Joan Stanley, Don Doig, and myself have resigned our positions with The Gallatin Valley Patriot. We did so immediately after the second issue was printed. It was not the paper we had sent to the layout department. Eleven of our articles somehow got pulled. Our front cover-page got changed. Articles which neither of us had seen magically popped up in place of our missing articles. We realized that Joan, as publisher, and I, as editor, and Don, as assistant editor, were merely names associated with those titles, and that we in reality had very little control over the direction this second issue took. We discussed this with the person who ultimately holds responsibility for the decisions which changed our paper. We could not reach consensus on that paper's policy. We walked.
That's downright weird, Elias! Us mere writers are used to seeing our words altered or even "disappeared" for various (usually innocuous) reasons. But how can it even come to be that the publisher, editor, and assistant editor have no knowledge or control over the content of the publication???
Yer right, Claire - it's downright weird. As Don puts it, we got sabotaged from within. I'll try not to mislead anyone's perception here while attempting a nutshell-version of what happened. The story goes back a ways. I believe, iirc, I sent you a copy of another paper which featured lots of coverage of the Bozeman 4th of July Tea Party march on Main Street. Oath Keepers had been invited to join the event, and Stewart, Lt.Cmdr. David Gillie, Marti, Jim, Drew (the Nevada Corps of Oath Keepers), Capt.Gooch, Shorty Dawkins, Wayd W., Tiffany Epiphany, etc. were all in step as two thousand people marched up Main Street. Joan Stanley and her committee had pitched the event and it was a smashing day. After the march on Main, we fell back to the Belgrade airport for refreshments, music, typical 4th of July family activities amid booths and displays (FIJA had a table there) - and Lt.Cmdr. Gillie performed an Oath Keepers ceremony. It was inspiring. The whole day was inspiring.
So next day the Bozeman Daily Chronicle rendered a hugely played-down statement about the event, saying there were "hundreds" of us when there were thousands, and they put a picture in their paper which showed not one trace of a hint that so many people had crowded Main Street for the march. Total, deliberate mis-coverage of the event.
So the owner of a private newspaper, who had been at our march and is a friend of Joan's, decided to publish in her paper the truth about our rally. She decked out her paper's next issue with all sorts of coverage and spiced it up with awesome photographs. Joan and I were over-joyed, as were all the Tea Partiers. That paper became an instant collector item here. And that issue of that paper inspired the paper's owner, Joan, Don, and myself to consider doing a newspaper devoted to the grassroots awakening in America. Thusly was born the Gallatin Valley Patriot.
First issue had several pages of ads, and the owner took a loss on that issue, but engaged the services of a young woman to actively go out and solicit ads for the 2nd issue to come. We had printed and distributed six thousand copies of the first issue, all nicely done on 40-lb Book paper with full color printing, and the paper was beautiful and was a very popular issue. Joan, Don, and self put our hearts into designing a powerful slap in the face of the powers that be, and we were proud of that inaugural issue. I had had two of my pieces cut during the lay-out process, including one on Stinnett's book on Pearl Harbor and FDR's role in that false-flag event. But I took that in stride, thinking it was cut because of space needs. The owner assured Joan and self that we would be totally in control over content of the 2nd issue, and we believed her.
I had been on the radio in Bozeman talking up the paper. We're still smiling about the public reaction to that first issue - it was very popular. In my first editorial column I had made some promises about the direction the paper would take. I promised, for example, that each issue of the GV Patriot would feature news on Oath Keepers.
But ahhh, the 2nd issue was destined to hit the streets on September 11, 2009, and Joan and I had obtained from Richard Gage, AIA member and founder of Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth, a totally wonderful photograph which we thought captured the entirety of the meanings and emotions which hit America with the 9/11 attacks. We had met Mr. Gage personally, and I had even introduced him to the audience where he spoke at Montana State University. We became friends. Joan and I assured him that our next issue of the GV Patriot would be devoted to 9/11 Truth.
Well, almost all of our stuff on 9/11 was cut the night before the paper went to print, including our cover photo. The paper lost all its fangs. We were told by the owner that scheduling for lay-out work prevented our paper being printed as we had designed it. But we also found out from some of our writers that the culling of our 9/11 Truth material was done to keep the paper's advertisers from bolting out the door. Some businesses (we're told) commented that "Elias" should be kept down a bit with his conspiracy theories or they would not buy more ads in the paper.
So the owner was motivated to try to keep the advertising on board with the paper, and allowed the sales girl to snip and cut our paper to shreds, substituting articles which the two of them approved in place of our horrible nasty offensive 9/11 Truth articles. For the second time in a row, Lt. Col. Karen Kwiatkowski's article on the Kean Commission was cut - totally embarrassing to me. The owner says, perhaps truthfully, as time shall tell, that the paper is a business and had to be run as a business, and offending sensitive advertiser-companies was suicide for the future of the paper. When I realized I could not "reach" her with my vision of the people's intense desire to learn the truth about how corrupt our Federal government truly is, and when Joan and Don also realized the same, we just resigned and began wondering what could we do next. Well, next is The Montana Messenger.
The Montana Messenger has absolutely no overlords who can cut our wings. Joan is totally on board with Don and self when it comes to government treachery and the need to expose it to grassroots America. Joan is the Montana coordinator for all Tea Party events, and I'm the director for Montana Oath Keepers. We've got state-wide networks. Don brings yet another wide network to our table. We are in a position now to offer a new newspaper to the people at grassroots level, unfettered by corporate concerns - but we're going to be depending on selling subscriptions. We do have some commitments for ads in our first issue, due out in two or three weeks, (I think we have two full-page ads and some smaller ads lined up thus far), but we're primarily going to appeal to the public for support. From the reactions to what we got out as our first issue of the GV Patriot, I'm confident that the demand is there. We'll see, eh?
As we get closer to deadline for our inaugural edition, I'll be pumping here for help and support. One nice thing we've learned is that our printer is set up to mail to all subscribers everywhere, so we can take this baby nation-wide and deliver it. Also, as you'll learn more soon, our lay-out guy is an awesome artist and a patriot whose work is well-accepted in SW Montana. He is also a webmaster and will be doing our paper's website. Can't wait to introduce him to you. We think and hope that the Internet will open doors for selling enough subscriptions to keep the paper going. I sorta think it shall. But his layout of the hardcopy issues will be very artful and tastefully done, and we are excited as we wait to see the first issue.
The Patriot was a very well-done, professional publication and I'm sorry that after all the work you put into its launch, you now have to begin again (and now in competition with your own old paper?).
(snip)
We won't actually be competing with the GV Patriot, as they will continue to take the more-certain path of pleasing their advertisers' wishes regarding content. And we will become a "national" paper, which I do not believe the Patriot wishes to be. I have no laments about the work we put into the first issues of GV Patriot, because our first issue in and of itself did establish Joan, Don, and self with a wide readership here in Montana, so we'll actually have much good will upon which to launch our new venture. We'll just build on what we've already tried to accomplish. But Claire, I'm glad you liked the quality of the Patriot. I was proud of that first issue, and am glad you approve of our work on that one. I hope that our new newspaper will gain your approval. I'll send you a copy when it comes out. Thanks for posting on this thread.
Salute!
Elias
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Topic: A Red Tailed Hawk _ The Montana Messenger (Read 21003 times)