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Four Years Later: An Open Letter to Anderson Cooper

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Editor’s Note: On June 15 2015 James Tracy sent the correspondence below to Anderson Cooper inviting the longtime CNN anchor to Newtown Connecticut in order to conduct a true journalistic investigation of the Sandy Hook massacre event. Four years later Mr. Cooper has yet to take Tracy up in his quest. 

Since the US corporate news media’s presentation of Sandy Hook solely involved parroting the official government narrative, still leaving so many questions unanswered and information overlooked, we’re hoping that Cooper will finally do the right thing. 

By James F. Tracy

June 15, 2014

Anderson Cooper
C/O CNN
10 Columbus Circle
New York, New York 10019

Dear Mr. Cooper,

Seventeen months have passed since you featured me on your AC 360° program on consecutive evenings to call attention to my commentary and analysis of the December 14, 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre in Newtown, Connecticut. As you may recall, in the prelude to those January 11th and 14th 2013 broadcasts you sent a production crew to my place of employment that proceeded to pursue staff and administrators on my whereabouts.

[The record of Anderson Cooper’s January 2013 on-air attack of former FAU Professor James Tracy has been expunged from YouTube. The clip below is provided as a replacement of that video.]

Your staff then repeatedly telephoned my residence, later filming in front of my home and disclosing my address to a national audience without my knowledge or consent. This behavior jeopardized my family’s safety and peace of mind, and included a flurry of threatening and abusive communications directed at me. Further, some observers presumed that CNN and other national news media sought to create sufficient controversy that would lead to the termination of my employment. On the other hand, I understand how you may have perceived this as an act of due journalistic diligence rather than coercion.

Further, if at the time ample proof existed that the Sandy Hook massacre was genuine I think you may have been at least partially justified in such activity. Yet in the time since little evidence has emerged to uphold the notion that the event took place as it had been reported by CNN and other news outlets. In fact, the opinion of many independent experts and a wealth of data point to highly questionable elements of the Sandy Hook narrative that require rigorous interrogation through the intrepid investigative reportage of journalists such as you.

Anderson (if I may), that’s why I challenge you to join me on a reportorial quest to Newtown and Sandy Hook in order to revisit and rigorously question the painful affair that still rests so uneasily on the public conscience—one that is called up in memory with each report of another school shooting. Together let us ferret out and present the relevant information, interview the necessary parties, and get to the bottom of what transpired so that we can put the conspiracy theories to rest!

Anderson (again, if I may), this could very well be a landmark event in investigative journalism. If after a thorough investigation we prove that the event in fact took place as CNN and other major media reported, I will concede that you were in fact correct and seriously consider resigning my post in academe.

On the other hand, if we find holes in the official narrative this may in fact be a scandal requiring journalistic performance on par with the paragon set by Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein over 40 years ago. It will call for—indeed require—the public service of news professionals like you to find out what really happened and bring the culprits to justice! Anderson, at the end of the day it’s just like you say each evening: we truly need to “keep them honest.”

Yet there are some who say that CNN and, I’m sorry to say, even you may have been in on what they call a “hoax.” These suspicious minds say that some of your reportage from Newtown in the wake of the shooting was “greenscreened.” Others point to the time you spent in the Central Intelligence Agency and subsequent involvement in student and activist groups of several foreign countries. Still others bring up CNN’s sometime questionable coverage of major historical events, such as the Persian Gulf and Iraq Wars.

I say “Hooey!” There are many fine young men from extraordinary wealth and privilege yet limited experience or career prospects who serve in our national intelligence services. These include the nation’s 41st president, George H. W. Bush, in addition to littérateurs such as Cord Meyer. In fact, for over fifty years some of our nation’s finest journalists and political leaders have either served overtly with or maintained ties to the intelligence community. Anderson, both you and I know that serving your country is nothing to be ashamed of.

I think you’ll agree that it’s time to put these Sandy Hook “truthers” to rest for good, thereby allowing the Sandy Hook victims’ families to find comfort in the millions of dollars in donations they have received from sincere and goodhearted Americans.

Anderson, let’s reexamine Sandy Hook together to confirm our own professional integrity, while at the same time striking a potential blow at corruption and deceit. Our conscience requires it. Our nation demands it. Won’t you join me?

Yours,

(signed)

James F. Tracy

SENT USPS CERTIFIED MAIL 7013 2250 0002 2334 3915

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CNN Readying DNC Sandy Hook Propaganda Arsenal?

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cnn-ciaH/t ‘Barry Soetoro Esq.’

CNN plays a central role in propagating current “active shooter” events, giving them the wall-to-wall coverage that terrifies a significant segment of their viewership and stampeding the herd toward polices like “common sense gun laws.” 

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The cable news network was likewise on the scene as the 2012 Sandy Hook massacre event played out, presenting misleading and incorrect footage of the response to the shooting, while Anderson Cooper traveled (i.e. green screened) to the scene to interview individual family members of the victims, who as if on cue rose above their grief to recite various gun control boilerplate.

In apparent preparation for the Democratic National Convention and pre-coronation of Hillary Clinton beginning July 25 CNN is apparently fortifying its propaganda cache, uploading close to 100 videos July 21 on the Sandy Hook operation, a finding one MHB contact has graciously shared with the editor. “For some reason CNN just posted more than 30 different Sandy Hoax segments to YouTube,” he writes.

Continue reading CNN Readying DNC Sandy Hook Propaganda Arsenal? →

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Guest Posts

From Orlando to Charleston – Witnesses ‘Smell the Blood’

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Corporate news tout mass shooting events with increasingly gory details alongside no real visual documentation of carnage

By Vivian Lee

//memoryholeblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/victim-carried-toward-pulse.jpg

A “survivor” with no visible injuries, being carried toward the club instead of the hospital. Image: ABC News.

New information on “the worst mass shooting in U.S. history” reveals a complex and confusing scenario at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando during the three hours of the “shooting” and its aftermath. The official story – or perhaps one should say stories – is a fragmented narrative composed of bits and pieces, consisting of interviews of “survivors” and “witnesses,” cell phone videos supposedly taken inside the club, news footage, and pronouncements by various officials. Added to this are the texts and phone calls allegedly made by Omar Mateen, the “shooter,” along with statements given by his father and wives, past and present.

Leaving aside the ludicrous idea that Mateen phoned 911 three times while he was killing people, and also called News 13 TV as well as “a friend,” at the same time as he was texting his wife and searching on Facebook – the various parts of the Orlando story just don’t add up.[1]

Continue reading From Orlando to Charleston – Witnesses ‘Smell the Blood’ →

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Three years later … Why do professional journalists still fail to report the news?

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On January 11, 2013 CNN’s Anderson Cooper sent reporters to my campus office, and later my residence, in an effort to inquire why a professor trained in media studies and criticism would ever publicly question the corporate news media’s reportage of the Sandy Hook massacre event.

Source: CNN.com

A major theme this author hit on in early 2013 was the fact that when it came to events such as Aurora or Sandy Hook, much of the journalism produced by Cooper and his superstar colleagues often left the public more confused than informed. As I have recently written, mainstream news coverage of such events wasn’t traditionally like this.

Some MHB readers will recall how I later gave Mr. Cooper a piece of my mind, imploring him to rise to the occasion and once and for all give the lie to those irksome conspiracy theorists.

“I think you’ll agree that it’s time to put these Sandy Hook ‘truthers’ to rest for good,” I told Anderson in June 2014,  “thereby allowing the Sandy Hook victims’ families to find comfort in the millions of dollars in donations they have received from sincere and goodhearted Americans.

“Anderson,” I continued, “let’s reexamine Sandy Hook together to confirm our own professional integrity, while at the same time striking a potential blow at corruption and deceit. Our conscience requires it. Our nation demands it. Won’t you join me?”

Over eighteen months later I still await Anderson’s response.

The point of my letter, of course, was to call out a celebrity journalist for his profession’s consistent failure to actually report the news, and to instead partake in the sensationalism and mud-slinging that is turning more and more Americans away from the affairs of the day.

The world has been turned upside down when those with the overwhelming power to inform the public partake in subterfuge and simply lazy journalism. As of this writing Cooper is still employed by CNN. As most are aware by now, I was removed from my tenured teaching position on January 8, 2016.

I will be sending my resume to CNN shortly. After all, if Anderson refuses to accurately report the news and CNN wants to continue to take itself seriously someone has to step up to the plate.

Here’s that 2014 letter to Mr. Cooper.

Continue reading Three years later … Why do professional journalists still fail to report the news? →

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