we saw that...

klax: wm earl hilton to be sworn in 29 june 2012; resurrects bill robinson as chief deputy

yep

click picture to enlargewww.klax-tv.com

ex r.p.s.o. deputies raymond edwards and hayden paul fire back at sheriff wagner

the below advertisement was paid for by raymond edwards and hayden paul and was published on page A-6 of the sunday 30 march 2008 edition of the gannett/alexandria daily town talk.

click here to download one page .pdf

rapides parish sheriff chuck wagner admits he lied for 'political reasons'

kalb getting set to do another fluff piece on rapides parish sheriff chuck wagner

in the easter sunday 10 pm news cast, kalb's leigh culbert announced that kalb will be sitting down this week with rapides parish, louisiana sheriff chuck wagner. you can tell its gonna be a fluff piece by the way its announced in that ms. culbert recites the obviously erroneous line that the staff changes are "part of the normal process any police agency goes through in its day-to-day operations." this is a patently disingenuous thing to say, considering all the documented evidence to the contrary. all kalb is trying to do here is subliminally plant that seed in your mind that everything is ok, its just normal bidness.

rapides parish sheriff links page 2008

turmoil in rapides parish sheriff's office: former reverend dr. chaplain/deputy hardison calls sheriff wagner 'unprofessional' and a liar

click here to download 6 page .pdf

more rapides parish sheriff chuck wagner controversy

according to central la politics (see link) rapides parish sheriff chuck wagner "has disbanded the Neighborhood Patrol Unit of his department...The dozen or so deputies...patrol the rural areas of the parish and to check on elderly or handicapped shut-ins."

sources tell wst... that sheriff wagner is refusing to explain this rather disturbing development, especially in light of the fact that all during the sheriff election campaign, sheriff wagner always maintained that the parish was underpatrolled and how he intended to up the sheriff office patrols.

word on the street is that this is part and parcel with the the new sheriff's plan to eventually purge the sheriff's office of all hilton/slocum supporters to replace them with his own cronies...

gannet/town talk drops a dime on sheriff wagner/media general/kalb/emails/p.i.o. scam

ya know, if the town talk continues to read blogs - thats blogs plural, they might finally learn just what their readers expect of them and how to do investigative journalism.

in todays town talk (see link) reporter abbey brown apparently delivers the goods. for instance we learn that a chuck wagner campaign worker: mr. heath crawford, was hired by media general/kalb on 12 november 2007 which was five days before the run-off election and three days before kalb news director michele godard went on ksyl radio to talk about kalb's hi-falutin media standards.

after reading ms. brown's town talk story one is left wondering whether or not mr. crawford gave ms. godard any tips on what to say in her interview or if he gave any suggestions to any of the pro-wagner supporters, like for example karla ryder and her husband kurt ryder who called in that morning.

ms. godard's own words in that interview would seem to indicate that media general/kalb was unethical in hiring a wagner campaign worker during a political campaign and while at the same time they were engaged in a major media campaign (err hatchet job, err news report) against mr. wagner's opponent - mike slocum.

media general/kalb/mike magnoli fluff piece on chuck wagner/heath crawford rapides parish sheriff email scandal

the above clip aired tonight on kalb-tv on the 6:00 pm news. the complete thirteen minute nine second interview is found on kalb.com at this link.

first off this is nothing but a fluff piece designed to make the sheriff look good while totally ignoring or intentionally misdirecting the public's attention away from more important questions like on what date exactly was heath crawford employed by media general/kalb. was it before the run-off election of 17 november 2007? the only mention to that is briefly in mr. magnoli's write-up for the interview:

Sheriff Wagner says Heath Crawford (who was briefly employed in KALB's Marketing Dept) was not authorized to contact the news media with any statements for RPSO.

and yesterday:

notice that brenda kaiser even saved at least one of our posts to her computer's hard drive:

close-up
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the town talk too

why wont kalb go ahead and fess up and tell us the dates of mr. crawfords employment -- the sheriff went ahead and owned up to mr. crawfords working for his campaign even if he tried to minimize it. so kalb needs to come clean - especially after all the hullabaloo kalb caused during the sheriff race.

mr. magnoli asked sheriff wagner who is the current public relations officer for the sheriff's office and sheriff wagner replied that its herman walters. now thats odd especially when you recall the interview then sheriff hilton gave around 05 november 2007 to mr. magnoli's boss, kalb news director michele godard. in that interview sheriff hilton insinuated that mr. walters had mental problems and did go so far as to state that mr. walters is "paranoid" and that mr. walters "was imagining [things] that was happening -- that wasnt happening..." now we learn that mr. walters is the public relations officer? that doesnt make any sense and tends to strongly suggest that sheriff wagner does play the political payback game...which leads us back again to whats the real story with mr. crawford?

later on in mr. magnoli's interview sheriff wagner says that he wants to do something about the drug problem knowing full well no police force anywhere is gonna do a damn thing about drugs. for one thing the federal government isnt gonna let them stop the availability of drugs.

sadly, but not unexpectantly, nowhere in the interview, does sheriff wagner make any mention whatsoever about investigating any of the political, governmental and white-collar criminals or crime arising out of rapides parish, louisiana. thats because the sheriff's office just like the rapides parish district attorney's have always cast a blind eye towards the blueblood criminals -- although, if they did do something about political, governmental and white-collar crime that would probably take care of about ninty percent of the "drug problem."

this interview of mr. magnoli's was nothing but an attempt at a whitewash on kalb's part generally and bullshit specifically.

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see also central la politics blog
sheriff wagner's 'crawford-gate'

in which that blog points out that kalb and mr. magnoli didnt even bother to get mr. crawford's side of the story for this piece.

snip:

Something else is also clear. KALB Television's credibility has sunk to new lows, if that is possible [...] (KALB) does its fluff piece interview with Wagner, without even checking with Crawford for his side of the story and documentary evidence, like Abby (sic) Brown of the Town Talk did.

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related posts

latest gannett/town talk/wagner/kalb/crawford story leaves more questions than answers

cynthia jardon: kalb 'beyond the pale'

did the central la media and sheriff wagner just get punk'd?

did media general/kalb fail to disclose a conflict of interest in the 2007 rapides parish sheriff race?

crystal meth is rapides champaign powder

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latest gannett/town talk/wagner/kalb/crawford story leaves more questions than answers

once again the town talk's half-assed and shoddy reporting is apparent. in their most recent 'news' story posted to the town talk's website this morning (see link). again the town talk fails to get to the bottom of the heath crawford's r.p.s.o. employment/kalb/wagner campaign/email status.

why wont the town talk release or at the very least state from where mr. crawford's email(s) originated? oh and now we learn that mr. crawford faxed some news releases so what telephone number did these faxes originate from? this shouldnt be that hard to figure out since most fax machines stamp the originating telephone number at the top of the fax. as far as the emails thats even easier- did they come from an rpso email account and if so, then how did mr. crawford gain access to an rpso email account if he wasnt employed by or authorized by proper authority (the sheriff) to do so?

notice that the town talk has never bothered to print the dates of mr. crawford's kalb employment other than his last day at kalb was friday 15 february 2008. the town talk dont dare print that because if it is true that mr. crawford worked for kalb during the sheriff election then people would be questioning the town talk why they didnt report that a media general/kalb employee was working for the wagner campaign back during the sheriff election campaign. after all, the town talk endorsed mike slocum - or at least pretended to.

you think that central louisiana's media community dont know each other and know what the other is up to? they might not know what specific stories the other is working on at any given time but they do know each other and talk to each other. michele godard in her 15 november 2007 ksyl interview said that she talks to the town talk's abbey brown [.mp3 clip 560kb] who just happens to be the very same reporter who's writing these crawford/wagner stories.

dont forget the husband and wife team of jim leggett and babs zimmerman. jim leggett was at the town talk while babs zimmerman worked at kalb. isnt it reasonable to assume that they talked about developments with each other? perhaps even coordinating their respective 'news' organizations individual reports to sculpt the message about any given 'news' event?

its looking to us like the town talk probably inadvertently blew the lid off a massive scam involving kalb and the wagner campaign (notice that sheriff wagner has never denied that mr. crawford worked for his campaign) and now they cant do anything but offer up absurd, half-assed 'news' reports in an effort to control and misdirect the attention away from the real story at least until public attention wanes.

cynthia jardon: kalb 'beyond the pale'

a gannett/town talk editor, cynthia jardon, takes the rapides parish sheriff's office and some local media to task over the developing heath crawford/p.i.o. scandal.

the thing is though, is that the media, the town talk included, will not release mr. crawford's original and complete email(s) that touched off the firestorm to begin with.

for instance, if the media would release the complete email(s) with the headers intact, the public could see if the email(s) were sent by mr. crawford from an official rapides parish sheriff office email account such as webmaster@rpso.org [source: contact r.p.s.o.] or did they come from a non-rpso account such as a hotmail or yahoo email account. we could also check the originating i.p. number contained in the email header to see if it resolves from an official rpso email server or not.

in a 'news' article published by the town talk today it points out:

In an interview with The Town Talk on Friday regarding the e-mail sent by Crawford, Wagner did not mention that Crawford was not employed as the director of public affairs.

sheriff wagner released the above very oddly worded statement sometime yesterday that a town talk story chat commenter "rpcitizen" remarked:

The "letter" from the sheriff posted by the Town Talk reads as though it were written by a child. The letter (actually a paragraph) is written in both first and third person format, and there is no clarification at all regarding the employment of Heath Crawford.

meanwhile, kalb's mike magnoli is supposed to 'interview' sheriff wagner this morning about all this to be aired tonight at 6:00 pm.

did the central la media and rapides parish sheriff chuck wagner just get punk'd?

UPDATE :cynthia jardon: kalb 'beyond the pale'

did media general/kalb fail to disclose a conflict of interest in the 2007 rapides parish sheriff's race?

UPDATE: did the central la media and sheriff chuck wagner just get punk'd?

in the 2007 rapides parish sheriff's race much ta-doo was made over a rumor that should he win, kalb news director michele godard was going to become chuck wagner's public information officer. these rumors began around the time that ms. godard and kalb aired what some called hit pieces against mr. wagner's opponent mike slocum.

the first one called "race for rapides sheriff political maneuvering" was posted to kalb.com on 02 november 2007 on 05 november 2008 sheriff hilton responded with "rapides parish sheriff hilton responds to threat allegation" and that was followed on 07 november 2007 by "rpso deputies speak out."

on 13 november 2007 kalb hosted "rapides parish sheriff candidate debate" later that night on the 10:00 p.m..news, ms. godard and kalb general manager les golman in "kalb responds to biased reporting allegations" made a big deal out of reporting among other things that "mr. slocum’s campaign made demands on news channel 5 for the removal of its news director michele godard from the scheduled debate"

there is probably a lot more sheriff race news videos on kalb.com and dont be surprised if they all suddenly disappear from kalb.


on thursday 15 november 2007 two days ahead of the run-off election ms. godard appeared on local talk radio station ksyl. according to the above clip from that appearance ms. godard was there to "represent the television station to clear up a couple of things." the very first question posed to her by dave graichen before even a good morning was "ok the big question i got michele are you going to go work as p.r. for the sheriff's department?" after a round of laughter by all, ms. godard responds "no of course not i'am not qualified for that job...i wouldnt even know how to be a p.i.o. i have some suggestions of course"

the end result was that chuck wagner prevailed over mike slocum by some 1,398 votes. on electronic voting machines we might add.

link

on election night, saturday 17 november 2007, michele godard interviewed chuck wagner [video] among the first words out of sheriff-elect wagner's mouth were "i want to thank bill [robinson] and his family and his supporters for coming out and getting behind us and we're just truly blessed." that night the last question asked of mr. wagner by ms. godard was "alright let's clear the air here - are you going to hire me as your p.i.o.?" mr. wagner said "thats not true. i know the rumors going around but you know i've put everything in writing, what i was going to do. it's on my website, if you havent seen it i encourage you to go look at it and thats what i did i put it in writing, so i can be held accountable and thats what government needs to do - not only the sheriff's office, but any office needs to be held accountable and i look forward to that." in lightof recent revelations, one has to wonder if the viewers werent the butt of a huge inside joke that night.

now flash forward to 16 february 2008 and the town talk story by abbey brown "new policy restricts media's access to employees of sheriff's office" (download two page .pdf here) we learn that the sheriff wagner's new p.i.o. is heath crawford. the town talk reports that mr. crawford "most recently worked at kalb-tv as a producer and in marketing." no thanks to the town talk and their trademark half-assed reporting (notice how they always leave out the most obvious and most important parts of stories) doesnt bother to find out or if they did find out the town talk suppressed the date that mr. crawford began work at kalb.

although the town talk reported that mr. crawford said that "his last day at kalb was friday." which would have been friday 15 february 2008 there is some confusion there too, because a press release from the rapides parish sheriff's office by mr. crawford dated thursday 14 february 2008 is posted to kalb.com:

link

not much is known about mr. crawford. the internet movie database mini-biography entry for 'director heath crawford' ends in 2004. although, the filmography lists mr. crawford as working in 2006 and 2007 as a camera operator for several episodes of "my own" jennifer lopez.

link

mr. crawford's myspace is set to private but a blurb that is publicly viewable, mr. crawford assures us that he is "a lover not a fighter...but i'll still kick your ass!!"

mr. crawford's website at www.outoflinefilms.com doesnt have contain any biographical information either. it does list two addresses in the contact information, one in north hollywood, california and one in alexandria. louisiana.

so the obvious question that everyone should be asking is when did mr. crawford go to work at kalb? was he working at kalb during the 2007 rapides parish sheriff race when he was also candidate bill robinson's campaign manager and then chuck wagner's campaign manager? did he produce any of the news stories or the candidate forum 'debates'? if so, why wasnt any of this disclosed by kalb?

these are important questions that need answering especially due to mr. crawfords profession as a "director" and "producer" and his hollywood connection. the kennedy-nixon presidential debates in 1960 showed the power of television as an instrument of political manipulation...

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related posts

did the central la media and sheriff chuck wagner just get punk'd?

cynthia jardon: kalb 'beyond the pale'

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R.A.P.E.S.O.

www.thedeadpelican.com
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yeah, but was he a wagner or a slocum supporter?

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video: hilton and slocum discuss sheriff race loss

rapides parish sheriff race: wagner wins!

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according to the complete but unofficial results from the sec'y of state website, chuck wagner has defeated maj. mike slocum to become rapides parish's next sheriff.

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chuck wagner election night

rapides parish sheriff race: is chuck wagner a corporate tool?

ksyl: michele godard to be on show thursday 15 november 2007

UPDATED here

rapides parish sheriff candidate forum

update kalb has the video up on their website click here

kalb televised a rapides parish sheriff candidates forum tonight. we guess before long the video will be on kalb's website here or here.

maj. mike slocum

chuck wagner

rapides parish sheriff race: a deputy on 'intimidation'

'paw paw' is a local blogger who just happens to be a rapides parish sheriff's deputy and a slocum supporter.

in a recent blog post (see link) 'paw paw' weighs in on the 'intimidation' factor some deputy's are complaining of in the upcoming (17 november 2007) rapides sheriff race run-off between maj. mike slocum and chuck wagner.

although we havent decided who we will vote for or even if we will bother to vote in this particular race, we agree with paw paw when he writes:

Lawmen shouldn’t be easily intimidated.If you are easily intimidated, either by the people or by your bosses, then you will do things that aren’t in keeping with your oath. The oath of a lawman is a powerful thing and requires that you might spend your life in keeping it.

I find that during this political campaign, there are a number of deputies who say they’ve been intimidated.

I say Bullshit.