Club JournoScum: Spokesman-Review
A reprise by Paul Trummel (exiled somewhere)
to a previously published Contra Cabal article on Thespian Liar's Liars.
Several reporters and magazine writers began to rebel against the normal restrictions of journalism during the 1960s. Tom Wolfe, Hunter S. Thompson, and others started to narrate in a personal way by including themselves in their stories. They blended the objective voice with the subjective. They ceased to be hard-nosed reporters in the traditional sense and became famous for creative nonfiction. George Orwell and Ernest Hemingway explored similar genres and New Yorker magazine began a tradition of featuring creative nonfiction as opposed to newspaper reporting. Richard Roesler, Spokesman-Review, neither ranks as another George Orwell nor emulates any other famous writer. [Creative Nonfiction]
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Instead, Roesler has joined Club JournoScum with other reporters who float in a media cesspool. They include Mike Roarke, formerly with Spokesman-Review and Seattle Post-Intelligencer, Jayson Blair, New York Times, and other reporters. Several of them have recently received their just deserts for unethical behavior and comprise the core membership.
Ruth Shalit and Stephen Glass, New Republic, fabricated stories and writer Christopher Newton, Associated Press, invented quotes and sources in a series of reports. Boston Globe fired columnist Patricia Smith then two months later allowed long-time columnist Mike Barnacle to resign after he admitted fabricating sources and quotes.
James Frey also hit the headlines recently with his book A Million Little Pieces which reporters exposed as a lie after interviews on the Oprah Winfrey Show and Larry King Live. Frey is far from the only book author who has duped the public.
New York Times did not deserve so much criticism for hiring Blair but more for not supervising him more closely. Spokesman-Review probably had full knowledge of Roarke’s previous unethical antics at The Daily (University of Washington) when it hired him. Its editors also deserve criticism for continuing to evade responsibility for what Roesler has written. [Thespian Liar's Liars]
Editorial Dereliction
Spokesman-Review editors have not supervised their staff writer Richard Roesler. They probably should have fired him when first notified that he had fabricated material after neglecting to interview a principal source, whom he subjected to his venting, or his lawyers.
The publisher and editors must now face the issues. Perhaps they will “disappear” Roesler in the same way that Seattle-Post Intelligencer disappeared Roarke after he wrote and published similar defamatory material. Spokesman-Review previously employed Roarke as a staff writer to cover law enforcement issues. This shows a pattern or practice of knowingly employing corrupt or incompetent reporters.
Disappearing reporters has become a common publishing practice. By “disappearing” them instead of publicly firing them, publishers evade their responsibility to admit publishing error. They use “risk management” techniques to avoid lawsuits and further prejudice victims instead of addressing the issues. [Justice Delayed: Justice Denied]
Significantly, Spokesman-Review did not publish a follow-up article when Washington Supreme Court (30 Mar 06) reversed the findings that Roesler incorrectly reported even though his editors knew about his unethical behavior. The editors had an opportunity to correct the previous libel but ignored it which again points to malice. Spokesman-Review must now appoint an ethical, independent, freelance reporter to rewrite the Roesler article then publish the true facts to mitigate damage. [Washington Supreme Court - Decision]
Washington Supreme Court (which Roesler used for grandstanding) found in favor of the reporter on all the First Amendment issues for which he went to jail and solitary confinement with total disregard for habeas corpus. Further legal action will result from the neglect of that court to address the issues which relate to trumped-up charges of harassment supported by suborned perjury, refusal of legal representation, and denial of a discovery process. [Conspiracy 2001] [Conspiracy 2002]
Council House deliberately published propaganda and character assassination. Judge James A. Doerty (a corrupt judge since banished to juvenile court) knew about the perjury yet refused to allow a discovery process. Council House lawyers admitted in oral argument (which Roesler attended) that Doerty used “evidence” without allowing discovery, cross-examination, or refutation - a stretch under any interpretation of law - yet Roesler chose not to mention that outrageous and unlawful behavior which showed his bias. [Judicial Misconduct and the Law]
Prior to oral argument (23 Jun 05), lawyers from both sides stipulated to the inadmissability of forty-three allegedly perjured or suborned documents filed by non-parties. Those documents had virtually no bearing on the real issues because they applied to stipulated non-parties yet Roesler used them to support his article.
In fact, Crittenden claimed non-party stipulation during oral argument: “I’d like to point out that Mr. Somerville’s position in writing is that he does not represent the residents of Council House. His client is Stephen Mitchell.” [Supreme Court Decision #2]
Despite the stipulation, Roesler selectively interviewed the non-party thugs and stooges whom Mitchell transported to Olympia for that purpose - the same people who wrote or suborned the allegedly perjured and inadmissable documents. He interviewed them without giving people with an opposing view or lawyers an opportunity to refute what they said.
Fact-Checking
In cases of libel and plagiarism reporters should not take all the blame. Their editors must accept responsibility for not setting higher standards for their writers and overseeing what they publish through strict fact-checking. For example, a qualified editor has thoroughly fact-checked this piece by comparing the content with source files - an established practice with all material published in Contra Cabal. Responsible writers generally find some solace in meticulous fact-checking by a third party and reputable publishers employ staff members with fact-checking as their sole responsibility.
Ethical magazine and newspaper publishers generally verify all information before going to press which makes a publication more trustworthy in the eyes of the reader. Sarah Z. Wexler, a fact-checker who has worked for major magazines says: “People know that when they read a certain magazine, it's not just the writer's name they can trust but the magazine's name, too. And the way the magazine keeps its name is by not making mistakes. "Wexler claims that: "Almost all fact-checking is done over the phone. You can try to compare information with other things that are published, but even then, that's not enough proof for another magazine to accept it as fact.”
Dog-and-Pony Show
Roesler accepted a dog-and-pony show organized by Seattle Jewish Mafia (SJM) at face value. Stephen A. Mitchell, a Council House director, an acknowledged mafia sociopath and stage actor, choreographed and directed an elaborate presentation to manipulate media. Roesler swallowed the propaganda - hook, line, and sinker.
[Seattle Jewish Mafia]
Mitchell misused a van donated for the convenience of elderly people to transport about ten people from Seattle to Olympia for the oral argument in Washington Supreme Court (23 Jun 05). Audrey F. Dunbar and Mitchell gave free transport as a reward to people from whom they had both previously suborned perjury and denied transport to people who had testified to the contrary.
This typifies the bribery, corruption, and interference with witnesses by Mitchell and Dunbar for more than five years. Anti-harassment charges against Mitchell turned into a circus orchestrated in consort with a superior court judge married to a Council House co-president.
Dunbar, Mitchell’s confederate in alleged homicides by abuse of elderly people, perjury, and subornation, drove the vehicle despite her previous health problems which put her passengers at risk. Roesler used this pathological liar as one of his sources without verifying what she wrote or said. [Vehicular Irresponsibility] [Homicide by Abuse]
If Roesler had bothered to read Contra Cabal then he would have found that the judge (whom he repeatedly quoted) refused legal representation and any opportunity to refute more than forty declarations by Council House directors, staff, and residents - the same people Roesler apparently interviewed for his article during the dog-and-pony show.
The judge disallowed the discovery process (usually considered an essential part of due process of law) thereby invalidating the testimony on which Roesler relied. The judge based his decisions solely on insane fantasies and submissions by an allegedly incompetent legal counsel. A discovery process (and proper fact-checking arranged by editors) would have disclosed the extent of the suborned perjury filed by Mitchell and published by Spokesman-Review. [Homicide by Abuse]
A triumvirate, reminiscent of Marquis de Sade and his fellow inmates, completed the dog and pony show, Employed as thugs by Stephen A. Mitchell and Audrey F. Dunbar, Felippe Jacques, Nathaniel Stahl (a diagnosed schizophrenic), and Michael Johnson, all of them the subject of police reports for violent assault upon elderly people, presented themselves for Roesler to interview according to a Council House source. Name withheld to avoid violent retaliation by these thugs who have previously assaulted witnesses for speaking to media or filing reports with police. [Noblesse Oblige]
If Roesler had checked the Seattle police blotter, then he would have found a string of charges filed by elderly people whom this triumvirate assaulted. Previously, the same thugs coerced signatures from gullible senior citizens and the judge accepted their statements without question - the inmates took charge of the asylum. Evidently, Roesler has joined them.
Doerty suffers from egocentric absurdity similar to that apparent in the triumvirate who transfer their aberrant behavior onto others. The written record and his actions support that contention. Like the triumvirate he failed to recognize his own absurd assumptions. He based his decisions on insane fantasies and submissions trumped up by Mitchell, Dunbar, Jacques, Stahl, Johnson, and Council House directors.
Elder Abuse Past and present Council House officers and directors condoned elder abuse: the neglect and exploitation of people over sixty. Names and Addresses of Many of their tenants will not report abuse to government agencies in fear of retaliation. Directors rely upon dereliction by oversight agencies. Managers collude with government officials to evade their mutual responsibility to comply with the law. Administrators, directors, and elite tenants profile as cruel and inhuman - they have violated laws and allegedly committed homicide by abuse. |
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Alleged Offenses Incarcerated tenants without due process or probable cause. Practiced coercion, bribery, blackmail, threatening behavior, subornation, perjury and at least two cases of homicide by abuse. Abused elderly tenants including humiliation, ostracism, unlawful eviction, and harassment based upon manufactured evidence that they violated their leases and fictional acts of trespass. Implemented search and seizure of tenants’ property and unlawfully entered their apartments. Bribed a network of informers to file false reports with police and agencies. Filed false reports with government agencies about tenants and disseminated libelous propaganda to their families and friends. Published multiple libel in public media and made false statements to reporters to cover up crimes. Tried to persuade an internet service provider (ISP) to remove a tenant's web site from the Internet. Filed perjury to cause prior restraint and removal of a web site by falsely claiming that the publisher was violent and insane. Lied pathologically and choreographed surreal scenarios. Tampered with court witnesses and practiced racial and religious intolerance. Allowed and actively encouraged Kapos (thugs) to use deliberate assault or battery on tenants. |
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Outrageously, Roesler did not interview the journalist whom Mitchell and his thugs vilified or his lawyers. Instead, he did a hatchet-job on a long-established reporter and former editor without checking facts or interviewing him. He turned facts into fiction as the dupe in a highly organized propaganda campaign to cover up elder abuse. [Seattle Jewish Mafia]
Roesler published his article without interviewing the primary source or giving him an opportunity to refute outrageous allegations made against him. He accepted verbatim what secondary sources fed to him without verifying and validating his sources which has left his publisher wide open to a defamation lawsuit.
His article had virtually no real content and he exaggerated what anonymous secondary sources said without verification. He distorted facts that he obtained knowing them to have come from perjured testimony which had not undergone a discovery process. That process would have revealed the perjury. Moreover, Stacey Cowles, Spokesman-Review publisher, evidently had no fact-checking procedure in place to stop Roesler’s fraud.
Unbiased reporting does not necessarily need an equal number of quotes from each side. However, to publish a story without interviewing the principal source, or giving an opportunity for refutation, indicates malice - the main component of defamation. Roesler made no attempt to balance his reporting and his editors did not fact-check before publishing his report.
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New Club JournoScum Member Richard Roesler, Spokesman-Review, had no excuse for the libel that he published although he received several offers that would have allowed him to mitigate damage. Thespian Liars's Liars provides an example of the many ways in which he falsified his copy after neglecting to interview the person whom he defamed. The publisher holds equal responsibility for not providing a fact-checking procedure to vet obviously suspect copy. Roesler scandalously wrote: "According to court documents, one of his newsletters called one neighbor – on her deathbed – a "pandering pygmy." When indignant residents told him to leave the dying woman alone, he allegedly responded with a follow-up article predicting that she would soon be going to "a much warmer climate." Trummel was apparently just as abrasive in person. According to testimony from his former neighbors, he called one man "a disgusting runt" and mocked elderly women during Tai Chi class. Residents described him prowling the complex after midnight, his ear pressed to apartment doors, gathering "news" about noise violators. He would print his dispatches on a sophisticated printer in his apartment and hang them on residents' doors each morning." Thespian Liar's Liars Stephen A. Mitchell, Audrey F. Dunbar, and Felippe Jacques either wrote or suborned 43 declarations that a fool would recognize as suspect let alone a superior court judge. Four years later they fooled Roesler and a supreme court judge with a similar dog-and-pony show based on documents filed by people stipulated as non-parties who were neither cross-examined nor subjected to a discovery process.
Six pamphlets (linked), legally published over several months (not each morning), comprised the sum total of the evidence in the original counterclaim of harassment that Stephen A. Mitchell filed in response to a temporary anti-harassment order granted against him by superior court. The author never met Grace Burton, a four-foot-something member of Mitchell's pandering elite and neither spoke with her or wrote about her nor harassed her on her deathbed as Dunbar testified. All the investigative work for the six articles, which Roesler falsely claims the author hung "on residents' doors each morning", conformed with journalism ethics and Seattle municipal codes. Readers must decide for themselves whether they consider that the content of these articles, all constitutionally protected, warranted such Draconian measures as eviction and jail with solitary confinement. A legally recorded tape contains a rave by Grace Burton at a public meeting which Mitchell convened. After that meeting, a background check revealed that she belonged to an elite run by Mitchell and Dunbar to harass Council House tenants. It showed that her own family had outlawed her because of her abrasive behavior and she became a pariah to a majority of Council House tenants. Even Felippe Jacques wrote: "There were twelve women and two men present. One black male, one black female. Of the twelve others, only five were Jewish. . . They all (at least those who knew her) said that Bess was a bitch and Grace Burton an arrogant bore." Roesler had all this information at his disposal yet his piece clearly denotes at least his incompetence and at most his malignity. Disconnected Abstracts, published as pamphlets, later appeared on the Internet as four web pages. Council House directors (with names deleted to comply with a court order) could find nothing false or defamatory about the content of the articles. Instead of using appropriate law to complain about content they filed harassment complaints which resulted in the unlawful eviction, and incarceration in solitary confinement, of the publisher. [Disconnected Abstracts] Council House employed Draconian measures to cover up elder abuse by trying to stop the lawful distribution of 150 copies of six newsletters with supporting essays to Council House tenants. Unrelenting harassment by directors and managers, and the political machination of four judges, have incurred hundreds of thousands of dollars in legal costs. Council House created an international situation that American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) (representing 500,000 journalists) challenged in which they prevailed. [Supreme Court Decision #2] The ultimate irony lies in increased circulation. Council House tried to suppress a total distribution of about 1000 printed copies of newsletters and essays within a closed society over a sixteen-month period. Now, similar information receives between 100,000 and 150,000 web hits a month. Read the abstracts and the linked essays to decide for yourself whether you consider the publication of this constitutionally protected speech deserved the cruel and unusual punishment meted to the writer and other tenants who spoke out about elder abuse. By republishing these abstracts, Contra Cabal continues to raise public awareness about elder abuse, misappropriation of government funds, and judicial misconduct. |
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Conclusion
Gary Graham, Managing Editor; Steven A. Smith, Editor; and, Richard Roesler, Staff Writer; all employed by Spokesman-Review, had three chances to respond to defamation complaints. They have chosen to build a wall of silence to evade their responsibility for publishing false and misleading information. They have allowed their staff writer to dragoon a journalist by maliciously publishing defamatory material then tried to cover-up his behavior.
Published for more than sixty years, the journalist has held an international press card for almost fifty years with hundreds (probably thousands) of articles and other publications to his credit without a single legitimate complaint about veracity. As a professor, he has taught verbal and graphic communication at a string of major universities to thousands of graduate students.
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For Roesler, a reporter for a small-town rag, maliciously to attack an internationally acknowledged journalist and former editor ranks as atrocious. It classifies as particularly egregious when one considers that his target has not had any previous libel complaints or harassment charges brought against him except for the trumped-up charges that Roesler has maliciously reported.
Carla Cavalli, Senior Editor, Spokesman-Review writes: “. . . I'm more or less back to my regular job as senior editor for local news. In a practical sense that means back to meetings, story editing, personnel decisions, strategic planning, speaking engagements - all the everyday things that make this job so thrilling, . . . ” Instead of gallivanting around the US looking for thrills Cavalli could better spend her time on personnel ethics, fact-checking procedures, and responding to serious complaints from people whom her reporters have maligned. [Time to Write]
The highlighted copy of a Spokesman-Review article shows the degree of editorial dereliction and writer fraud apparent in the article entitled “Free speech case has a sharp tongue” by Richard Roesler. The article contains 1247 words of which 537 (43%) interpret as false and misleading or defamatory reporting. Spokesman-Review neither fact-checked its copy with the principal subject for veracity or refutation nor questioned lawyers about the legal aspects. [Free Speech Case has a Sharp Tongue]
Spokesman-Review has continued to publish the article on its web site despite receiving a complaint about content eighteen months ago. The article will eventually become subject to discovery in legal proceedings along with claims of subornation, perjury, and defamation among other lawlessness. Spokesman-Review lawyers should start sharpening their pencils or accept the opportunity to mitigate.
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© Copyright 2006 by Paul Trummel |
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