WRESTLING FANS AGAINST CENSORSHIP 6/9/2001 PTC WATCH
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In this issue:
* WFAC page hacked
* Washington Times publishes the PTC's latest entry into "junk science"
* PTC "Good Guy" Advertising Scoreboard
* If the PTC won't remove certain companies from their "Good Guy" list, let's help them out...
* If you think the PTC is just after the WWF...just ask Dory Funk
* How to order Foley is Good
* Continuing updates on Canadian censorship of Monday Night RAW
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WFAC page hacked
As many of you have no doubt noticed, the WFAC page has been hacked.
The newsboard is still accessible at this URL.
We are working to restore the page fully as soon as possible.
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Washington Times published "study" summary by PTC
The Unification Church-owned Washington Times published the "study" by the Parents Television Council's recent entry into "junk science" in their "Pro Wrestling: Less Offensive, But Still Offensive" report:
"In a report, 'Pro Wrestling: Less Offensive, But Still Offensive,' released this week, the Parents Television Council said UPN's
'Smackdown!', the World Wrestling Federation's cable show 'Raw is War/War Zone', and World Championship Wrestling's cable show 'Monday Nitro' had markedly less offensive content.
The overall rate of offensive material fell by 15.9 percent from the spring of 2000 to the winter of 2001, the PTC reported, although all three programs continued to include sexual innuendoes and multiple obscene references to male and female anatomy. Violence showed the largest decrease and foul language showed the least, the report said.
Pro wrestling shows have gotten bad publicity in recent years as several killings of children by other children were attributed to the attackers copying techniques from various wrestling TV shows.
'Smackdown!' airs on Thursdays from 8 to 10 p.m., during the so-called TV 'family hour.' Approximately 2.8 million children watch the show, the PTC says.
WWF's 'Raw' show was more offensive, the group says, because of a sharp increase in coarse language that offset drop-offs in sex and violence. 'Nitro,' in contrast, cleaned up its language considerably. All three shows continued to display some blood during wrestling matches."
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If the PTC won't remove certain companies from their "Good Guy" list, let's help them out...
Since most of the companies falsely listed as "no longer advertising on WWF programming" (see story below) haven't taken definite steps to mandate the removal of their corporate names from the "Good Guys" list on the PTC website; it's time for us to demand that they do it ourselves.
They can be reached via e-mail at editor@parentstv.org or ptcmembers@parentstv.org
Via snail mail at:
Parents Television Council
325 South Patrick Street
Alexandria, VA 22314
Parents Television Council
707 Wilshire Boulevard #1950
Los Angeles, CA 90017
phone: (213) 629-9255
Via telephone at (800) 882-6868 or via L. Brent Bozell's assistant Deborah Thomas at (703) 684-1699.
In each of these cases, please be sure to write, e-mail, or call only once in a polite and literate manner, using no profanity.
Make clear that the stated information regarding ConAgra, M&M/Mars, 1-800-CALL-ATT, Pep Boys, Burger King, and the US Armed Forces is in error, and should be removed from their website immediately to avoid possible additional legal sanctions from the companies in question.
Further, it's time to contact the webhost for the PTC, Special Systems.Net, and make them aware of the nature of the potentially defamatory comments on the PTC's website.
Ask Special Systems.Net whether or not these actions of the PTC constitute a TOS (Term of Service) violation. Point out the WWFE lawsuit against the PTC and Media Research Center to them...and that their company might possibly bear a legal responsibility if they knowingly carry libelous, slamderous or defamatory material on their servers.
You can contact:
Mark Schultz
Special Systems, Inc.
5033 Huntwood Drive
Fairfax, VA 22030
Call at (703) 383-3900, by fax at (703) 383-9898, or e-mail at solutions@specialsystems.com.
In writing to Special Systems, Inc. as well, please be sure to write, e-mail, or call only once in a polite and literate manner, using no profanity.
Please forward any non-auto replies that you recieve to WFAC.
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PTC "Good Guy" Advertising Scoreboard...
To the shock of absolutely no one, the PTC is continuing its campaign of lies about the status of WWF advertisers, continuing with this Monday's RAW.
Here's the scoreboard for episodes of RAW or Smackdown episodes that have featured advertisements by so-called PTC "Good Guys", from January 1, 2001 to the present:
ConAgra
RAW 20/Smackdown 18/Heat 11
PPVs SummerSlam 2001
1 800 CALL ATT
RAW 15/Smackdown 3/Heat 3
M&M/Mars
RAW 19/Smackdown 4/Heat 11
PPVs Wrestlemania 2001 and King of the Ring 2001
Burger King
RAW 13/Smackdown 1
US Army/other military agencies
RAW 4/Smackdown 7
Pep Boys
RAW 5
Readers may wish to send a note to the WWF sponsors above falsely listed as having withdrawn advertising from WWFE programming. Thank them for their sponsorship; and remind them again that their names are again being falsely used by the PTC as part of their propaganda campaign.
Suggest that the company (or their legal representative) sends a cease and desist letter to the PTC immediately, demanding their company's name be removed from any and all sections of the PTC website, and that a retraction be sent out in the next PTC E-Alert.
Here is their contact information:
* M&M/Mars (Snickers, Starburst, Twix, and Uncle Ben's Rice)
Mars Corporation
800 High Street
Hackettstown, NJ 07840
Phone at (908) 852-1000, fax at (908) 850-2624 , or e-mail at Contact.Us@Mars.com
* 1-800-CALL-ATT
Contact through the feedback page.
* US Army
Office of the Chief of Public Affairs
1500 Army Pentagon
Washington, DC 20310-1500
* ConAgra (Chef Boyardee, Slim Jim)
Corporate Communications/Media - Karen Savinski (402) 595-5392
You can also contact ConAgra online via e-mail: at webmaster@conagra.com, or via their feedback page at this link.
* Burger King
Mr. Stefan Bomhard, Senior Vice President of Marketing
Burger King
17777 Old Cutler Road
Miami, FL 33157
(305) 378-3535
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If you think it's just the WWF.... read on....
The following was sent to me Tuesday morning, after reading this week's AS I SEE IT column, by Marti Funk, wife of wrestling legend Dory Funk.
For those of you who don't know, Dory is running the Funking Conservatory wrestling school, with the !BANG! show supporting his promotion running on two stations.
Here's Marti's letter:
"Well Bob, when I first read your column today... I thought.. Gee, that is so wild. How could anyone not see that these young people are professional and well trained to accomplish the athletic performance and in some cases night after night?
However, after I wrote to you this morning, I got a call from a personal assistant of ours that the local paper (the Ocala Star Banner), had a Editorial letter printed just having a real go at us [and] our TV show !BANG! on Fox 51 Saturdays at 12:30pm; comparing us to major violence and society's mayhem.
I thought of you and the fact I just wrote to you and being surprised and a few minutes later, [it's in] the morning paper going out to a hundred thousand people that we are...!BANG!... bad morals... bad values...pro wrestling... yada yada etc. Well, I am just amazed. I guess I am in the fight. Thanks for the heads up... even in spirit this morning.
All the best,
Marti Funk"
Here's the letter to the Editor in question, posted on Dory Funk.com
"...Egregious Behavior
I find it utterly appalling that the Star-Banner has published a full-page promotion featuring the local professional wrestling show !BANG. Like its TV cousin, the World Wrestling Federation show Smackdown, it presents excessive violence and colossally crude behavior to a young and immature audience, in some cases causing them to do likewise.
The real question here is what prompted your newspaper to promote this form of mayhem which is described as "... a match to the finish and .... only one man left standing... under Texas Death Match rules. Anything goes including the use of tables, chairs and ladders."
Why did you chose to dignify it all, much less with a full page piece?
Today's movies and TV shows are awash with explicit sexuality, excessive violence and crude behavior and they are having a destructive impact on public behavior. Professional wrestling, which has become one of the most vulgar forms of public entertainment is now being effectively opposed by the non-profit Parents Television Council (PTC), which works to convince major advertisers to avoid these shows.
PTC, with membership of over 600,000, has urged 100 top brand-name companies to withhold advertising from professional wrestling and other raunchy shows like "Temptation Island", "Boston Public" and Howard Stern. And they are getting results. Although you may not care to promote their cause, I think that you owe it to he community not to promote the egregiously violent behavior which is !BANG! Pro-Wrestling.
John L. Pennewell,Ocala, Florida"
Here's the response by Dory and Marti Funk:
"...We see things that shock us everyday on TV, the news, the market and even our own county commission meetings.
It has been well publicized that Professional Wrestling is 'Sports Entertainment.' It is an athletic performance. Our performance takes place entirely within the ring or as you might put it, 'On Stage.' Participants in the Match are trained performers from our wrestling School. Safety is a major part of the training program.
In regard to the billing [of a] 'Texas Death Match', there is a current movie on the market called 'Blow'. The subject is drugs. I know the [ad in the] Star Banner is not advocating illegal drug use. The movie Pearl Harbor depicts vividly the slaughtering of thousands of Americans. I am sure that safety is a big part of their training program for production of the movie.
Whatever our source of entertainment, we all want it to be real. Jet contrails would not be acceptable in a movie set in the 1930?s nor would visible guy wires be acceptable in Peter Pan. Likewise in Pro Wrestling, the fans want their entertainment to be real so that for the moment when they cry, laugh or cheer at a performance it is because they have had the feeling of suspended disbelief. They have become involved.
Saturday night at our !BANG! television tapings, when the English hero, The Royal Stud, Adam Windsor overcame all odds to rise to his feet and win the Texas Death Match over Playboy Dale Williams (with tables, chairs and ladders legal) our fans, who love sports entertainment, felt that rush and rose to their feet? For that moment to all of them it was real and it was sports entertainment... and it was hard work.
What is our television show !BANG! really about? It is about athletic teamwork, team pride, safety and team performance. Check all the happy faces in the referenced full-page story in last week?s Star Banner.
The Parents Television Council has some valid concerns but have gone so far as to become destructive of themselves on the issues of wrestling.
Last week, Judge Chin of the US Court of Appeals refused [an request for] dismissal by the PTC from a lawsuit filed by the WWF. The action by WWF against the PTC is for Defamation ---- Judge Chin wrote that the PTC and the other defendants may not make false and defamatory statements under cover of the First Amendment. The First Amendment does not protect statements that are false and defamatory, and the PTC cannot defame using the 1st Amendment as a defense when the express intention is defamation.
We invite everyone to judge us for our work at the Dory Funk Arena on June 23 at the TV taping of !BANG! shown on Fox 51 at 12:30pm on Saturdays .
Dory Funk Jr. Coach of the Funking Conservatory
Marti Funk ? Producer of !BANG! Pro-wrestling TV Show
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How to order Foley is Good, which heavily criticizes Bozell and the PTC
As I've mentioned in previous PTC Watches, Mick Foley's new book Foley is Good has an entire 50 page chapter devoted to the PTC and its deliberate campaign of corporate terrorism. It's well-researched, fact-based and comes straight from his heart. Rather than just deliver a rant, Foley has supported each argument with research, and footnotes worthy of a college theses.
Obviously, it is far more than just this, but I thought it important to let anti-PTC supporters know that it might be a good idea (if you weren't already planning to do so) to order this book.
Foley is Good was #1 on the New York Times Bestseller List for two weeks.
Foley is Good can be ordered directly for $26.95 at WWF Shop Zone from this URL.
Amazon.com is selling the book for $21.56 at this URL.
Barnes And Noble is also selling the book for $21.56 at this URL.
Believe it or not, it's available at Wal-Mart for $18.88. That is, until they invoke the Sheryl Crow rule (when they notice the critical comments directed at them in the book).
It's also available at most local bookstores.
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How to contact Canadian authorities regarding their censorship of Monday Night RAW
We aren't the only ones around to bring up the issue of Canadian censorship of Monday Night RAW. Daniel Bradshaw of IOWrestling.com has been leading an effort to send e-mails to TSN regarding their editing of the show.
Below are the contacts provided for those of you in Canada to reach to allow you to get you RAW on TSN unfiltered and uncensored.
The only way we can make sure it does reach the table is to make our views known continually without letup. This is where I am asking for help from all WWF fans in Canada who are tired of being forced to sit through a censored version on TSN of RAW is WAR. It may seem like a small thing to people who don't care at all, but it is a huge problem that could evolve into other popular areas of television shows you currently enjoy. Censorship is wrong, and needs to be stopped.
I still ask that every concerned fan continue to let the CRTC, the CAB and the CBSC know how you feel about the subject of censorship, even though they have proved they don't care how we feel. It's not in vain, and one day, it could possibly be the contributing factor in defeating censorship in Canada.
Here is the contact information you will need to reach the authorities in charge of regulating what we see on Canadian Television.
Here are the contacts for the CRTC for each province:
Mailing Address
CRTC
Ottawa, Ontario, Canada K1A 0N2
Central Office
Les Terrasses de la Chaudi?re/Central Building
1 Promenade du Portage, Hull, Quebec
Tel: (819) 997-0313/Fax: (819) 994-0218/TDD: (819) 994-0423
Nova Scotia
Bank of Commerce Building
1809 Barrington Street, Suite 1007, Halifax, Nova Scotia B3J 3K8
Tel: (902) 426-7997/Fax: (902) 426-2721/TDD: (902) 426-6997
Quebec
405 de Maisonneuve Boulevard East, Suite B2300, Montr?al, Quebec H2L 4J5
Tel: (514) 283-6607/Fax: (514) 283-3689/TDD: (514) 283-8316
Manitoba
275 Portage Avenue, Suite 1810, Winnipeg, Manitoba R3B 2B3
Tel: (204) 983-6306/Fax: (204) 983-6317/TDD: (204) 983-8274
British Columbia
580 Hornby Street, Suite 530, Vancouver, B.C. V6C 3B6
Tel: (604) 666-2111/Fax: (604) 666-8322/TDD: (604) 666-0778
Ontario
55 St. Clair Avenue East, Suite 624, Toronto, Ontario
Tel: (416) 952-9096
Saskatchewan
Cornwall Professional Building
2125 11th Avenue, Suite 103
Regina, Saskatchewan
Tel: (306) 780-3422
Alberta
10405 Jasper Avenue, Suite 520
Edmonton, Alberta
Tel: (780) 495-3224
This is the address to reach the CAB to complain about their support of an agency who supports and regulates censorship in this day and age, which is wrong:
The Canadian Association of Broadcasters
L'Association canadienne des radiodiffuseurs
P.O. Box 627, Stn. B
C.P. 627, Succ.B
Ottawa, Canada K1P 5S2
Tel/T?l.: (613) 233-4035
Fax/T?l?c.: (613) 233-6961
E-mail: cab@cab-acr.ca
This is the contact information for the Attorney General of Canada, who should be informed that we feel our rights in the Canadian Charter of Rights are being infringed upon by the CBSC and the CAB:
The Honourable Anne McLellan, P.C., M.P.
Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada
284 Wellington Street
Ottawa, Ontario K1A 0H8<
webadmin@justice.gc.ca
This is the contact information for the Heritage Minister of Canada, who should be informed that we feel our rights in the Canadian Charter of Rights are being infringed upon by the CBSC and the CAB:
Sheila Copps, Minister of Canadian Heritage
min_copps@pch.gc.ca
Please remember that you need to state your opinion as professionally as possible. Failure to do so will result in non-action by these agencies and government officials. Without complete support from you the fans of the WWF Canada, this problem will never be solved, and the censoring will continue.
Thank-you for your continued support as we fight for our rights as Canadians to watch what we want, when we want, without being told we can?t do so.
Thanks for Reading,
Daniel Bradshaw
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Please visit Wrestling Fans Against Censorship and PWBTS 2000 for your wrestling news and opinions.
To volunteer, or to offer comments, suggestions, or to drop us a line, email us at wfac@wfac.cjb.net.
To communicate with others concerned about the efforts of the PTC, please feel free to join us at the WFAC message board anytime at this link. As with many boards, a brief registration is required to post there.