Local Fox news going above and beyond...

[kharmajunkie]

I'm so glad my local Fox news affiliate here in Tucson cares so deeply about fair election laws. What happened to reporters and news crews not being a part of the story?

Monday, September 27th, 2004
Campus Crackdown: Fox News Attacks Student Voter Registration Effort
------------------------------------------------------------------------------The 2004 election is expected to see a record number of people registering to vote. But when some feminist groups at the University of Arizona kicked off a campus voter registration campaign, Fox News charged that they were aiding out-of-state students in committing felony voter fraud. [includes rush transcript]
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As the November election draws nearer, get out the vote campaigns are intensifying across the country. Many analysts predict that an unprecedented number of people will register to vote. But here in Arizona, a group of students at the university charge that they are being harassed for encouraging students to register. Late last month, students in the Women's Studies honorary society, in conjunction with the Feminist Majority Foundation, gathered on the lawn of the University of Arizona registering voters. They called the drive "Suffrage 2004." They were engaging in an activity that is common on many campuses nationwide. In recent weeks on the Arizona campus, the college Democrats, Republicans and student government had run similar drives. But this one was different. As the students gathered on the lawn doing voter registration, the local Fox News affiliate pulled up to the site and with cameras rolling accused the students of engaging in felony voter fraud. The Fox reporters charged that Arizona law prohibits students from out of state from registering to vote in Arizona. For their part, the students say they had consulted with the local registrar on voter law before they picked up the registration forms and insisted that state law requires only that someone live in the state for 29 days before the election.


http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid...4/09/27/1433241

http://www.fox11az.com/news/local/stories/...n.fa659729.html

http://wildcat.arizona.edu/papers/98/13/01_1.html

[kharmajunkie]

AMY GOODMAN: We’re joined by Kelly Kraus who is president of the University of Arizona Network of Feminist Student Activists. The network is an affiliate of the Feminist Majority Foundation and we're joined by Sarah Ransom is with the National Lawyers Guild Student Chapter at the University of Arizona. We welcome you both to Democracy Now!

SARAH RANSOM: Thank you.

AMY GOODMAN: Kelly, let's start with you. Describe what happened. When were you doing this?

SARAH RANSOM: August 31, we were holding the event. Our goal was to register young women, and we spent the day out on the University Of Arizona Mall. It was a great success. We registered over 130 students. We were packing up and the Fox News crew came and told us we were encouraging students to commit a felony by registering students to vote. It was unfortunate because of the hard work of those involved and the excitement of the students was tainted by the information.

AMY GOODMAN: They were accusing you of helping students commit a crime by doing what?

SARAH RANSOM: By registering them to vote in Arizona. The law says you have to have physical intent 29 days before the election and the intent to remain. The registrar of voters was interpreting that you had to intend on being in Arizona after you graduate from college.

[Scribbler1]

I don't think it is that big a deal, unless they DID change anything based on what the news idiots told them.

If I had been there, I would have told them to kiss my ass and see if THAT made it to the 11:00 news. It appears the Fox people were assholes, but these people holding the rally, should have known the news fools were wrong and not let it bother them.

[Zeebadee]

Originally posted by kharmajunkie, The law says you have to have physical intent 29 days before the election and the intent to remain. The registrar of voters was interpreting that you had to intend on being in Arizona after you graduate from college.

Well, what does "intent to remain" mean to you? Should out-of-state students, in Arizona only for the time they are in school, be allowed to influence decisions that the residents are going to have to live with?

[kharmajunkie]

That "intent to remain" phrase in the law is where most of the contention lies. My personal opinion is that it should be the voters call as far as where they vote. Every student can't be judged on how
long they will spend in said college town or how involved they are politically at the local level. Some kids are going to adopt their
new town and get involved and some will want to keep their home state
voting rights; that's their call. And in that four years or so they spend in college they're paying taxes in this state, becoming more politically aware, maybe even wanting to get involved at a grassroots
level. I think four years in a community shows enough intent.

[kharmajunkie]

No, nothing was changed Scrib, I was picking on the local Fox affiliate for sticking their noses in it; that seems to me to go against basic journalistic standards. Just saying "fair and balanced" doesn't mean you are. There are both young conservative and liberal groups that are doing voting drives on and around campus but the Fox crew was accusing a specific feminist group of advocating
voter fraud. As I said in the first post, I thought that news crews and journalists were not supposed to be part of the stories they cover.

[Compugasm]

Originally posted by kharmajunkie, I thought that news crews and journalists were not supposed to be part of the stories they cover.

The insanity is just beginning. I'll start my own news network with reporters and cameramen armed with cellphones. You can upload stuff to a website, right from a cellphone. If you want to edit the video first, tools are available for under to create graphics/splash screens just like major networks. I've already done it for some unnamed individuals, I just lack the funds to get it off the ground.

[Scribbler1]

Sign me up.

Just give everyone press creds and just wait until anyone is where anything newsworthy happens.

[Scribbler1]

Originally posted by kharmajunkie, No, nothing was changed Scrib, I was picking on the local Fox affiliate for sticking their noses in it; that seems to me to go against basic journalistic standards. Just saying "fair and balanced" doesn't mean you are. There are both young conservative and liberal groups that are doing voting drives on and around campus but the Fox crew was accusing a specific feminist group of advocating voter fraud. As I said in the first post, I thought that news crews and journalists were not supposed to be part of the stories they cover.

Absolutely right. Instead of reporting the news, the networks present themselves AS the news. Like Geraldo Rivera. :)

[kharmajunkie]

Interesting tie-in, Geraldo is a graduate of the UofA and an employee of Fox "news".

[Scribbler1]

Originally posted by kharmajunkie, Interesting tie-in, Geraldo is a graduate of the UofA and an employee of Fox "news".

Rivera is only the most obvious of the "looky me, I'M the news" types out there. But long before he was on Fox he actually WAS a hell of a reporter. Anyone from the NYC area around 1970 or so should recall the Willowbrook scandal, where Rivera earned a lot of respect for uncovering a lot of bad situations we wouldn't have known about otherwise. My great respect for the man, however, was eroded over time as he looked like he took his "media hero" status to heart and became a journalistic P.T. Barnum.