Re “Shh. Hutchinson, Who Snubs Sebastian, Hides Secret from Audience”
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Despite protestations of neutrality, Dr. Hutchinson displayed Armenta for Assembly sign in his yard, with a few extras to spare.
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Where does the truth, to coin an ironic term, lie?
Did Dr. Earl Ofari Hutchinson – as he claims – invite the since easily triumphant state Assembly candidate Sebastian Ridley-Thomas to an ostensible candidates forum last Saturday afternoon on his KPFK radio program?
Or did he forget to invite the heavy favorite?
Or did his alleged distaste for Mr. Ridley-Thomas’s father, the County Supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas, hobble his presumed journalistic integrity?
The Ridley-Thomas camp was irate because, they said, the candidate was not invited, and they were adamant no invitation was sent.
By the accompanying photos of the Hutchinson homestead – revelatory, at the least, on the surface – it is evident that Dr. Hutchinson was not the neutral observer he claimed to be before Mr. Ridley-Thomas’s 60 percent to 36 percent victory over Christopher Armenta.
Yesterday afternoon, Dr. Hutchinson emailed the astute Wave Newspapers columnist Betty Pleasant – and copied the 171-word letter to this newspaper – proclaiming his innocence.
He wrote:
Betty Pleasant
The record will still stand as we amply documented that ALL, I repeat, ALL 54th AD candidates were invited on not only my KPFK but my KTYM show a week earlier. ALL candidates got the same invite and the same call.
There were no favorites.
And two other items that your misinformant didn't tell you is that EOH did not ask the candidates any questions during the show. We had a four-person panel of community activists and neighborhood assn. presidents ask the questions. AND, EOH said repeatedly on-air during the course of the show that all candidates were invited. I suggest you listen to the archived show at kpfk.org to verify the show's absolute impartiality, which, by the way, is a hard and fast FCC requirement that KPFK and all other stations that do political candidate programming must follow.
Again, I'm sure you'll recheck the documented facts, not what someone with an agenda tells you, and do the right thing and issue the correction.
Best
EOH
PS I still like you too (sniff)
In a counter move, speaking for the Ridley-Thomas campaign, manager Fred MacFarlane issued separate responses, first about Dr. Hutchinson’s perceived bias:
If you contribute to a candidate, you have no business hosting or moderating a candidate forum that includes or involves the candidate you've backed financially. If you're a journalist and you contribute to a candidate, you have no ethical justification for covering the campaign of the candidate you contributed to or that candidate's opponents.
As for the alleged invitation, after reading Dr. Hutchinson’s asserted invitation, Mr. MacFarlane told the newspaper:
I did not receive a candidate invitation for the KPFK radio program. I received all candidate invitations that involved the media.
For example, I received the candidate invitation in October for a program on KTYM. I had a lengthy discussion with the show booker/producer for that program. Sebastian was not able to participate in the KTYM program due to a scheduling conflict.
All candidate media requests were routed to me, be they for interviews and discussion programs. I handled every one I received.
I was not aware of the KPFK program until it was brought to my attention when I received a phone call while the show was in progress.
My reply to the caller was, “What are you talking about? There is no KPFK candidate forum.”
There the matter does not lie, for long anyway.
