1,207,865@1:51 am. June 17
June 16, 2018
Medford Transcript
Danvers, Mass.
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
Dear Transcript:
Miranda Wilson 's June 12, 2018 article on the struggling access TV station utilizes a talking point from a July 14 2016 city-authorized blog from Lisa Evangelista, a talking point that the Muccini-Burke Administration uses to pacify the cable TV subscribers forking over a ton of money that they get no return on.
Miranda Wilson writes on June 12, 2018:
"But the Medford Cable Advisory Board members want the public to know that despite MCM getting off to a slow start, the station is up and running and the board is moving forward." http://medford.wickedlocal.com/news/20180612/despite-lack-of-staff-medford-community-media-hopes-to-make-progress
Lisa Evangelista's blog, The MPS Advantage, dated July 14, 2016 declares in its headline:
Medford’s Cable Access TV Station, Moving Forward
Real reporting is looking into the allegedly missing 38K from Medford Community Cablevision, Inc., so serious that the office of the Attorney General told this writer that they cannot comment on it as it could impede "law enforcement."
Now that's a juicy story you'll never find in the pages of the paper which should change its name to The Medford City Hall Transcript
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WHILE THE STATION IS MOVING IN REVERSE, THE TRANSCRIPT WRITES ABOUT MOVING FORWARD, THE EXACT SAME LANGUAGE ON THE EXACT SAME SUBJECT AS THE CITY'S BLOG WRITTEN BY LISA EVANGELISTA...Twenty-Three Months Ago.
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For years this writer has stated that the Medford Transcript is nothing more than a wholly owned subsidiary of Mike McGlynn Inc. a.k.a. Medford City Hall. It doesn't take the skills of Inspector Clouseau - even as inept and bungling as that fictional character - and city council president Rick Caraviello - portray themselves to be, to figure out that the Transcript writes and does what it is fed by Medford City Hall.
This failure by an entity of the Fourth Estate to do its due diligence on matters of great public interest is - basically -cheating every advertiser and unsuspecting citizen who forks over $2.00 a copy.
Using the TALKING POINTS from City Hall in the Medford Transcript - shameful!
Updated Jun 12, 2018 at 2:58 PM 23 months after the press release on the same subject, almost to the day: http://medford.wickedlocal.com/news/20180612/despite-lack-of-staff-medford-community-media-hopes-to-make-progress
There can be no access television if the weekly paper is complicit in the abuse of the funds paid to the city by Verizon and Comcast, funds taken from the franchise fee meant for public access television.
Why didn't Miranda Wilson, or Jay Campbell, Yvette Wilks and Gabby Follett Sumney look into the payments to Lisa Dunphy, Jack Dempsey and Allison Goldsberry. Aren't those salaries coming from the monies designated for the Government channel?
You know that public access TV you pay for and don't have?
Guess who got the money as of May 7, 2015 at 9:58 am according to our outgoing Finance Director:
The salaries requested are as follows:
Lisa Dunphy CY2014 78,419 reg
2,600 add'l (misc)
CY2015 28,101.78 reg
John Dempsey CY2014 72,486.41 reg
8,008.35 add'l(coach)
CY2015 25,609.68 reg
5,766.88 add'l
Allison Goldsberry CY 2014 50,158,32 reg+retro
7,000.06 add'l (webmaster + misc)
CY2015 17,303.85 reg
865.35 add'l
Anne Baker
Finance Director
So stay with me on this:
Sixty Percent of the franchise fee - thanks to some antiquated and very wrong "home rule petition" lo those many years ago, SIXTY PERCENT, a whopping SIXTY PERCENT, goes to the General Fund.
That appears to be ALL THE MONIES EARMARKED FOR THE EDUCATIONAL CHANNEL as well as other access TV monies.
The three salaries to Dunphy, Dempsey and Goldsberry allegedly are the monies designated for the Government channel. You know, that rude old allegation that the council needed $400.00 for a DVD player instead of the VCR (you read that right, a darn VCR) that was at the fire station rolling (or intentionally not rolling, allegedly) the city council meetings...except for when McGlynn allegedly didn't feel like cablecasting them. FOUR HUNDRED BUCKS - it seems - couldn't be utilized ...and wasn't the person in charge the former city councilor, Stephanie Muccini-Burke? I don't know, that's why I am asking.
So along comes Joe Vig and Doreen Wade and Bob Penta to shut down TV3, at long last.
Now the Mayor, Muccini-Burke, has about 55k a quarter going into the slush fund, and --- voila - outgoing Mayor McGlynn puts in motion plans to put the station at the high school, to benefit the high school (remember, Educational funds allegedly went south into the black hole of the "general fund," ) and not the public...
Because McGlynn and Muccini-Burke are allergic to freedom of the press and the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
Which is why they just LOVE to read the Medford Transcript, as objective as Donald Trump's self generated twitter storms, and twice as dangerous to this city.
Lisa Evangelista's Talking Points, Proudly Published by typist Miranda Wilson. Or is that "re-typist."
This is not very supportive - the journalism the Transcript currently offers, when the city has never had access television.
Mark Rumley's preposterous declaration regarding freedom of the press in Medford is enough to make the alleged firm of Flam & Flam (alleged model for the 1967 film The Flim Flam Man) blush with envy:
City Solicitor Mark E. Rumley / Medford Daily Mercury on or about Nov. 16, 2008 (quoted from the 2nd Judge Jackson-Thompson hearing) saying:
“The one sentiment that I have heard that I take great exception to is that the city is trying to limit speech,” said Rumley. “The notion the city would censor or squelch free speech is baseless and as city solicitor I would find any such effort repugnant.”
Mordecai C. Jones (Scott) – a self-styled "M.B.S., C.S., D.D. — Master of Back-Stabbing, Cork-Screwing and Dirty-Dealing!" – is a drifting confidence trickster who makes his living defrauding people in the southern United States. One of his specialties is rigged punchboards. He befriends a young man named Curley (Sarrazin), a deserter from the United States Army, and the two form a team to make money.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Flim-Flam_Man
At least George C. Scott was playing a fictional character. Sadly for Medford, Mr. Rumley is not.
Don't hold your breath when former TV3 board member Mark Rumley sets off to investigate the board that he once sat on, Medford Community Cablevision, Inc.
In the city of Medford, some things never change.
The Medford Transcript, moving forward, right into the Titanic
ker plunk
Cheers
Joe Viglione
