The folks at Charlotte's NPR station, WFAE, aren't happy with my description of a May 21 interview by Charlotte Talks Host Mike Collins as "fawning" in a recent blog entry I wrote.    
      So on Monday, WFAE Program Director Paul Stribling attempted to censor this blog. He called to tell me that the station was peeved that I had supposedly violated their copyright policy by not asking their permission to link to their website. He demanded that I either take down the links in my June 20 blog entry or remove the word "fawning" from my description of Collins' interview.
   In Collins' May 21 interview with UNCC professor Edd Hauser, Collins and Hauser intermittently trashed other talk radio hosts in town who didn't share their views on the wonders of light rail and mass transit, the statistics used by transit tax repeal supporters and the transit tax repeal supporters as a group. 
   Stribling says Collins is "neutral," though that's hard to tell from listening to the interview. But don't take my word for it. Again, here's the link to the May 21 interview so you can judge for yourself.
    As for the links to WFAE's website, I consulted with North Carolina Press Association attorney Amanda Martin, who handles freedom of information issues for the state's reporters.
   "The basic state of the law is that linking to another site is not a copyright violation," says Martin. "You're getting strong-armed by the WFAE guy, but there's not much to back up his arm."
   So beyond a courtesy call if one chooses, no one is required to ask anyone's permission to link to anything else on the web. So as far as I'm concerned, the management at WFAE can consider this blog entry their courtesy call.
   Below is a reprint of the June 20 blog entry in it's entirety, links included:

   For over a month, the Charlotte Chamber of Commerce and UNC-Charlotte researchers have been clubbing transit tax repeal supporters over the head with a supposedly "independent" study UNCC did on the vast benefits of mass transit. 
   Now it appears that the study wasn't "independent" at all, but a useful prop paid for with public tax dollars for use in the Charlotte Chamber's campaign to save the half-cent sales tax for mass transit. Incredibly, the guidelines for the study were set in series of emails between UNCC's Chancellor and the head of the Charlotte Chamber. Needless to say, the emails cast serious doubt on the academic independence of the university.
   When he wasn't busy swapping draft copies of the study with the Chamber, Edd Hauser, Director of the Center for Transportation Policy Studies at UNC-Charlotte, was making the media rounds emphasizing the "independence" of the study he authored. In a WFAE interview, Hauser referred to the Center for Transportation Policy Studies as a place the public could rely on for "unbiased assessments of public policy."
   The Center's study, published in April, provides a stellar assessment of Charlotte Area Transit System's performance and the performance of light rail everywhere. It was released just as a campaign to repeal the half-cent sales tax that funds light rail and buses in Mecklenburg County was heating up. A group called SCAT collected over 40,000 signatures to put the repeal on the November ballot.
   "But no one came to you, you picked this as a topic to study," Mike Collins asked Hauser in a fawning interview**on May 21 on Charlotte Talks** on WFAE in which the two intermittently trashed the statistics used by transit tax repeal supporters.
   "Oh right," Hauser answered, stumbling on his words and then regaining his footing.
   But a series of emails in March proves otherwise. In them, Charlotte Chamber President Bob Morgan and UNCC Chancellor Philip Dubois traded ideas for the studies' topics, including questions the study would answer. In one email to Morgan titled "Draft of Transit Sales Tax Repeal Questions," Dubois promises to check with UNCC's lawyers for "guidance about what we can do as a public institution." It's a bit unseemly when you consider that:
 
         -The Charlotte Chamber is leading the campaign against repealing the half-cent tax, and recently put out a press release launching the pro-tax campaign. Many of the Chamber's members and board members stand to directly profit from light rail.
         -That anyone, including The Charlotte Observer's editorial board -- which wrote this -- took the UNCC study seriously is shocking. UNCC needs the tax to get the rail line it wants out to its campus. The University has been lobbying for a rail line for years, and losing the tax would likely scuttle it.
         -The salaries of Hauser and study co-author Sherry Elmes are paid for by the State of North Carolina with your tax dollars.

   Worse yet, Dennis Rash, Executive in Residence with the Center for Transportation Policy Studies, joins in the email conversation between Morgan and Dubois at one point, writing that "there are clearly more transportation issues about which Edd and I can identify the key contacts quicker." Rash is the husband of Betty Chafin Rash, one of the seven members of the Chamber-linked group fighting the repeal of the sales tax.
   "Edd and I also agree that I should not be a spokesman for the Center in answering these questions," Dennis Rash wrote to Dubois about the study. "I have too much history as an advocate to be able now to function as an independent analyst."
    Rash wrapped the email to Dubois up with this line that suggested he would still be involved in the study. 
   "We will keep you informed of the progress, and provide a copy of the final results before we send a final draft to the Chamber.



  
   
   


**This blog entry has been censored by the supposedly "public" radio station WFAE. WFAE Program Director Paul Stribling objected to my use of the term "fawning" to describe Charlotte Talks' Host Mike Collins' interview with UNCC Professor Edd Hauser, in which Collins trashed the supporters of the half-cent sales tax repeal. Stribling insists Collins is neutral and apparently doesn't want you to read anything to the contrary, or to use links to the station's website to listen to the May 21 interview and decide for yourself.
   The choice Stribling gave me was to either take the word "fawning" out of the following entry, or remove the links to the publicly funded station's website. Stribling faulted me for not initially seeking the station's permission to link to the website, which he says contains copyrighted material. But when I asked for permission, he again insisted that I remove the word "fawning" before I use the links. So permission to link to the "public" station's site is apparently predicated on pre-approval of any web content containing the link.
  Unlike WFAE, I'm committed to editorial freedom, so for now I'm removing the links, not the descriptive editorial term WFAE objects to. The links to the May 21 show will be republished in a new blog editorial to be published tomorrow, July 3. For now, you can find the link to the May 21 show by entering "WFAE" into your search engine and then clicking on Charlotte Talks. Sorry for the inconvenience.)