. But I repeat myself.”), the few great journalists I have met have always had a shark’s instinct for “blood in the water”.
If DTCC’s behavior hasn’t betrayed its negative character, then I really learned nothing from exemplars such as Jack Anderson in his prime. That the DTCC and the SEC as mutual minions haven’t been figuratively castrated for their conduct tells me something else is at work.
This rabbit has jumped out of the hat, and it won’t go back, not even at gun point. I believe that the venal character of securities markets in the US today have cost Bush his initiative for private accounts, an otherwise admirable and non-partisan objective if you would accept simple declarative historical fact that Democrat FDR (he proposed them first) and Republican Bush held the same position on the imperative need for such accounts, some 70 years apart.
Let’s hear it for Hugo Cancio and his efforts. He seems to be the Great White Cuban Hope here. God Bless Hugo and others like him, and let God also watch over Ms. Hoffman, who might appear to need the protection more at this moment.
I would like to have a few minutes in a locked closet with champions of the scum here. It may not be with me, but that moment is steaming down the tracks for all of these like-minded vermin here. As one very bright Southern lawyer friend (he knows who I mean) said to me, they will have to deal with God ultimately, and I agree with his further observation that these sociopaths (financial Ted Bundy’s really) should be far more fearful of that than any human. God is tough.
It has been a while since I have written anything original, but here is a topic I felt needed to be addressed.
Illegitimus Non Carborundum. This was my Cadet Company Motto at West Point. It means “Don’t let the bastards grind you down.” Right will out, here (or in the next life for you Buddhists out there). The only problem you may have is recognizing the bad guys in the next life, as they may have eight legs (or none). DTCC and SEC management could clearly learn a lot from exposure to the Four Noble Truths and practicing the principles of the Eight Fold Path. Both organizations have too many “moral vacuum” lawyers for that to ever happen.
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