Preliminary Work, This Text May Change

Text As Of April 30, 2010

This Text Has Not Been Edited Yet

WTMJ Radio and

Yellow Journalism

By Neil Schubert

I don't know if this also applies to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, but in the last 3 or 4 years, I have noticed a steady decline in the quality of programming on WTMJ radio. I have an archive of recordings I made of WTMJ, originally because my ex-girlfriend (if that) used to do the traffic report from a syndicated company that tmj contracted with. At some point in 2008, I was cleaning out my archive, and decided that I did not want recordings of my ex. I started to destroy the discs. In fact, I probably destroyed ten of them, but then stopped. The CDs, which were auto-scheduled mp3 and vorbis recordings, were of the era before and after September 11^th.

While I'd love to be able to edit them, the voice is only bothersome to me, and so I decided to keep them, to preserve history. In listening to these, which actually start on a Mini-Disc on July 3, 2001, I noticed that the programming was really good. I do not have a lot of recordings of WTMJ prior to the mp3 digital age, and the oldest that I know of is in 1998, a nightime recording of Art Bell involving clandestine radio, which I made on a reel to reel recorder. I do have the beginning of the fateful brewers game in 1982, but the ending is cut off by another ball game. It is a copy of a displaced reel from another archive, recorded from sattilite out of state on another station.

When listening to these, overall, the quality and the detail of programming was really good. In 1998, I did notice a little of what I am hearing now, biased journalism. But the bias was outweighed by detailed coverage of news stories. The difference is, that it was late at night, and there was a real human running the station. I would have to say that 1999-2003 were the best years for WTMJ. Of course, one of the discs I erased was their show that they discuss investments on, a person saying that they would invest in AIG, and several other companies, most of which would fail in 2009. Never give stock tips out on the radio. People lost their radio license for that years ago. Ok, I suppose there are loopholes on that. Anyway, that was a bad one, and it got destroyed. Everybody was doing that in 2001. They did the proper disclosures.

WTMJ in the past three years

Although I have recorded various disorganized files of news stories, I began hearing stories on WTMJ that at first seemed like just weird crap. It's what I call the Sex Offender report. Almost every day on WTMJ, I here some story about some type of sex activity. This occurs primarily in the morning news, starting after the Wall Street Journal syndicated show. The details of the stories get less and less detailed as the day gets older. Recently, I noticed that they occur almost exactly on the 10AM news report.

What disturbs me the most is that many of these things that are discussed are things that have not been tried before a court of law. So and so was accused of doing this. So my question is WHY is this on the radio? Why are we being told about 15 year old and an 18 year old doing what I will not describe on my website.

I have also noticed, either as the result of time travel (not likely) or the result of canned programming, that WTMJ repeats the same things often, sometimes yearly. If you have time machine, using it to brainwash is not going to solve a paradox. But this news is so incredibly biased, it is disgusting. Maybe I'd expect this from i Relevant Radio or VCY America, but a legit news organization like Journal Communications?

What inspired me to write this article was one of the announcers who said “that kid could go to prison for 40 years for that. He was referring to two students that demonstrated a “double down” in a school lunch room. It's always the guy's fault, by the way. Maybe a suspension from school, but even that is a little extreme. How about a trip to the principle's office, maybe a weekend detention. Usually, this kind of stuff starts in middle school. Sometimes it is done because of an attraction, sometimes it is done purely to show off. There is no question that it is inappropriate behavior, and that it was probably done to cause a disturbance. But my question is why is this on the news covering the entire state? Why is WTMJ reading this on the air? It is not news. This does not take priority over everything that is happening in the world, everything that is happening in the city, everything that is happening in the state. Yes, sometimes these things are somewhat entertaining when you read them, but on the 10 AM news?

WISN tends to follow what WTMJ does. In the case of Mark Belling, a similar incident occurred, with Belling saying that the kid should spend some time in prison for that. I will try to locate recordings of each of the above. It is that attitude that is destroying our society and costing taxpayers millions of dollars. Because one student engages in a semi-lude act with another does not mean that our government should get involved.

A good insight would be asking the question of why the police, lawyers and judges are getting involved in the activities of young people in middle and high school? Rather than using the excuse that “we live in a society today, where......” why don't people at WISN and WTMJ look at why taxpayer dollars are being spent trying to regulate the sexual activities of people. This really isn't the job or responsibility of government, it is the responsibility of the parents. Yes, we sometimes end up with pregnancies. In fact every school has one or two. That hasn't changed, there has always been a few pregnancies in high school, and more rarely in 8^th grade.

However, then I hear Vicki McKenna on WISN allowing a district attorney to grandstand, trying lash back against Jim Doyle's bill that requires schools to teach about contraception and not limiting it to abstinence. The DA was trying to say that this puts the teachers in a bad situation, and that they should all be required to report any sexual activity of minors. Really, free speech applies to everybody, but certain persons like district Attorneys are bound by a code of ethics which prohibits grandstanding like this. This places every case which the DA handled, into question. Not reporting something is not an activity, and is not contributing to the delinquency of a minor. That's a stretch in the first place.

I often ask to those who preach abstinence, if they drive a car. Usually the answer is, well, yes, doesn't everybody, what is your point? My point is that telling a teenager not to have sex is like telling someone that they can't drive a car. I waited to drive a car until I was 18, but most want to learn to drive at 15 and get a license at 16. My point is that what you are telling them to do is very harmful to their future, even though you may not agree with the idea. Teach them how to be safe, and let them figure it out on their own, and stay out of it. Yes, sometimes the 17 year old male student will hook up with the 24 year old female teacher. This is unethical, and that student should not be in that teacher's class. But is this really a crime? So if the student is 18, than it is not. So the determination that makes it a crime or not is based on when the student was born. Is any of this really the responsibility of the justice system, or do these things usually fix themselves?

When it's time to contact Washington D.C.

I began to hear the story of a teacher that was accused in one situation of having inappropriate sexual contact with a student. Again, why is this on the news until the person is found guilty or not guilty, or the case is dropped? Then, I began to hear all of these “he touched me” like cases from other schools that he worked at, all which occurred after the first accusation was broadcast.

It is my understanding of federal law that Manufacturing Evidence is a federal crime or at least a federal tort. In other words, what I am saying is that somebody in government is leaking these court cases to the media, and that it is being done deliberately to damage a persons character and reputation publicly, prior to trial. Not only that, whoever is making this information public is also tampering with a jury, because WTMJ covers most of the state. And since WTMJ can be received across state lines, yes, federal law applies.

This type of violation of federal law is not necessarily the responsibility of WTMJ radio, but the persons who made this public. Good ethics in journalism tells you that certain stories aren't news, and that the source is sometimes very biased. I will discuss this later, but my solution to this, personally, is to change the law on sexual assault, to require the statute of limitation on reporting of sexual assault to police, to immediately. In other words, you can't wait until 6 months later after you hear something about it on WTMJ to call up and say “he touched me”. You don't have 6 months to decide whether the touching was wanted or unwanted, whether it was sexual in nature or not. This is what is wrong.

Simply put, WTMJ and WISN radio is using sex cases to push an agenda, and to create sensationalized journalism, historically called “yellow journalism”. Some of these stories may not even be true! What I am seeing is that the stories are being run in the morning time when kids are getting ready for school.

What WTMJ or the entity that is manipulating WTMJ is doing is trying to manipulate the communication between parents and students in the morning time. At the same time they are trying to gain listeners from the religious right. The same thing is happening with the Tiger Woods scandal.

What I think is happening is that WTMJ is engaging in Brainwashing – creating and promoting stories to scare young people and promote secret initiatives, operating like a secret society. The short term effect is that it might boost the ratings. The long term effect is that a few of the young listeners will grow up and come back to WTMJ. But most of them will leave. WTMJ is only popular right now because of the problems with government. But young people have lots of other ways to get information, information that is uncensored, and is not being manipulated.

After hearing a story in 2008 about a fire at the Patrick Cudahy plant, and then hearing it again in 2009, I began running a recorder on a daily basis, recording from morning to night. I had thought that it was either time travel, brainwashing by the station itself, or something else. I had remembered yelling a little bit and complaining to my uncle that WTMJ read the story but never followed up on it. I listened at night, but did not hear any more of the story. Although I have some hypothesis on how to time warp radio waves, as far as I know, there is no such thing as a time machine. So, either the same thing happened twice, or a person used a pirate transmitter to overcome the signal, causing me to hear 2009 in 2008, and than accessorized the accident/crime in 2009. What was strange was that in 2008 when I heard the story, the noise from the HD signal was gone, and there was a AC hum in the background.

While my recordings are not scientific (meaning they are not all started and stopped at the same time) they are dated pretty accurately. I sometimes switch to WISN, WHBY, WTMJ and WCBS at night. As of the date of writing this text, I am setting up software that allows me to record multiple broadcasts at the same time, and the dates will all be set automatically.

Where WTMJ went over the line involved the scandal involving the police chief and a reporter. This was before I ran the recorder. I was sitting in the bathtub and had to get up quickly and run and find the fastest thing I could cue up and hook up, which was an iKey usb recorder. I connnected it to my alarm clock's line out (the one I put in) and let it run, while I listened to my radio in the bathroom. (no I did not fall and hit my head on the sink, lol)

What I heard was a federal crime being perpetrated by WTMJ-TV and WTMJ Radio. While there is such a thing as freedom of the press, this one was not sent to the press. Yes, it was someone who had apparently leaked what were identified as personal e-mails from a reporter to the police chief and from the police chief to a female reporter. These were not work e-mails sent from work accounts. The e-mails were sent to WTMJ-TV by an anonymous person.

WTMJ-TV (signed off) WTMJ-DTV, and WTMJ Radio carry legal licenses to broadcast in the United States, and licensed to broadcast by the FCC. The authorization to operate a radio station is governed by the Federal Communications Commission, and is therefore subject to federal law. This is not a pirate broadcast, or an individual expressing free speech using a transmitter. It's a 50KW transmitter that covers the State of Wisconsin, and bordering states, as well as other parts of the country, at night.

There are two federal statutes that apply to this situation: Illegally Intercepting Electronic Communications, Illegally Accessing Stored Communications, Illegally Disclosing Stored Communications, and Copyright Infringement. The first three were enacted by congress during the Ford Administration, in 1978. (verification needed) The intent was to stop people from eavesdropping on communications with political officials which may be sexual in nature. During this time, there were religious groups that were trying to set up officials for marriage laws. This type of activity was already illegal, this law just modernized wiretapping laws. Yes, they had forms of electronic mail in 1978.

In the case of WTMJ TV and Radio, Person A sent an electronic communication in digital form to person b. The electronic mail box requires a key to access the information contained in a hard disk drive, the storage medium. The TV and Radio station did not hack the mailbox key, but did intercept the communication, along with a third party.

The case of Sarah Palin should follow the same pattern. In her case, somebody hacked the password or took a good guess. Maybe the good guess is not illegal. Maybe the person was testing the security of the mailbox to protect Sara Palin. But that excuse went away when the information was disclosed publicly.

It has gotten to the point that I am recording, but not listening to WTMJ.

So far, although it needs some tweaks, the best, most unbiased programming in Wisconsin is AM 550 WSAU and its simulcast FM broadcast on 99.9. WHBY is good, but at times it is a little slow. What WHBY has that no other has is locally pro

I will disclose that I may have a future interest in these stations, but it is because of how well they are run, when compared to what I am hearing in Milwaukee. What I hear on WSAU are different voices, with varying opinions, programming at least during the first half of the day, that is locally produced, and is not being totally driven by “program”. Where WTMJ keeps following sensationalized stories, WSAU is real people talking about things, and the station is helping people get involved. They do a good job filtering out persons who call in only to agree with the host. So, my award goes to WSAU for the biggest improvement in programming. I know the fix that could make it easily compete with WTMJ, but I will only share that directly

First off, I