Hament: WWSB ABC7: "Pervasive partisan bias"

Email of May 15, 2020 from Gabriel Hament of Sarasota:

Open Letter to Jeffrey Benninghoff, Vice President and General Manager of WWSB ABC7: "It Is Now Confirmed WWSB ABC7 Is a Partisan Organization, Advancing a Partisan Agenda"

Mr. Benninghoff:

According to your LinkedIn profile, you are the Vice President and General Manager of WWSB ABC 7.

The body of evidence is now growing that you, Mr. Benninghoff, are advancing your personal political preferences through (1) the selection of guests of one political party over the other, and, by extension, (2) unequal air time granted to members of one political party over another, in conflict with the Federal Communications Commission equal-time rule. 

In compliance with the Federal Communications Commission handbook section titled "Complaints or Comments About a Station," by copy of this e-mail, I have filed a complaint with your federal supervisory body. I urge others to do so by replying to this email. I will then gather and aggregate community complaints and share them with a wider audience next week.

After last night's 7PM broadcast, and an examination of your publicly available Facebook page in combination with the facts outlined below, a fact pattern has now been established that points to pervasive partisan bias within your news organization.

During last evening's 7PM broadcast, two Republican politicians were featured. No elected officials affiliated with the Democratic Party were included in the broadcast.

Not only did one of your regularly scheduled guests--local Congressman Vern Buchanan--share incorrect information on air, the Congressman made a sexist refrain in one segment and, in a continuation of a pattern now established on the news mediums of both print and television, insulted unemployed constituents in another. Compounding the problematic comments issued by the Congressman is the Congressman's continued insistence on the violation of your station's policy of visiting in-person rather than using a video conference function from the safety of his own home.  

At minute marker 4:57 of last evening's 7PM "Ask the Congressman" segment, the Congressman recounted how desperate and frustrated Suncoast constituents are becoming due to their inability to register for unemployment insurance. 

• "We do have a lot of people calling our office. 500 e-mails a day. Many of them calling, talking to our representatives. Actually crying on the phone--ladies and others. It's really kind of a sad scenario."

Mr. Benninghoff, was the Congressman saying that only members of the female sex have called his office crying, while male constituents remain stoic as they attempt to navigate the labyrinthine CONNECT system--a system admittedly designed to deter constituents from seeking relief during challenging periods of economic dislocation, so that reported unemployment statistics would remain artificially low?

Twenty minutes later in the broadcast, after state Senator Gruters concluded his ballad of syrupy and effusive praise of the Congressman (for doing what, I do not know), at minute marker 24:44, the Congressman began again to rail on the working people within his district, insinuating that they would prefer to "shelter in place" and collect unemployment checks for an indefinite period.

• "But there's gunna be people who are gunna get the $600 plus the $275, and a lot of people are unfortunately not making that. It would be nice if they were but that's one of the challenges with the unemployment in general. In fact this new bill that's coming out tomorrow that I'm going to be voting on, they're looking to extend that--the $600 a week--until next March so that'll be one of the challenges when we get up there that we'll be talking about as well. Because we want to encourage people to go back to work. The employers are gunna start needing people as we start ramping up this economy."

Then, Ms. Matter asks the Congressman to clarify:

• "So you're saying that new bill tomorrow would possibly extend unemployment for almost another year?"

The Congressman's response:

• "Well I think it's another seven or eight months. That's what I've been told, at six-hundred dollars a week. That's what Speaker Pelosi is proposing. I think a lot of our small business people and people in the region are concerned that they're going to need these workers back ideally sooner than later. We don't want to have a point where you're making $60,000 to stay home, a year."

Mr. Benninghoff, don't you find it insulting that one of your guests, and a member of your political party, is insinuating that his constituents are lazy and would prefer to stay home and collect unemployment rather than earn money through gainful employment?

Additionally, Mr. Benninghoff, how did the Congressman arrive at the erroneous figure of $60,000?

By my calculation, $275 plus $600 equals $875. $875 multiplied by four is $3,500. $3,500 by twelve is $42,000. 

Given your credentialing as a Certified Public Account, Mr. Benninghoff, can you please verify my math?

Mr, Benninghoff, is my request for equal air time unreasonable? 

Why are you allowing your personal political preferences stifle the expression of other points of view?

Isn't stifling other points of view, just because they are divergent from your own, on a publicly regulated television station, contrary to the first amendment to the Constitution of the United States?

Thank you, Mr. Benninghoff,

--Gabriel Hament

Hament to City: Request for Reimbursement

During the Pence visit of Feb. 28th to Sarasota, there was collateral damage. Some of us were in that traffic halted by His Nibs coming to grift Vern's supporters, on the very day he, Pence, was assigned the task of overseeing the nation's response to the Corona Virus:

The people who were unable to make their appointments on a Friday evening in season; the people who never got to work, or were unable to get home from work; the people who failed to get to their paid-for seats in theaters and concert halls; the people who needed healthcare workers who could not get to them -- these costs are incalculable. The callous contempt for the public raining down from the Trump/Pence Nightmare is beyond computation

From Gabriel Hament to the City of Sarasota:

Madam Mayor, Madam Vice Mayor, Commissioners and Mr. Barwin:

Thank you, Mr. Barwin, for directing the Sarasota Police Department (SPD) to complete the calculation of the cost associated with Vice President Pence's security detail on Friday, February 28th. As reported by the Herald Tribune and Tampa Bay Times, the objective of the Vice President's visit was to raise funds to support the campaigns of Republican candidates to the US House of Representatives. Dollars raised during the Vice President's evening visit to the Longboat Key home of Congressman Vern Buchanan were for the benefit of the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC). A dinner ticket came at $25,000/person.

What else came at a cost of $25,000 was the security detail bill that City of Sarasota taxpayers must now absorb.

According to the SPD's calculation, City of Sarasota taxpayers have now been hit with a $25,670 security detail bill, to be specific. 

From a fiduciary standpoint, I believe a reasonable effort should be undertaken to recover these costs and make taxpayers whole.

It is clear that the Vice President's visit served no public purpose, only a private one. 

Given the severe hardship facing the City and the City's small businesses over the coming weeks and months, returning these dollars to the City's coffers--dollars that were removed for private benefit--makes a great deal of sense to me.

The City is now designing a small business support fund which I believe will be discussed at next week's Commission meeting. 

Twenty-five thousand dollars is not an inconsequential sum; five $5,000 grants could go a long way in supporting the City's struggling business owners.

We must keep in mind that this security detail bill could have been far less or avoided altogether.

In a proactive manner, Mr. Barwin attempted to contact the office of Congressman Buchanan to request that the Vice President consider an alternate route, time (as roads were shut down at rush hour on a Friday) or mode of transportation. 

Neither Mr. Buchanan nor his staff returned Mr. Barwin's call.

I recommend that the Commission and Administration open lines of communication with both the NRCC and Mr. Buchanan and request the NRCC reimburse the City of Sarasota. 

Mr. Buchanan's spokesperson and an NRCC representative, Meredith O'Rourke, are copied.

Respectfully,

Gabriel Hament