Howell Campaign Petitions FCC to Investigate Debate

Channel 7 Tells MassNews It Was Not Involved in Decision

By Ed Oliver
September 27, 2002

The Carla Howell campaign formally petitioned the FCC yesterday, asking them to "extensively investigate and strenuously intervene into the government-licensed TV cartel that is excluding her from the October 1st Governor's Debate."

It charges that the media consortium is excluding Howell in order to avoid a large turnout of freedom-minded, pro-gun, pro-tax cut voters that might be energized by her message on television.

Meanwhile, WHDH Channel 7 spokesperson Ro Dooley Webster tells MassNews that they are receiving numerous phone calls. But she said WHDH was not part of the meeting that decided to exclude Carla Howell and Green candidate Jill Stein from the debate.

Webster explained that the upcoming October 1 program was put together by a consortium of media partners months ago. The consortium consisted of Channels 2, 4, 5, 7 and New England Cable News along with The Boston Globe as the only print partner.

"We were all working together to get that debate either on television or in the Globe. The details of it had not been worked out until recently. Then there was a disagreement over another debate that Channel 7 was trying to put together independently, in addition to the ones we were doing with the consortium. The consortium felt slighted by that. They felt that we were not only working with them, but then going out on our own on top of it, so they excluded us from the most recent meeting, because they were against our decision to do a debate with the Herald down the road.

"The people who were planning the debate from Channel 7 were excluded from the consortium meeting. So we don't know who voted what, because we weren't in that meeting. So one, we had no voice in the decision, and two, we don't know who voted what because we weren't there."

MassNews asked if WHDH would vote to include Howell in any future debates. Webster said they are just concentrating on televising this debate for now. WHDH will participate in future consortium meetings, she said.

The Howell campaign claimed in a press release two days ago that Boston Globe editor Martin Baron "swears" that the Globe voted in favor of including Carla Howell in the debate, but they were outvoted by others in the consortium.

The press release says further that WHDH-TV news director Ed Kosowski told at least two Howell supporters that Baron is lying, and that the Globe was adamant about excluding Howell.

WHDH's Webster said she wasn't aware that Ed Kosowski spoke to anybody, and would follow up on that for MassNews. She said she does know that the Globe says they were in favor of including four candidates in the debate, but she does not know for a fact if that is true because WHDH was not at the meeting.

Webster said Channel 2's position on the record is that the consortium speaks with one voice and they won't tell how they voted.

MassNews called the Boston Globe, but Spokesman Maynard Scarborough said they could not immediately comment.

The Howell campaign also claims that WGBH's talk host Emily Rooney stonewalled Carla Howell and told her that it was "none of her business" how the members voted.

MassNews called WGBH but they did not answer the message by press time.

FCC Asked to Investigate

"We have asked for extreme and urgent relief from the damaging actions of WBZ, WCVB, WHDH, NECN, and WGBH," said Carla Howell. "Due diligence with the station logs for the past 2 years will demonstrate their pattern of bias, exclusion, and wholesale violation of the duties and responsibilities required by their FCC licenses."

In the meantime, the Libertarians are urging citizens to flood three key media outlets with phone, fax and e-mail messages to persuade them to include candidate Howell in the Gubernatorial debate scheduled to be televised October 1.

"SURGE, SWARM, & BLITZ THE BIG GOVERNMENT BIASED NEWS CONSORTIUM THAT CONTROLS THE GOVERNOR'S DEBATES," blared the headline of an e-mail sent out from the campaign.

The three key news organizations they want people to contact are Channel 7-WHDH, Channel 4-WBZ, and Channel 5-WCVB.

According to the Howell campaign, over a thousand people have already contacted members of the news consortium, but phone calls concerning the debate are being transferred to voice-mail and ignored.

MassNews left messages with two of the media outlets but only WHDH had a spokesperson immediately available for comment.