Thursday, January 3, 2013

Gannett employees violating code of ethics?

A few days ago a Gannett-owned rag in White Plains NY posted an online map/database of people with pistol permits. A few days later Des Moines columnist Donald Kaul came out of retirement to write a violent and threatening piece saying the NRA should be designated a terrorist organization, gun owners should be murdered by police for possessing "assault weapons" and GOP Congressional leadership should be dragged behind a truck.

In response, National Gun Rights Examiner David Codrea's wrote a piece: Gannett requested to investigate ethics of anti-gun personnel. Inspired by his article, I submitted the following letter to Ms. Wall.

And no, none of what I wrote is hyperbole.

Date: Thu, 3 Jan 2013 11:50:05 -0800
From: bruce_krafft-at-yahoo.com
Subject: Ethical violations?
To: bwall@gannett.com

Dear Ms. Wall,

I understand that you, as Gannett's Chief Ethics Officer are who I should contact if I believe one (or more) of your employees has committed an ethical breech. Thus I am writing to bring two possible violations of Gannett's ethics policy to your attention.

The first requires a little background; my best friend from my hometown, the man who was best man at both my weddings was a NYC cop for 25+ years, retiring in the spring of 2009. During his last few years he was with the F.B.I. and ATF, working undercover. I don't know exactly what he did, but apparently there are a bunch of very nasty people who are very angry with him. The kind of nasty who don't see it as overkill to rape and murder a man's family in front of him before they necklace him. His telephone, cars and home are all listed in his wife's maiden name, and he has worked very hard to stay off the radar. But, unsurprisingly, he has a gun permit and you White Plains paper just put his name and address out on the internet for anyone to see.

The second possible violation comes from Des Moines, Iowa of all places where columnist Donald Kaul has came out of retirement to write a horrific screed in which, because he disagrees with their suggestions to stop school shootings, he appears to accuse N.R.A. members (of which I am not one, by the way) of not caring that 20 children were murdered in their school.

In his first bullet point he calls for designating the NRA as a terrorist organization, simply because they hold beliefs with which he disagrees. Isn't there something in your policy about being committed to diversity? Or is it only a commitment to diversity that you don't disagree with?

Also in his first bullet point he agrees that the Second Amendment protects an individual, civil and human right to own and carry guns, yet in his second he calls for the imprisonment and/or murder by police of those of us who chose to lawfully exercise this right (I'm sorry but I can read his statement "'prying the guns from their cold, dead hands' thing works for me" as anything other than a threat.

Speaking of threats his last bullet point suggests that certain political leaders, simply because he disagrees with their political beliefs, should be dragged to death behind a truck unless they agree to abandon their principles. Again is this the sort of "commitment to diversity" your company tolerates and encourages?

I thank you for your time and kind attention to this matter.

Peace,

Bruce W. Krafft
 
"God does not play dice with the Universe." - Albert Einstein
"Albert stop telling God what to do." - Niels Bohr

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