The Censorship Chronicles

By Dave Leach

Should video of men and women entering and leaving Planned Parenthood be censored from a cable access TV show? This is a brief timeline of media coverage of this discussion from August 20 through August 26.

August 20, 2002 AD, Tuesday midnight, we sent out press releases announcing our intention to film customers of Planned Parenthood for exposure on "The Uncle Ed. Show", Dave Leach's 6-year-old cable TV show, as well as on www.abortioncams.com. Although such images have been shown regularly already on the website, this would be the premiere showing on a cable TV show.

August 21, Wednesday at 1:30: TV 8 and TV 13 were at Dave Leach's music store, the Family Music Center, 4110 SW 9th, 515/244-3711, music@Saltshaker.US, having called about 3 hours earlier. We taped the interview ourselves so we could establish context for anything the media might distort. The gist of the conversation was: how do you respond to the charge of invasion of privacy? No one has a right to privacy in public; you reporters get crowd shots, accident scenes, and prisoners all the time, where your victims would prefer privacy, and no one cries. Abortion is different because our message condemns those whom the law honors so they try to displace God's standard of morality with ultra-legalism, which comes down to honoring whoever controls the police whether they do it lawfully or lawlessly.

August 21, mid-afternoon. Des Moines Register reporter called.

August 21, 6 pm and 10 pm. Both TV 8 and TV 13 aired shows. Neither took my statements out of context in such a way as to give them a different meaning. When TV 13 said Planned Parenthood's comment was that we are invading their patient's privacy, it would have been more fair had they put that in the context of Planned Parenthood's director Jill June facing 6 months in jail for contempt for refusing to hand over what she calls "medical records" that would reveal leads for a murder investigation; the judge and county prosecutor said they aren't medical records because the pregnancy tests were given by people without medical training. So Jill June has accused the judge and prosecutor of invading her patient's privacy, too. TV 8 closed their news segment by brainstorming about what legally could be done to stop us, which of course assumes there is something we are doing that ought to be stopped. Some of the legal steps suggested were pretty flaky. She quoted a Drake journalism professor saying what we are doing isn't illegal, but that fact doesn't make us good neighbors, and he is afraid that the legal response required to stop us may shut down liberties for others.

August 22, Thursday the Des Moines Register article came out, taking my statement elaborating on Ephesians 5:11-13 out of context, making it appear I have no regard at all for legitimate arguments on the other side. The article also erroneously said my air times have been changed in the past because of my controversy, when the fact is I have the same air times I had for my first show, there not having been an exception even for a single day. I also wondered about making a big deal of Mediacom's statement that "we do not support the content of the show", which is only a way of expressing the neutrality they have publicly expressed since the beginning until now.

About 2 PM, Miranda Litesinger of the Associated Press came to our store for a long interview.

About 4 pm, Deborah Blume of Mediacom, whose face I had seen on TV the night before saying Mediacom could not even preview tapes, much less censor them unless there is obscenity or something, now called me to tell me their lawyers had determined if I brought them a show with Planned Parenthood customers' faces not blurred out, they would simply not air the show. She said their lawyers had determined that my intended pictures were a "third party invasion of privacy". I asked her, explaining I wasn't asking to challenge her but only to be able to report accurately, where this legal concept was found. She replied that she had paid a lot of money for attorneys to find it for her, and now I needed to hire my own attorneys to find it for me.

Within a few minutes Miranda and the Register reporter called back for my comments on Blume's ultimatum. I told them there would obviously be no purpose in airing people going into Planned Parenthood if we had to blur out their faces. They also asked me about Blume's thoughts about airing my show after 10 pm because of Jonathan O'toole's (my campaign manager) statement that we would include graphic images. I responded that we had no intention of airing any images that weren't already aired on the 6 o'clock news. They asked what I was going to do about it. I said my first inclination was not to sue. (They left that subject unreported the next day.)

6 and 10 PM: the stories on TV 8 and TV 13 actually cast us in a more positive light. They announced Mediacom's resolve not to air our images.

Friday, August 25 The Des Moines Register and Associated Press came out with thumbnail stories about Mediacom's refusal to air our images of Planned Parenthood customers.

3 pm I took my tape over to Mediacom for airing Saturday and the next Tuesday. Deborah Blume came down to talk to me. She was extremely agitated. She told me that from now on they would preview everybody's tapes, although it was clear their interest was in previewing my tapes. She said anything they found inconsistent with their rules would not be aired. She gave me the new rules which her attorneys had drawn up for them, after "spending a lot of money" on them.

What is new in the rules: "4.1 Mediacom shall retain sole discretion to determine the time available to transmit user's material." (Previously, a user needed only to select which times he wanted, from the time slots open.) Also, "Mediacom has the right to preview all user's material to make sure it conforms with all technical, legal and all other compliance matters as set forth with in this Operating Rules Agreement and all governing applicable laws, rules and standards."

And "6.1 Mediacom will neither censor any user njor exercise any control of program content presented by public access, educational access...users, except insofar as is necessary to insure compliance with the following rules: [no ads for products or political candidates] Furthermore, every user of public access...should be fully cognizant of their ethical and legal responsibilities and liabilities before using it. Additionally, a short, reasonable period of time will be required to elapse between the time the system receives the finished videotape and the time of the public presentation via cablecast. This prescribed delay is set forth to allow responsible review and judgment regarding the material in order to determine whether it is in violation of any rules or policies.

"7.2 The access channel may not be used for illegal purposes and users are cautioned to be aware of applicable state and federal laws."

The form which must be signed and turned in with every show says "...____ shall reimburse ...Mediacom...for any legal and other expenses incurred by them in connection with investigating any such claims...." In other words, if an abortionist writes a ridiculous letter threatening to sue, Mediacom may spend on lawyers without the restraint of expecting to actually have to pay for it, since I have agreed to hock my business to cover the bill.

Deborah Blume also brought up the subject of the pictures showing what abortion does to babies. She said if they are not blurred out, she will not air the show during hours children are generally awake, but would move them from their regular time slot to some time after 10 pm. I responded that we aren't showing any pictures that weren't already shown on the 6 o'clock news. In her extreme state of agitation I don't think she was able to comprehend the connection, but she repeated "if we see those images we will find them highly offensive" and would air them during graveyard hours. So I offered to take the tape back, blur the images, and return it Monday morning. (It took about 12 hours to blur them all.) The usual air times are 9:30pm Tuesdays and 4pm Saturdays.

The normal routine is for me to bring in a tape Friday for airing Saturday and Tuesday. But she said leaving it Friday would not give them enough time to preview it, which they have suddenly determined to do, before Saturday, so they would take the tape I had aired the previous Tuesday, and air it again Saturday.

Saturday August 24, 2002 AD They didn't air my show today. I think it was an honest mistake. In the excitement of telling me they would air the Tuesday show Saturday, they handed me the Tuesday show and I didn't look at it to realize what it was.

Monday August 26, 2002 AD I turned in the tape, with this "program description" on the legal form: "Analysis of news coverage of this show. No copyrighted music. Pictures showing what abortion does to babies are covered with text with a blurred background -- even when the same pictures are shown as part of TV8 and TV13 news broadcasts -- to satisfy the demand of Deborah Blume. The news broadcasts themselves are copyrighted, but of course case law in the annotated USC explains that copyrighted material may be reproduced without permission to the extent they are themselves the subjects of "critical comment", which these stories are."

On the show itself, I covered the pictures showing what abortion does to children with this text: "Mediacom will not permit children to see what abortion does to children. For the hard truth, see www.abortioncams.com." That's the text I used to cover the pictures taken by our own cameras. To cover the pictures shown on TV8 and TV13, I wrote, "Not allowing us to show pictures to children, which they have already seen on the 6 o'clock news, is probably not lawful."

Oops! I just checked and found that just before I dubbed the tape to Mediacom, the computer trashed the "renders" of the blurring for the last 2/3 of the tape! Now I'm rerendering, I left a message for Deborah, and I hope I can get her a corrected copy before it's too late.

Also among the trashed renders was a statement, "We are studying the law, and praying that this censorship will end without a lawsuit."

Interesting. I think all the footage taken by our cameras is blurred on the first tape I turned in; one exception. Now we can see which version Deborah would rather air.

Tuesday, August 27, 2002 AD Actually it might have been Monday evening, but Joe Estrella, the columnist for CableTV.com, called and interviewed me. His columns are read by cable operators! His first question: "Are you going to sue? In the course of my answer to this and his followup questions, I said yes, I,ve been in touch with lawyers, and we can,t find anything like that strange phrase quoted by Deborah Blume. But if indeed the law is as much on our side as it appears, surely this censorship can come to an end without having to go to court over it. I made the usual points about other media freely taking pictures of people who don,t necessarily want their pictures taken. As of the following Sunday he still hasn,t posted the article with the other columns on his website, so I surmise his purpose in calling was less for publication than for making a personal report to Mediacom lawyers.

Thursday, August 29, 2002 AD We began distribution in our district of our second campaign newspaper, featuring my response to media coverage.

Friday, August 30, 2002 AD I was a guest on CNN, the broadcast which reached 150 nations but NOT the U.S. Opposed to me was Vicki Sopota, head of National Abortion Federation! I was joyfully surprised that I had such unfettered freedom to express my points without rude interruption. At one point when I was just getting into an idea, and it should have been obvious to viewers I wasn,t finished, Vicki interrupted, and I let her though Jonathan was motioning to me to not let her do that or she would never stop. But she concluded her point, and then I made mine. Once while alleging that an Illinois case (in which a woman was injured by an abortionist and was photographed being taken away in an ambulance, but then later a medical worker sneaked her medical records to prolifers who posted them on the internet; the court ruled against publication of the medical records but not against photographing the woman) applied to me, I interrupted her with "aw, that doesn,t apply, which I said while she continued talking, but that is as much as I interrupted her. Then a little later while I was making a lengthier statement she tried to interrupt, but I ploughed on another couple of sentences until I was finished, but that is as much as she covered up my words.

Sopota,s opening was a blast at me for invading women,s right to privacy. I responded, "Well obviously I have not invaded anyone,s privacy as defined by any law, or I would be in jail. And I have not invaded anyone,s privacy as defined by any journalistic ethic, since journalists take pictures all the time of people who don,t necessarily want their pictures taken. So I wonder what definition of "right to privacy remains, by which I might answer that I have invaded it.

After I gave that answer, the CNN host, Zain something, turned to Vicki and said "What ABOUT Dave,s point that journalists take pictures like this all the time without any sense of invading privacy?

I should be receiving a copy of the tape, and the transcript should be posted on the CNN website, by about next Wednesday, I was told.

Sunday, September 1, 2002 AD I updated my website, including this Timeline, with responses to the ongoing coverage.

Feedback Box Got feedback? Send it, along with name or url of the article, and a little of the text on either side of where your comment belongs, so I know what you are responding to, and I'll post your response. I might even place it right smack dab in the article! (If you don't want your email posted, SAY SO!)