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- I just phoned the Martha's Vineyard Gazette and spoke
with a woman there. I asked her about the statement -- in the July 17th
United Press International report of the John F. Kennedy Jr. plane crash
http://www.upi.com/corp/news/jfkjr3.html -- that a reporter for the Martha's
Vineyard Gazette had witnessed an explosion in the sky around the time
of the crash. She replied, "Oh, that story was completely bogus. What
really happened was that someone was shooting off fireworks on Falmouth."
"Falmouth?" I said, "Is that an island?" "Falmouth,"
she said, "is the closest point to Martha's Vineyard." I said,
"But this reporter witnessed an explosion in the SKY." She countered,
"Well, they were shooting rockets up in the air, or something like
that."
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- Fearing that she might hang up if I continued to contradict
her, I asked, "May I speak with the reporter who witnessed this?"
"Oh, no," she replied nervously, "we can't do that."
I said, "Oh, that's strange. What could be the problem with speaking
to a reporter?" She repeated, "We can't permit that." I
said, "Okay, can you at least give me his name?" "No, we
can't do that, either," she persisted." Then she added, "He
no longer works for us," almost as if she were making it up, just
to get me to give up. Then when I responded with a surprised "Ohhh",
she suddenly realized that her comment had made matters worse and, in a
jolt of vexation, she sputtered, "Oh, no, no! It has nothing to do
with that incident. He went back to school." "Oh," I said,
"so is he a journalism student?" After an answerless pause,
I thanked her and said goodbye. I think she was relieved.
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- What do you make of this, folks? What questions would
you have asked if you had called the Martha's Vineyard Gazette, at (508)627-4311?
Would you have asked if the reason why the UPI quote (of his statement
that he saw a "big white flash" in the sky off Philbin Beach
at about the time of the crash) was expunged from ALL subsequent news reports
from ALL news outlets was because this reporter had personally called United
Press International and told them that he had made a mistake -- that the
"big white flash" he saw in the sky off Philbin Beach at about
the time of the crash was REALLY caused by someone shooting rockets into
the air from Falmouth? And if he would have ever made such an absurd retraction,
then how is it that no other news outlet ANYWHERE has, after July 17th,
repeated the reporter's sighting ANYWAY, considering that news outlets
feed off of one another (e.g. WCVB-TV said this, and UPI said this, and
so on)? How is it that this media magical disappearing act could have been
pulled off so neatly, without ONE SINGLE news outlet breaking the code
of silence?
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- And so, we come, full circle, to that unnamed, unidentifiable,
unapproachable reporter: the unreporting reporter. If his retraction was
so widely recognized throughout all the cutting rooms of mass medialand
... then why in the hell can NO ONE be allowed to speak with him, much
less, even find out his name?
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- And how does the Vineyard Gazette KNOW that its reporter
definitely saw fireworks off of Falmouth, and not a "big white flash"
off of Philbin Beach? Did the reporter later reflect on his sighting, replay
his mental videotape, and say to himself, "Gee, that wasn't a big
white flash in the sky off of Philbin Beach. It was rockets shooting up
in the air off of Falmouth." Is that how the human mind functions?
You just go back and replay the tape in your head, and see what actually
happened? Or, did someone ELSE tell the Vineyard Gazette that the reporter
saw fireworks off of Falmouth at around the time of the Kennedy plane's
plunge into the ocean? -- and that they had better stick to that story!
-
- Furthermore, did you ever hear of anyone going "back
to school" before August 5th (the date of my phone call to the Gazette)?
Doesn't school start in September?
-
- And furthermore still -- someone notified me that Falmouth
is in the opposite direction from Philbin Beach. The UPI report indeed
stated that the Vineyard Gazette reporter sighted the "big white flash"
off of Philbin Beach. Well, that's easy enough to check out. Is Philbin
Beach near the line-of-sight of Falmouth? Would you check it out for me
and let me know? Thanks.
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- John DiNardo jdinardo@idt.net
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