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The Weblog Albany Eye is reproduced here WITHOUT permission.
WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 23, 2005 Read The Pirates' reply,
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Read Albany Eye's reply,
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Master of Your Own Domain
The things we would do if we could turn back the clock. For example, Alan Chartock would go back and snap up the www.wamc.net domain name. Who could have imagined that the address would be registered in 1999 by Glenn M. Heller, a shadowy figure who has made a name for himself running a one man campaign against Chartock and WAMC. His website is packed with personal attacks against WAMC's President and CEO ---and a key element to Heller's effort is the confusion he creates by holding a domain name similar to the target of his barrage. Heller's .com/.org/.net scamming is not reserved for Alan Chartock. He also confuses web surfers with his www.berkshireeagle.net web site, and he runs a site that co-opts the name of a Great Barrington weekly, www.berkshirerecord.com ---he even does this to the tiny monthly Monterey News. It's not just content that can be poisonous, for domain names mean power. Over the weekend we told you how WGY redirects traffic for www.jrshow.com to their own website ---after they fired Gach in 2002 they retained ownership of the URL. Heller's WAMC attack site is long on rumors and innuendo and short on supporting documents and information ---and when reporters point this out, they get slammed too, as Mark McGuire did in 2001. This is what makes it strange to hear Heller's work legitimized by NY Post reporter Fred Dicker. Dicker has had Heller on his show several times ---most recently just last week. Among other things, Heller repeated his allegation that WAMC paid out $20,000 to settle a sexual harassment claim against the station. Heller bases his accusations on email he claims to have received from people "who either formerly or currently work at WAMC." Alan Chartock tells Eye that these charges are completely false. Why the anger? No one is sure. Chartock says Heller's complaints against the station began when WAMC aired the Robert Bork Supreme Court nomination hearings in 1987. I don't know what makes Heller newsworthy besides his abiding hatred of all things Alan. Maybe that's enough for Mr. Dicker. POSTED BY ALBANY EYE AT 5:07 AM ALBANYEYE@HOTMAIL.COM
Link to Blogspot.com: Albany
Eye
 The
WAMC Pirates reply:
Eye's wide shut! Wednesday, February 23, 2005
Dear Eye,
Well, the first most striking difference between your Albany Eye blog and our Web site(s) is that we have the guts at least to sign our work. Secondly, when a reporter -- even Fred Dicker -- representing the New York Post, The New York Times, or The Washington Post interviews people, gets facts, and obtains confirmation from multiple sources, then, in your view, it's called a news story. Eye's hypocritical double standard Yet, if Web-ster's outside the mainstream media -- and as a blogger you should certainly be aware of what it means to be outside the mainstream -- dare to tackle one of Albany's sacred cows, in this case Alan Chartock, and in so doing proceed to interview people, get facts, and obtain confirmation from multiple sources, then the resulting article should not, in Eye's view, be considered a newsstory. Nor, under Eye's standards, should revelations on The Pirates' Web site be recognized as newsworthy, nor 'legitimized by' the likes of a New York Post reporter. Eye then goes on to label the Pirates' editor 'a shadowy figure,' and states that the Pirates are 'running a smear campaign,' that the 'website is packed with personal attacks,' and that its 'content' is 'poisonous,''long on rumors and innuendo,' and 'short on supporting documents and information.' Wow, talk about poisonous smears! Since when are IRS Form 990's not acceptable as legitimate supporting documents? And since when are current and former employees -- who choose anonymity over the possibility of revenge by a reportedly spiteful little egomaniac -- not considered legitimate sources of first-person testimony and information? Eye accepts alleged perp's denials, but fails to check his story And when the perpetrator, the alleged harasser himself, tells the Albany Eye that "these (sex) charges are completely false," Eye's so-called 'unflinching gaze' is only too willing to accept the perp's chaste denials at par value without further question. Yet, when multiple individuals from that same workplace affirm via e-mail, telephone, and face-to-face interviews with The Pirates that a pay-off did indeed occur in a case of sexual harassment involving the victim and her former boss, Eye dismissesthat charge as though the victim and her co-workers merit no credibility whatsoever when measured against the word of their omnipotent boss. (Eye apparently knows WAMC's Chartock well enough to quote him frequently.) Eye simultaneously makes no effort at all to verify independently anyone's version of events -- not the boss's, not the victim's. Such a failure to observe even basic tenets of Journalism 101 speaks volumes about Eye. Liberal Albany-Berkshire media fail to inquire about one of their own "Why the anger?" Albany Eye rhetorically asks. Well, we'll tell you why! Thoughtful, inquiring people have a right to be angry and disgusted when the politically Liberal Albany-Berkshire media fail to examine, even cursorily, what goes on at a fellow Lib's $6 million per year 'public' broadcasting charity, especially when the organization has no independent oversight committee, and its corporate board is composed solely of trustees hand-picked by guess-who. There is evidence aplenty in the federal courts that shows what happens when an imperious, all-controlling personality runs a public charity or a public company. It gets even worse when the entity has no independent audit or review committee to offset the dominating CEO. Notorious recent and current cases: William Aramony at United Way of America, Kenneth Lay and Jeff Skilling at Enron, Bernard Ebbers at WorldCom, and the Rigas Family at Adelphia Communications. Plenty of chicanery, financial and otherwise, at 501c3 WAMC Then, of course, at WAMC, there is the evidence itself. To the instances of financial chicanery where this 501c3's dollars have ended-up inuring to the benefit of its CEO; to the clear violations of the rules that prohibit participation in political campaigns on behalf of a candidate; now add this latest revelation of a $20,000 payoff to settle a sex scandal. Perhaps the real reason the hypocritical Libs running the Albany-Berkshire media circuit look the other way is that they are quite content with one of their own, a fellow Lib, in charge of a 10,000 watt FM spin machine that acts as a potent element in that Lib circuit -- regardless of what actually transpires within that machine's publicly-financed walls. Albany Eye also expresses a tic over the fact that e-mail is used to transmit 'accusations,' as though this form of communication is suddenly beneath contempt as a conveyance of human thought. Tell that to judges and lawyers who regard electronic mail as prima facie evidence. Better yet, tell that to your fellow bloggers! Albany Eye's journalistic vision has apparently become clouded working in Albany media so much so that Eye cannot distinguish anymore when it sees double, as in double standard. Sorry Eye, but we think the shadowy one pulling the sleazy smear campaign here is the writer that does not have the coglione (Eye balls) to sign his work and take full responsibility for his words and accusations. For The Pirates
P.S. And speaking of coglione, we bet Eye doesn't have the Eye balls to run our reply in his blog! P.P.S. By the way, if Eye is gonna do a hack job, then he might at least have had the courtesy to provide a direct link to The Pirates' Web site from the 'www.wamc.net' notation in his blog, since he certainly managed to provide links to every other subject covered in his text. Pirate Editor's Note: RE: P.S. And Eye didn't!
Thursday, February 24, 2005 Take the Gun, Leave the Coglione Yesterday we told you about www.wamc.net, a web site with a name amazingly similar to the one run by a local radio station. Albany Eye heard from Glenn M. Heller, the site's proprietor, who claimed Eye doesn't "have the coglione to sign his work." Well, if coglione is some sort of computer software, no we don't have it. We can barely afford sharp pencils around here. POSTED BY ALBANY EYE AT 4:12 AM ALBANYEYE@HOTMAIL.COM
Link to Blogspot.com: Albany
Eye
Pirate Editor's Note: Looks like Albany Eye's gaze finally flinched!
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