we saw that...

gannett/town talk back up to old tricks again - misleading readers about 26 february 2008 alexandria city council meeting

in today's gannett/town talk, alexandria city government column (see link), the reporter karina donica, incompetently witholds two very important items on the tuesday 26 february 2008 alexandria city council agenda.

in one instance ms. donica inexplicably leaves out reporting that the louisiana state attorney general's office is scheduled to do a 'presentation' to the alexandria city council on open meetings law.

anytime a public body is practically ordered, although the official face-saving excuse given, is that the city council "agreed" (under threat of the attorney general filing for injunctive relief) to a presentation like this, it is certainly news worthy - except to gannett and the town talk.

F. NEW BUSINESS

To hear a presentation from Charlie Braud from the Attorney General’s Office on Open Meetings Law.

18) To consider final adoption of an ordinance authorizing the Mayor to enter into a Professional Services Agreement with KJA Communications Group for the maintenance and production of programming for the City’s Government Access Channel and development of the City’s web site. (LEGAL 2/12:DELAY & 2/26) ~ source

another city council agenda item ms. donica, conveniently, leaves out of her 'report' is news that final adoption of the kja communications group contract is back again on the city council legal committee agenda. this is despite the fact that at the previous city council meeting the council stressed the need to refer proposals such as this to the rfp (request for proposals) process. yet not one word is reported from the town talk about what gives.

another point the town talk fails to mention or even ask questions of relating to the "production and programming of the city's government access channel and development of the city's web site" is that - again from the previous city council meeting the council delayed discussion and enactment of rules and regulations governing the use of channel four and the city's website. doesnt it make more sense for the city to have rules and regulations in place before awarding a contract (to anyone) for the development of same?

something very funny is going on here and none of the media will investigate at the very least channel four to get to the bottom of what it is. the town talk has no excuse for not investigating this when it was just yesterday billy gunn was sexing up the town talk and his own investigative prowess LOL over the down town houseboats controversy. mr. gunn wrote:

Up to five boats at one time were moored near the Levee Park Amphitheatre when The Town Talk started looking into the free dockings in the summer of 2006. The owners of at least three of the boats have since moved them. emphasis added - source

it looks like the town talk very carefully picks and chooses who and what it "looks into." in this case the town talk didnt have any problem dogging out the houseboat owners, even attempting to make mr. tanner appear crazy whilst giving a pass to certain other powerful corporate and governmental interests involving the expenditure of hundreds of thousands (if not a million or more in the aggregate) of taxpayer dollars.

wst... has learned that after we posted about the city of alexandria/kja communjications group contract, that on at least two separate occasions in the past several weeks mr. david pugh (owner of kja communications group) has been phoning around in a desperate attempt to quash any mention - especially out here on the blogosphere - of the kja - city of alexandria contract.

this might help to explain why the corporate media looks the other way over whats really going on with channel four, when after all you consider that kja communications group is an advertising agency. so its not unreasonable to assume that kja threatened to pull their clients advertising from the town talk if they continued to report on the contract now is it? if this is indeed true, one has to wonder if kja's clients agree to being used as pawns this way?

the corporate media always protects their corporate pals.

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