2002-12-31 Copy as sent is below. cpmwg-ds.txt ============ Whenever you get a spokesperson to endorse our meeting for a new series of channel 11 forums, immediately notify Bob at: bgf@aaahawk.com. The latest draft of the CPMWG letter to Schmidt is posted here, www.laborbeat.org/3/cpmwg-ds.txt. (If that page is not readable via all browsers, please tell Bob.) ================= A possible email text for gathering some endorsements quickly! -------------------------------------------------------------- Subject: broadcast forums Dear ..., The Chicago Progressive Media Working Group is calling on Channel Eleven's boss, Dan Schmidt, to work with CPMWG on new broadcasts on progressive issues we identify. The draft of our letter to Schmidt, including the endorsers list, is at www.laborbeat.org/3/cpmwg-ds.txt . IF YOUR ORGANIZATION WANTS TO BE LISTED AMONG THE ENDORSERS, PLEASE SAY SO in a reply to this message. (You might also mention topics for broadcasts in which you want to participate.) If you know spokespersons for other appropriate groups, please ask them to endorse, too. You might send them emails something like this one. Yours truly, ... ================ ====== DRAFT [[20021231]] DRAFT [[20021231]] DRAFT [[20021231]] ======= AS SENT Dec. 31. Endorsers still being gathered for future materials. CHICAGO PROGRESSIVE MEDIA WORKING GROUP 3411 W. Diversey / Chicago 60647 December 31, 2002 Daniel J. Schmidt President and Chief Executive Officer, WTTW-TV Window To The World Communications, Inc (WWCI) 5400 North Saint Louis Avenue Chicago, Illinois 60625-4698 Re: Meeting, January 12 Dear Mr. Schmidt, We would like a special meeting with you very soon on matters of utmost urgency. People of the Chicago area have not been sufficiently able to advance great democratic dialogs on matters of the greatest importance. And this is in spite of the fact that we have significant public resources for creating forums. We have resources such as the channel 11 educational television license, and the tax exemptions offered donors to your corporation to produce "Network Chicago" programs. Major new broadcast forums, expanding on the format of past WWCI efforts, must be created. The most urgent topic is, without doubt, how the planned war is affecting and may affect the people of the world. Especially in Iraq, the Middle East widely, and the U.S. Including the people of metropolitan Chicago. A war of bombings, gassings, horrible diseases and radiation, terror, and economic suffering. Affecting people pressed into military combat and countless innocent noncombatants. And families and friends. And our communities. In imminent days, and for decades to come. Even the most bellicose media companies are now reporting that a very large, growing, number of community groups, church organizations, labor federations, teachers, elected officials, and other citizens are trying to promote public dialog that might limit or prevent pending disasters. Our meeting with you is to line up specific resources for the new forums. We ask that you be accompanied by senior executive producers with whom we will continue to work in the days after the meeting. Your own presence is absolutely necessary, since major reallocations of broadcast time and other budgeted resources will be involved. For instance, entire evenings might be devoted to several hours of Chicagoans' live discussions after broadcast of pertinent documentaries such as John Pilger's "Paying the Price: Killing the Children of Iraq," and Audrey Brohy and Gerard Ungerman's "Hidden Wars of Desert Storm". Future forums will continue on the war issues, and on topics such as the concentration of media power; religious, racial, and cultural relations; current and threatened slashes in support for public health and education; the disappearance of civil liberties as powers are assumed by and abused by the military and the police; and other issues raised by local community organizations and working class people. Our meeting with you and your producers is scheduled for Sunday, January 12, 3 p.m., at 3411 W. Diversey. Please confirm by January 3 by calling Bob Gallie at 708-863-8591. Or, if the 12th presents a conflict for you, please suggest some alternate dates. Yours truly, Bob Gallie, for CPMWG P.s. Groups, as of today, endorsing this request for you to meet with CPMWG include: Chicago Progressive Media Working Group, Chicago Anti-Bashing Network, Chicago Coalition for the Homeless, Chicago Media Watch, Citizens for Independent Public Broadcasting - Chicago, and Voices in the Wilderness. ===== End of draft -------- [[]] ATTENTION: NOTES ABOUT THE FINAL DRAFT: [[SENT Dec. 31! Express Mail. Received January 2 at WTTW-TV]] [[Possibly pending additional endorsers still include: American Friends Service Committee, Chicago Coalition Against War and Racism, Chicago Filmmakers, Chicago Jobs with Justice, Chicago Peace Response Coalition, Chicagoans Against War on Iraq, DuPage Peace Through Justice Coalition, Eighth Day Center for Justice, Evanston Neighbors for Peace, Hammerhard Press, Illinois Peace Action, Labor Beat. And Christian Peacemaker Teams, North Suburban Peace Initiative, CIPB, FAIR and Women in the Directors Chair.]] ======= END OF NOTES