December 19, 1997

Good Morning from the Zundelsite:

Today's ZGram will be very short because we are all about to collapse. The CHRC trial dates that were scheduled before Christmas are over. The Zundel legal team worked practically around the clock for an entire week. Now lead defense attorney Doug Christie is on the plane home, his co-attorney has left for home also, and Ernst is catching up on his sleep.

I talked to him very briefly regarding Irene Zundel's cross-examination, which took place yesterday afternoon and again apparently all day today. He told me yesterday that it was going very well for our side, and today he said that the testimony had been concluded. He said to tell you: "She came. She testified. She left." And he added: "I am very glad that this part of my life is over."

After the enormous hype and media hoopla about Irene's "secret witness" status, replete with a showy and totally unnecessary "police protection" charade at Canadian taxpayers expense - as though that kind of thing was necessary! - not a single word was written about her testimony in a single paper. Nada.

That, in itself, speaks volumes.

Yesterday, Ernst told me dryly: "Once again, they have shot themselves in the (blank)."

No doubt there will be stories and details trickling out in days and weeks to come, but for the time being, there is only this to consider as we are heading into our Christmas holidays: Freedom of speech on the internet for 27 million Canadians is at stake - and not one word about these hearings in the paper?

That, more than anything else, shows the "power behind the power" in this matter.

Now I will ask you this: Would there have been that kind of media blackout if there had been some dirt on Ernst Zundel to report? The whole thing is a costly travesty and a sick joke on the Canadian workers who struggle paying taxes on top of yet more taxes - and everybody knows it. WHY is it being done?

Ingrid

As your thought for the day, I will give you a parallel story. It has nothing to do with Ernst Zundel, and has nothing to do with what concerns us - except that here we have a haunting parallel of a media blackout also, this time here in the USA.

I bring this story only because in the fight-censorship group, where I have "crashed the party", there has been some slight heckling about Revisionists' convictions that cover-ups and judicial manipulation are, indeed, happening on a monumental scale - manipulation that includes ANY deviation from the standard version of the Holocaust, such as the Zundelsite espouses.

This Open Letter below was written by a person I happen to know casually through correspondence and have mentioned several times in my ZGrams. He is Mr. Joseph Farah, one-time executive editor of the Sacramento Union, a very respectable paper before it was destroyed by the liberal opposition - or so I have been told. I give you Mr. Farah:

WorldNetDaily

December 17, 1997

An open letter to my colleagues

By Joseph Farah

For nearly 20 years I served as a reporter and editor at daily newspapers in major markets around the country. As a reporter I've covered every imaginable story from mass murders to political races. As the top editor of several daily newspapers, I've supervised hundreds of other journalists -- some of them good, some of them bad.

In all my years in the establishment press, I can't think of a single instance in which a colleague questioned the soundness of my news judgment. Therefore, I've got to wonder: Have I suddenly lost my touch? Or have my colleagues in the major media lost their nerve?

I refer to the lack of coverage of one of the most sensational stories of our time -- the apparent bullet hole found in Commerce Secretary Ron Brown's skull.

So far, two highly credible military forensic pathologists involved in the investigation of Brown's plane crash death last year have come forward, on the record, to state their conviction that there is an unexplained, circular wound, characteristic of a gunshot, in Brown's head. Air Force Lt. Col. Steve Cogswell and Army Lt. Col. David Hause both agree that Brown should have been autopsied. Remarkably, he was not.

Today, after examining the photographic and x-ray evidence, one of the nation's most prominent forensic pathologists sticks his neck out to agree with their findings. Dr. Cyril Wecht of Pittsburgh said there was 'more than enough' evidence to suggest possible homicide in Brown's death to warrant an autopsy.

'It's not even arguable in the field of medical legal investigations whether an autopsy should have been conducted on Brown,' said Wecht, who has conducted some 13,000 autopsies himself and reviewed approximately 30,000 others. 'I'll wager you can't find a forensic pathologist in America who will say Brown should not have been autopsied.'

In this case, you can forget political motivations being behind Wecht's outspokenness. He is a prominent Democrat.

Meanwhile, as the experts line up behind the unexplained bullet hole theory, the original explanation of Brown's death is growing more suspect. Air Force Col. William Gormley, the pathologist who signed off on the Brown case for the government, has changed his story. After being confronted with the photographs on a television show, he now renounces earlier statements suggesting the hole didn't penetrate the skull. Brain matter is clearly visible in the photographs -- which, strangely, had been lost by the government. About the missing x-rays and photos, Wecht joins the suspicious among us.

'The frequency of lost x-rays, hospital records, documents, autopsy materials and other materials in a medical-legal investigation is directly in proportion to the complexity, controversy and external challenges,' he says. He says such losses are 'very, very rare' in normal cases.

There appears to be nothing normal about the Brown case -- which, you would think, would add to its newsworthiness. Uh-uh. Not only has the story been largely ignored by the big papers, some of the nation's leading reporters have begun dismissing the reports without ever looking at the evidence.

Howard Kurtz, the media critic of the Washington Post, cited the Brown story as one more reason to dismiss prize-winning investigative reporter Christopher Ruddy's earlier reporting on the death of Vincent Foster. Is that journalism? Or is that faith?

I wouldn't have believed my colleagues could be this myopic, this closed-minded, this trusting of authority if I hadn't seen it happen over and over and over again in recent years. For certain stories, no amount of evidence can persuade journalists to question official government findings. Worse yet, any renegade reporters who do had better be prepared for an inquisition, ridicule and ostracism.

Frankly, I consider it to be a badge of honor to be rejected by a profession that has lost its moral foundation, its curiosity, in fact, its whole sense of purpose.

No, it's not me that has lost my news judgment. I got into this business inspired by the press' role in uncovering the Watergate scandal. Back then, reporters and editors had no problem questioning government handouts. What's changed since then? The party in the White House? Is that all it takes?

If the press doesn't get on the ball soon, my dear colleagues are going to owe Richard Nixon a profound and posthumous apology.

------------------------------------------------------------------------ Joseph Farah is editor of the Internet newspaper WorldNetDaily.com and executive director of the Western Journalism Center an independent group of investigative reporters.

Comments? E-Mail: irimland@cts.com

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