Thug Life Army

August 18, 2005

Ms. Angela Tuck

Atlanta Journal Constitution

55 Marietta Street, Suite 1500

Atlanta, GA 30303

Dear Ms. Tuck:

I am responding to a call you made to Richard Searcy of my staff concerning the response I submitted to the Atlanta Journal Constitution's article by Bob Kemper and your offer to run a different item that is not responsive to our concerns, but that would cover the event and the topics we presented at the July 22 Congressional briefing titled "The 9/11 Commission Report One Year Later: A Citizens Critique - Did the Commission Get it Right?"

Mr. Kemper's article was, in our opinion, not only inaccurate and devoid of the content of the briefing, but also libelous, and I unsuccessfully sought its retraction by certified letter while your editors created a long delay while refusing to print our response.

I think it important to note that my response was co-signed by a list of 10 speakers who were also very disturbed by the slanted coverage and lack of respect for their content. For your information, I am attaching a topical agenda as well as biographies on the presenters so you can see the caliber of those who testified.

Our original text was sent to your paper July 27 by fax and email and for a period of almost a week, continued calls and emails to both the editor and the letter editor failed to elicit any response confirming either receipt or intent to publish. The original also contained our offer to edit if necessary for length.

Finally, our original was sent to David Beasley, the opinion editor and he responded quickly that if cut to 600 words it could get in. We did the editing and sent it back the same day. That began another period of delay during which a letter to the editor appeared from one of our speakers, Mel Goodman.

Mr. Beasley then responded by saying that our text was rejected on the grounds that too much time had passed since the original article appeared, though it was August 3. We felt it was still very timely, especially in light of your refusal to retract Kemper's piece, and the delay had been on your part, not mine, from the time of submission.

I will not write a separate piece to do what your journalist is paid to do:  present factual, non-libelous information to the AJC readership.  I note however that others, elected and non-elected, have been given generous space in your paper to express their views on your news and editorial content. Sadly, that same treatment has not been accorded to me. You have a problem that will only be made worse should this type of "journalism" continue.

My briefing was for the education of the residents of my district in Georgia and the country. It will appear on C-SPAN2 in two parts on August 31 and September 4. Perhaps you should view the speakers to see if you still feel Kemper "accurately portrayed" the event.  Obviously many of the speakers did not.

Instead of conveying the strong and informative statements by 9/11 family members, government whistleblowers, former intelligence agents, and respected authors and academics, your reporter focused on clothing, water, peanuts and alleged "conspiracy theories," depriving your readers of the chance to hear about the omissions and faulty recommendations of the 9/11 Commission's Final Report, which are all the more evident in light of recent revelations in the press concerning the Able Danger intelligence unit.

Your discussion with my staff member left the impression that you will print an op-ed about my analysis of the presentations as long as I am not critical of the previous AJC coverage. I think you still owe the presenters and your readership the courtesy of a response to your shoddy journalism.

Sincerely,

Representative Cynthia McKinney

4th District, Georgia

Visit Cynthia McKinney's web site HERE.