 BARBWIRE
by ANDREW BARBANO
 Last
summer, had anyone dared utter that the DeBartolo family has had some
curious associations with organized crime, Reno leaders would have boiled
tar and feathers. The fat cats were then busily vacuuming the local
jockocracy for $2.5 million to get the San Francisco 49ers to move their
training camp to Reno.About eight years ago,
the San Francisco Chronicle printed a major exposé on the DeBartolos.
The story showed Eddie the Lesser's tribe up to their wealthy necks
in Cleveland mobsters. Apparently the news media collectively forgot
all about it during the 49ers' recent regionwide corporate welfare drives.
Eddie, Jr., spent advertising megabucks to barely convince San Francisco
taxpayers to back a new stadium and megamall.I guess the fans will
continue to adore the 'Niners and their locker room brothers no matter
what an expensive and corrupting influence they may prove to be. Al
Davis, California's second-biggest welfare queen, is currently tapping
Oakland taxpayers for millions to make up for sports stadium red ink.
Ripping off the populace is somehow perfectly respectable if perpetrated
by businessmen in three-piece suits or team jackets.Ken McCarthy established
an entire website (www.e-media.com/stadium) tracking the 49er campaign.
He told me he hasn't seen a thing from that Chronicle piece in the seven
years he's lived in the Bay Area. It certainly didn't see ink in Nevada
as the small pond tadpoles sucked up to the big bay frogs. Indeed, the
big worry here was that the NFL might be reluctant to become associated
with (shush!) gambling."During the stadium election,
they never even mentioned (DeBartolo's) involvement in the legal gambling
industry," McCarthy says.Given the recent revelations
of Little Eddie's looming Louisiana gambling-related fraud indictment,
that story may finally get revived. But will it make much difference?
Increasingly, profit dictates the news you are allowed to see, or not
see.Which brings me to a
feisty documentary entitled "Fear and Favor in the Newsroom," a show
about censorship which is getting censored nationwide. Though narrated
by Chicago hometown hero Studs Terkel, only intense pressure from Chicago
Media Watch got WTTW to schedule it. A few labor union calls and an
obscure writer just helped convince Reno's KNPB TV-5 to do so. (It will
air at 9:00 p.m. on Feb. 20.) That makes just five markets to date.The program painfully
portrays corporate and government influence keeping you and me blissfully
in the dark. If information is power, this show demonstrates how increasingly
powerless the undermonied are becoming. Car dealers and Coca Cola influence
the news you never seeOne segment shows how
major TV networks uniformly killed video of dead women and children
during the Gulf War. We didn't want to believe pro-life George Bush,
compliant Gen. Powell and huggy bear Stormin' Norman were really baby
killers, did we? The war proved too popular for the truth.Going through the motions
like actual journalists, the major media dutifully presented both sides
of the story: anti-war or support-the-troops. Apparently no one in the
western world was pro-war during 1991, not even George Bush. The only
warmongers were them ragheads who talked funny. And we sure showed them
the consequences of being pro-war.Dead workers don't count,
either. "In all, there were more than a dozen American firms where (Guatemalan)
workers attempting to organize unions were assassinated," noted TV news
producer Allan Nairn says. "At the Coca-Cola plant, more than a dozen
workers were assassinated," he states.On the domestic front,
the program points out how Atlanta-based Coke's influence has tainted
corporate coverage at its hometown paper, the once-prestigious Atlanta
Journal-Constitution."Fear & Favor" reveals
how the PBS News Hour softened a report about Nevada and California
nuke dumping. Itdemonstrates how powerful the nuclear utility industry
and the government can be when suppressing negative nuclear news. No
less than the New York Times killed a major story about Long Island
nuke power plant problems.Not even Pulitzer Prize
winners are immune. Sydney Schanberg of "Killing Fields" fame was fired
from the Times for writing a column on New York City corruption. He
later became one of a courageous few who sued to break the Pentagon's
total control of Gulf War news. None of the major media reported it,
let alone joined it.In a segment reminiscent
of several Nevada scandals, Fear & Favor tells of San Jose car dealers
successfully pressuring the San Jose Mercury News.You can preview audio
and video of the program at http://www.speakeasy.org/citizen/netcasts.html.
Call and mail your friends far and wide to persuade their local PBS
affiliates to air this important work.Let program directors
know you want the awful truth. For Las Vegas and Tucson, you can kill
two birds with one stone by contacting patty_thaxton@kuat.pbs.org or
calling (520) 299-1866. KLVX TV-10 can be reached at 4210 Channel 10
Drive, Las Vegas NV, (702) 799-1010.Be well. Raise hell.
Andrew
Barbano, a Reno-based syndicated columnist and 29-year Nevadan,
is editor of U-News. Barbwire by Barbano
has appeared in the Sparks Tribune since 1988. A condensed version of
this column appeared in the 12-10-97 Reno News & Review.Nevada Instant Type in Sparks and both Office Depot Reno locations. |
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Copyright © 1982-2015
Andrew Barbano
Andrew Barbano is a 46-year Nevadan, editor of NevadaLabor.com and JoeNeal.org; and former chair of the City of Reno's Citizens Cable Compliance Committee. He is producer of Nevada's annual César Chávez Day celebration and serves as first vice-president, political action chair and webmaster of the Reno-Sparks NAACP. As always, his opinions are strictly his own. E-mail barbano@frontpage.reno.nv.us.
Barbwire by Barbano moved to Nevada's Daily Sparks Tribune on Aug. 12, 1988, and has originated in them parts ever since.
Whom to blame: How a hall-of-famer's hunch birthed the Barbwire in August of 1987
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