Follow along with the video below to see how to install our site as a web app on your home screen.
Note: This feature currently requires accessing the site using the built-in Safari browser.
TAE: Were you surprised when Senator Kerry focused so much on his Vietnam record at the Democratic Convention in late July? How do you account for this when he clearly knew you were out there?
O'NEILL: I think he thought that he had good control over the mainline media, that they were sympathetic, that they would kill the story. And I think he was very confident that was the case with the New York Times and the three major networks and CNN, and that he could intimidate the portions of the media not already friendly to him. And so he thought the story would never come out. That had been his experience over and over again in Massachusetts.
TAE: Everything changed in early August, after your first ad.
O'NEILL: All of a sudden, Kerry and the media were faced with an ad that was actually showing. There was a time when they controlled the entire world of communications. That day is over. The Kerry campaign, fortunately for us, threatened the stations carrying the ad. They had two Washington law firms write legal letters demanding that the ads not be run. There were 20 stations. We provided a factual package to each of them containing 15 affidavits supporting each of the items. After receiving that, 19 of the 20 stations immediately ran the ad. The twentieth station couldn't do it until the following Monday because they couldn't process the legal stuff quick enough. And they did bring up subsequent ads and they invited us to put additional ads on.
TAE: Did the attempts of Kerry's people to stop your message only help publicize it more?
O'NEILL: They helped us tremendously. The threats against the station managers led to extensive publicity, particularly on the "Hannity & Colmes" show and then on other FOX News shows. Then it spread to CNN and to MSNBC. More than 1,400,000 people downloaded that first ad, and it swept through the Internet. It also allowed thousands and thousands of people to start donating money to us at our Web site. Three weeks after it was put up, half of all the people in the United States had heard about that ad and about us and yet there had never been a story about us on ABC, NBC, or CBS or in the New York Times. At that point, people began laughing, I believe, at the mainline media. It became obvious they were suppressing the story. The critical factor was that it was the truth. I think anyone of good faith would believe Kerry's post-Vietnam activities were clearly a campaign issue. So once the facts about those came out, the story was almost impossible to suppress. The media was like the dutch boy, keeping its fingers in the dike to stop the story from flowing out. It just got to a point where it got beyond them. There weren't enough fingers.
Adam's Apple said:Excellent article, Kathianne. I would encourage everyone on the board to read it to get a first-hand, personal account of how liberal bias works in the media. This article really demonstrates that when politics enters the picture--be it a political race or a war--the mainstream press corps is, without doubt, BLINDLY POLITICAL.
Although I am unable at this time to increase your rep points, I did give your article a 5-star rating under "Rate Thread".
