How to wake the media up? With all the BIG NEWS this week in addition to the tragic death of Jett Travolta, why isn't the media picking it up AT ALL? While Counterknowledge has picked it up, they are not considered to be major media but looked at as a blog. The lawsuit is only coming up in blog searches, nothing else. Even creative searches using not-so-common keywords bring up nothing in the news. Free PR sites are for scilons, this needs major media. Other than sending tips repeatedly to news outlets such as CNN, Fox, NBC (particularly the Today Show), Drudge, Glosslip, and even TMZ, wtf can be done to wake journalists up to the fact that the biggest, most potentially damaging lawsuit against Scientology has been filed and that the scilon response so far has been silence? The media has been awfully silent on this as well. Knowing that the media has jumped on things waaaaay too early in the past (hello, Dan Rather), are they playing this cautiously? If so, why? Not even the smoking gun has picked up the paperwork. The media in general was fairly quick to jump on the couch-jumping point and laugh attitude towards scientology, and Jett's death has brought up other aspects that has clearly outraged at least part of the scientology public as well as journalists and wanna-be journalists. However, when it comes to legalities, the only thing that got the media's attention is the Riverside ordinance (thank you AGP and GB). THIS IS GOOD, but not good enough. This, to me, should be made a priority. Maybe worrying about press releases or putting out a video and spending 3 long weeks on it should be set aside in favor of using simple pointers to the scilon anger over KSW and direct links to filed paperwork. I don't know. Hivemind please? Any other thoughts? Is this, or is this not, as important as I think it is?
Re: How to wake the media up? I think the amount of articles which either implicitly or explicitly linked Jetts death with scientology was pretty huge. I'm not sure how much more you want them to pick up.
Re: How to wake the media up? There's more than Jett and the scilon view on medical issues at work this week. Maybe the media is shy of picking up anything more? Why they're not is what is befuddling. When Enron began collapsing, the media was jumping on anything and everything having to do with it. This is a bigger collapse that will impact more people and the media fell asleep at the wheel.
Re: How to wake the media up? ^this media's waking up, they wake up more with every big event. we just have to keep doing what we're doing =)
Re: How to wake the media up? Is any of it news? I know there is a ton of factual stuff you can blogg and put on websites but for mainstream media how much of it is news? The first real piece of news in ages and most of them ran with the ball and actually covered the story for like a week already. As cbb said just keep pushing info out there and when the next big news story hits hopefully all that work does to that story the same thing that's happened this week.
Re: How to wake the media up? We haven't succeeded in tying the BFG lawsuit that accuses Gold Base and Golden Era with: forced labor, labor law violations and physical abuse of employees with: the new ordnance in Riverside which makes it illegal for people to protest the forced labor, labor law violations and physical abuse of employees with help from the county government and enforcement provided by the police. If media were to do much research at all they could find similar examples of scientology's inappropriate and probably illegal influence in government and the justice system. A few examples come immediately to mind: 1. The new Riverside Ordnance 2. Garcetti's granting of large scale, long term street closures on LRH for the sci's for nearly a third of the year for many years. 3. Ava Paquette's husband being in charge of prosecuting RICO crimes in LA County when scientology appears to be committing crimes that should be prosecuted under the statute. 4. The convenient presence of a scientolgist Assistant DA in the SF Org. when Tommy Gorman was assaulted. 5. The large scale non-compliance with building and zoning regulations at Gold Base which Graham references in his latest report. 6. The numerous 911 emergency calls that scientology admits to making when the imminent danger amounted to only three guys with signs and a reporter. Followed by the hour long private discussion the police had with the sci's which resulted in the police delivering an "interpretation" of the new ordnance. 7. Scientology's stated goal of infiltrating government at the local, state and federal government. 8. Scientology's history of having achieved goal #7 and been caught at it, not only in the US but also in Canada, Morocco and Greece. 9. The ability to get Gregg prosecuted in Massachusetts even though there was exactly zero evidence to support the claim.
Re: How to wake the media up? I'm pretty sure that until Suri shows up dead under mysterious circumstances with only $cientologists as witnesses, that nobody in the media is going to do fuck all. GOD FORBID she winds up a teen before their bullshit winds up in a strange "accident" while she's off at $cilontololligy "retreat," but have you noticed that of all the reports we've seen, not one's been of her actually verbalizing? The moar past "cute rugrat" a child is when such deaths occur, apparently the fewer media cycles the press stays interested. 5th Estate has a LOT to answer for on this one. They don't want the whole story to come out, cause people will begin to wonder just how the fuck they let this one "slip by."
Re: How to wake the media up? Whoa whoa.....let's reign back in a little on the Suri speculation just yet...lol
Re: How to wake the media up? Well, I'm not trying to start a flame war... it just seems to me that Jett was about as heinous as it gets. Amazingly, Lisa McPhereson's death seemed to have produced moar outrage among the OG than the death of a child. I guess it "hit closer to home" back then, but even THEY were on the fence (evidenced by OCMB moralfaggotry - "Leave Brittany Alone!") about pushing the story back when it had legs. The "buy in" for the media seems to be death. "If it bleeds, it leads." Perhaps that's why $cientologists usually turn up with only a few marks (roach bites) on their bodies, but otherwise tend not to wind up with massive external injuries. Easier to sweep under the rug; dunno. What I mean about Suri isn't a "death wish," just an observation that killing a disabled adolescent doesn't seem to have done the trick.
Re: How to wake the media up? I wasn't saying it was a death wish, but so far I haven't seen anything indicating that Suri is anything other than a 'normal' pampered toddler of movie stars. I was just saying let's not roam into wild speculation territory here.
Re: How to wake the media up? well I believe that we can blame the political news on the lack of mainstream pick up. that in mind the blog world was entirely on our side no doubt.
Re: How to wake the media up? Media treats Scientology as a big corporation. They are scared shitless of a lawsuit (as is most of America).
Re: How to wake the media up? some ideas as to why there are no reports on the lawsuit: enough Scientology coverage due to Jett's death They've read the Letterese stuff and think this is similarly strange/baseless They haven't heard about it yet They want to see how it plays out and report when the suit moves forward
Re: How to wake the media up? What leafs said + wheels of justice turn slowly, especially on a test case. and with the long long history of cult litigation and sealed settlements w/ gag orders, in many respects this may be deemed as "eh, another lawsuit that will come & go" until actual court dates roll around. this is gonna be one of those situations played out over time, and wont start to ripen till a jury is selected. hivemind needs a dose of patience here, BIG things take time.
Re: How to wake the media up? The lawsuit, is the big news. The unforntunate death of Mr. Travolta's son cannot be directly tied to Scientology abuses, but they have very obviously violated labor laws. In fact, this could ultimately lead to having them ruled "not" a religion, which would lose them their tax exempt statis and make it alot easier to demand a finantial accounting from them, which would be "the end" for them as alot of their illegal activitys could be traced through "following the money". I think a major amount of Anonymous's efforts should be spent on "publisizing" the law suit. How about signs on Jan 17th , saying " Scientology Enslaves" and mentioning the labor laws and human rights abuses together? ( they are actually one in the same) Wording is important. Anyone with sign wording (or pic's) ideas?
Re: How to wake the media up? This thread is about media attention for the labor lawsuit, not anon or Scientology in general, which is why I moved it to the situation room. One thing which can be done is to contact bloggers and journalists who write about labor law. These people may not be interested so much in who the litigants are, but about the case itself. Lawsuits are slow-news, except when it's about celebrities getting arrested or emergency injunctions in elections and stuff. Journalists may already be getting familiar with the case and working on stories - but that's no reason to sit back and wait. One warning though, is that too much media attention before the case makes it to trial might influence the jury pool. I am not a lawyer, so I don't know where the limits are for that.
Re: How to wake the media up? Doesn't "the smoking gun" post relevent data about celebs? I mean Travolta's and Cruise's "church" being sued for labor law violations? Isn't that a big deal?
Re: How to wake the media up? smoking gun has gotten awfully 'tabloid' in recent years, every since the TV show started seems to be moar smoke less gun. i'd have more hope geraldo would pick it up before they would. but good thought there... maybe we should come up with a short list of ideal media figures & talking heads where this story would make a good fit. i have half formed thought to ponder some moar... Lou Dobbs. Headley's lawsuit plus the extremely damaging rebuttals the cult submitted on new Visa regulations that OTBT dug up almost makes the perfect fodder for a classic Lou series of investgations & analysis if we can easily tie Labor Laws + Illegal Alien exploitation. And that only take one interview w/ Headley. http://forums.whyweprotest.net/123-...ons-reduce-religious-worker-visa-fraud-33875/ any more good candidates like Lou?
Re: How to wake the media up? I really wish 60minutes would pick this up . Dem niggaz are hardcore . They did a really really good story on them before , it would be nice to see a follow up . Hmmmmmm how to contact ? I'll look into it . Turds
Re: How to wake the media up? an organized concerted spamming of talk radio might do something. we'd need to make sure we had our talking points covered though.
Re: How to wake the media up? Jett was the son of a celebrity. The media does only care about celebrities and will only report about news that have to do with celebrities. If you need media's attention for a news story, connect the story to the name of a celebrity.
Re: How to wake the media up? I don't think we need to worry about influencing the "jury pool", after all, this is just a Civil Suit..not a murder trial and the average citizen doesn't know anything about the Church of Scientology, except that some celebritys " believe" in it. The more information ( truth) we get out there,the better! Lets go for it!!
