How Fascism Grows in a Culture

Good morning, Oklahoma!

It now appears clear that there was micro-management intervention in the presentation of the Newscast on Fox 25 KOKH on May 29.


I was interviewed by Andrew Speno news anchor on Oklahoma City station KOKH Fox 25. The news event was my effort to circulate a petition for access to the ballot for 2008 as required by Oklahoma election law.

That law has been under litigation since 2004 and finally reached the Oklahoma Supreme Court and they decided unanimously to refuse to hear the case. Therefore, any political candidates attempting to exercise the right to seek public office in Oklahoma under any party label other Democrat or Republican are effectively suppressed by a law which many regard as illegal under both the Oklahoma and U.S. Constitutions.


Mr. Speno and I had an amiable interview for nearly fifty minutes about ballot access law in Oklahoma and my potential candidacy for U.S. Representative in 2008. Later that evening Mr. Speno's report appeared in the Fox 25 nine o'clock newscast which seemed to me generally favorable, even though I was portrayed as a "lone crusader" who
obtained on one citizen signature before being ejected from the premises by the property owner - Albertson's supermarket.


At the conclusion of the Fox news story Mr. Speno announced that Fox was going to poll their viewers whether all political parties should appear on the ballot in Oklahoma. The poll never appeared on the their web site www.okcfox.com.


First, the anchor would not have announced the poll on ballot access if he did not have the normal authority to do so. Second, management must have a political agenda which motivates their intervention on the reporter's normal professional practices. Such micro-management indicates a corporate policy of news shaping. News shaping is
crypto-propaganda. Propaganda is the dissemination of a particular doctrine and the suppression by censorship of controversy with any opposing doctrines. Crypto-propaganda is the attempt to insinuate
doctrine without overt admission that doctrine is being promoted.


There is nothing illegal about such activity under the First Amendment. It is simply ethically wrong. Obviously its practitioners disagree. They must believe they are serving some greater good which justifies subterfuge. This does not make all Fox employees bad people from our ethical standard so long as they resist the attempts.

However, the time will come when they will have to choose between a more professional (libertarian?) ethic and overt complicity. The culprits are management at Fox. This is how fascism takes root in a culture.


I must now admit that my exercise in petitioning yesterday was more than an attempt to challenge the oppression of election law in Oklahoma. Previously I was engaged in a campaign for Congress which was suppressed by Oklahoma ballot law. KOKH interviewed me about that campaign. The presentation of that interview was suspicious. As we
begin this campaign to achieve ballot access by compliance under a stupidly prejudicial law which is beneath judicial notice in this state, I wanted to 'mystery shop' KOKH news policy. Events, I contend, support my conclusions. The Fox management was caught didling their viewers with crypto-propaganda.


They can't even conduct an unscientific poll (for entertainment value alone) about access to the ballot without intervention from management.


Fox viewers beware!


D. Frank Robinson, Candidate for U.S. House of Representatives 2006