Media Watchdog Organization Clarifies Article About News Director Mike Rausch

After being criticized by a media watchdog organization an ABC-TV news director threatened his critic with a lawsuit for defamation. The media watchdog organization then published another article critical of this news director, and he formally requested retraction. This statement is the media watchdog's response to that request.

(PRWEB) January 9, 2004 --On November 26, 2003, The Moynihan Institute, a media watchdog and political satire website, received a letter from Mike Rausch, news director of KATU-TV in Portland Oregon. Mr. Rauschs was in response to a satire published by The Moynihan Institute regarding KATUs handling of a story that caused a website to be shut down.

Mr. Rauschs letter specifically threatened The Moynihan Institute with a lawsuit for defamation and also stated that he had filed reports with both the Portland Police Department and the FBI, and that both of these organizations were actively investigating The Moynihan Institute for hate crimes".

Mr. Rauschs letter is available at http://www.moynihaninstitute.org/rauschletter.pdf

Mr. Rausch followed this letter with two telephone calls to the residence of a marketing consultant that had been hired by The Moynihan Institute to secure our domain name, webhosting services, and develop initial web templates for the launch of the site. In the second of those telephone calls Mr. Rausch stated that his television station was producing an investigative report about The Moynihan Institute and further stated that this marketing consultant would be negatively portrayed in that report. Mr. Rausch also stated that he was going to place telephone calls to news directors at TV stations in the marketing consultants community of business and residence in an effort to convince them to produce investigative reports that portrayed the marketing consultant in a negative light.

As a result of these telephone calls and Mr. Rauchs initial letter to The Moynihan Institute, we hired the marketing consultant, who is also an experienced journalist and news reporter, to write two articles about Mr. Rausch and his record as a news director. In the first of these articles, published on December 15, 2003, the writer expressed the opinion that Mr. Rausch had threatened to ruin" him based on Rauschs statement that he was encouraging news directors to produce and air stories that portrayed him negatively.

In using the word ruin" in quotation marks the writer did not intend to give the impression that Mr. Rausch actually used the word ruin," but rather that the sentiment he expressed in his phone call was best characterized and conveyed to the reader by using the word ruin".

The writer of this press release and another that followed on December 18, 2003, was working as an employee of The Moynihan Institute, LLC, and both articles published about Mr. Rausch were published by The Moynihan Institute.

Readers can view the letter from Mr. Rauschs attorney to The Moynihan Institute requesting clarification on this point at http://www.moynihaninstitute.org/katuLetter2.pdf

As to the other statements alleged to have been incorrect or defamatory, The Moynihan Institute stands by its story.

Sincerely,

Link Hoggthrob
Editor-in-Chief
The Moynihan Institute, LLC
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