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Request Professional Opinions on How Gov's Family Tie was "missed"?

Discussion in 'Journalism topics only' started by host, Jul 27, 2008.

  1. I Digress

    I Digress Guest

    what's not to trust about warm cow dung? It's warms. It's dung. I trust that. Now, wikipedia.. that's a hole nother thing!
     
  2. host

    host Member

    The "unsourced" Marquis Childs authored, 1946 article, displayed at this link:

    http://home.comcast.net/~qvc/mchildssm.JPG
    Click on article image with cursor to magnify....

    It is sourced in the first search result here:

    http://news.google.com/archivesearch?hl=en&um=1&ie=UTF-8&tab=wn&q=marquis+more+about+nazi+intrigue+in+the+US&sa=N&sugg=d&as_ldate=1944&as_hdate=1947&lnav=d2&ldrange=1930,1942&hdrange=1970,1995
    Mansfield News Journal (Newspaper) - July 17, 1946, Mansfield, Ohio


    I didn't post Drew Pearson's column before, because those attempting to re-write the history of the WWII period have put Pearson and Winchell on a "list" of journalists/columnists they claim were British "agents". I post his column now, because it reports the same information as Marquis Childs did, in the same time period, and Childs was not on "the list". The NYTimes and decidedly mocking. anti John Rogge, Time Magazine, all reported similarly:

     
  3. Piotr Rasputin

    Piotr Rasputin New Member

    Are we still here?

    I heard host's daddy was a Viet Cong sympathizer. I think I'll go put it on wikipedia.
     
  4. Frank_Ridgeway

    Frank_Ridgeway Well-Known Member

    You might want to consider that if you ask for opinions and not one person agrees that what you offer has any significance or interest, you may be overvaluing what you have. Is it possible not only that everyone here but you is wrong, but also those hundreds of media outlets that have previously covered up this blockbuster? Or is it more likely that what you have is insignificant and not very interesting? Californians read this board, so you will have your answer tomorrow morning when no newspaper notes this astounding news you have uncovered and dropped in our laps. And then you must ask yourself -- have each of these newspapers, within the span of nine hours on a Sunday in July, conspired to withhold this damning indictment of Gray Davis, or have they decided independently that no one gives a shit?
     
  5. WriteThinking

    WriteThinking Well-Known Member

    Frank, I think all this is a "gotcha" directed more at the media than it is at Gray Davis.

    This subject is not so much a matter of real relevance, because, as others have said, Gray Davis isn't any of his ancestors. Moreover, he isn't even a governor anymore.

    But it might be a matter of simple interest, if it is researched, supported, found to be accurate and reported that way. That's just the way it is with notable, widely recognized public officials -- simple celebrity journalism, if nothing else.

    Most anything is fair game in such instances, and stories involving Nazis, or connections to them, still draw interest because they are lightning-rod for reactions, even 60+ years later. And, while no one would care about us or our history, someone might, when it comes to a governor's family tree. I'd give host that.

    But, host, any news that papers run is supposed to be confirmed and solidly backed up before it is published.

    As I said earlier, I have no problem with you asking questions. Some might even be legitimate. But with the idea of some far-flung conspiracy or widespread intentional ignorance, I think that, now, you've taken the questions/criticism a bit too far. Just as you have to know when to ask questions, sometimes, you also have to know when to stop.

    I'm starting to wonder whether you've asked the questions anywhere else, or not? Why come to a sports journalists' forum in this particular case? Even though there are loads of intelligent, interested and engaged people on this board, it wouldn't necessarily be the best audience for the topic.
     
  6. jgmacg

    jgmacg Guest

    From a link I already posted:

    Business transactions with Germany were not illegal until Hitler declared war on the United States on December 11, 1941

    at which point Davis the Elder had been dead nearly six months.

    And from the other link I already posted, a gentle reminder that both Ford and GM were in violation of that prohibition for nearly the entirety of the war:

    http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/national/daily/nov98/nazicars30.htm

    So I hope you don't drive an F-150 or a Malibu.
     
  7. 2muchcoffeeman

    2muchcoffeeman Well-Known Member

    Because Gray Davis is not his grandfather and his grandfather was not relevant to Gray Davis as a man. That really is the correct answer.
     
  8. host

    host Member

    WriteThinking, thank you for "getting it". Gray Davis is not governor anymore, but this is what was happening in journalism, when he was in office:


    I think the "stuff" in the two preceding quote boxes, makes this observation,
    ....inconsistent, especially with what else was "going on", in August, 2003, while Davis was in office, too. The LA Times, in early August, 2003, was reporting about the Nazi ties of Schwarzenegger's father Gustav and grandfather, Karl....but nothing about Gray Davis's grandfather....as the following interview based article indicates, it was as if Davis had no grandfather, and the money to do all that was described, with 5 children, no less, fell to an alcoholic start up sports magazine exec., to provide...with a stay at home wife who loved to golf, and a son who was treated to "special vacations", back east....

    Now the author of this next piece might have asked Gray Davis, did alcoholism "run" in your family, or was your father's disorder a unique affliction in your family. Had the reporter, or the ones who had interviewed Davis over the five prior years when he was governor, been at all curious, they might have done some fact checking of their own. How did Gray's dad afford all that, on one salary from a position on a start up magazine? Hmmmm....did the family have money? What did Grays' father's father do, in life? Hmmmm...it says here, in a 1941 NY Times article, that WR Davis left his two sons, an estate valued at between $5 and $10 million.....and it says in this 1952 article about a senate investigation into the IRS, that WR Davis's estate hired a lawyer who was the ex-democratic party chairman, a man named Boyle...and he succeeded in settling the Davis estate tax burden, reported by Senator Williams to potentially be as much as $38 million, for just three cents on the dollar.

    So.....how did Gray's dad decline financially, by the mid 1960's, to a point where he couldn't pay his family's household expenses....it sounds hard to fathom....oh Governor, can you explain how your dad went from a trust fund inheritance of millions of dollars, to near bankruptcy in just over 20 years?

    Instead of reporting about Davis by a journalist, the preceding quote box contains a stenographer's work product....Davis dictated his background piece, in just 20 minutes.

    How on earth can a politics beat reporter verify what a politician is giving them, as far as family background, if they don't even check that background, reputation, and family fortune, themselves.....in SoCal.....mind you, a place where the lives of entertainment celebs are scrutinized for every background detail......>

    How can you say what is relevant...or isn't, if the press isn't even curious enough to do a rudimentary family background check. I find no record of any member of the press, or anyone else, for that matter, who ever put the name of Gray Davis's paternal grandfather, out in public.....can you?
     
  9. jgmacg

    jgmacg Guest

    What I find when I Google 'William Rhodes Davis' is that an obsessive posting under the name of 'host' has fetishized a not very interesting, not particularly accurate conspiracy theory and posted it widely and wildly looking for someone, anyone, to agree with him.

    Part of that poster's failure is that he relies entirely on secondary and tertiary sources picked from the internet.

    http://www.absolutewrite.com/forums/showthread.php?p=2592175

    http://www.tfproject.org/tfp/tilted-paranoia/137650-media-government-blackout-what-goering-said-1941-death-william-rhodes-davis.html#post2488134

    http://www.dailykos.com/story/2008/7/20/191832/300/898/554378

    http://letters.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2008/07/24/journalism/view/index15.html?show=all
     
  10. KJIM

    KJIM Well-Known Member

    Because they elected him, not his family. Especially the dead members.

    How did you find this Web site, anyway?
     
  11. I Digress

    I Digress Guest

    OK.. so, host.... give me verse and chapter on Sen. McCain's grandparents. Now please, as it's been such a hot topic on the campaign trail. Tell me about Sen. Obama's, other than the fact that one set was white and the other not. In fact, tell me about Bill Clinton's grandparents. Or Ronald Reagan's. Or Jimmy Carter's. Can't. Damn. Clearly the journalists involved were not doing their jobs. That's the point isn't it? You're not interested in Gray Davis. You're interested in telling a bunch of sports writers that our political colleagues didn't do their jobs once upon a time ago and because we think this isn't a story, we're not either.
     
  12. Inky_Wretch

    Inky_Wretch Well-Known Member

    Host, you've won me over. From now on, I'll be running background checks on the lineage of every person running for office. If their great-great-great-great-grandfather committed a crime in the old country, by Gawd, I'll ferret it out and expose the filthy scum for the sins of their ancestors!!!

    Thank you for saving journalism.
     
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