A Publisher's Job Ain't Easy;
Petition Fraud and Primary Elections

A publisher’s job ain’t easy!

Last week, I took aim at the the publisher of a small chain of newspapers for irresponsibly printing a column of hate.

Also last week, the victim of an error took aim at the Tribune.

Adult advertising – which was a matter of slight controversy two decades ago – has become an accepted form of promoting adult entertainment. What is advertised in community papers, dailies, alternative weeklies, and on the web is sometimes disturbing to some. However, with a society saturated with sexual images and innuendos — television airing prime time images and topics once taboo, billboards suggestive to the point of traffic jams, and sex of all kinds as acceptable topics of conversation — the unacceptable of just a couple of decades ago has become the norm. All the innocent or offended can do is look the other way.

It wasn’t so easy for one Forest Hills resident.

I don’t know her and she shall remain nameless.

She was likely sitting at home quietly and her phone began to ring. On the other end were men, perhaps couples, seeking someone to fill their fantasies. And not just any someone... a special someone who advertises in the adult section of a community newspaper, this community newspaper.

It seems the advertiser, in writing out their ad copy, replaced their business phone exchange with another – printing the other four numbers correctly – and the resultant number belonged to our innocent Forest Hills resident.

Ring, ring, ring. Hello is this the madam who will fulfill all my fantasies?

Ring, ring, ring. Hi, does it matter how kinky my fetish is?

And the ad said 24 hours a day.

Well, advertising in the Trib works, and our poor Forest Hills resident could take it no more. She took her anger out at the Trib. Seems she called the classified department several times and later spoke to me. She was angry; we didn’t communicate. I tried to apologize even though we made no error, but when she started yelling and scolding me – even though perhaps I shouldn’t have – I scolded back. Needless to say, we didn’t get along. Boy, was she angry.

She made a demand for caller ID paid for by the Trib. She repeated the demand by email, threatening if we didn’t comply by her deadline. I tried to call her, but she didn’t answer her phone — no surprise.

Well, last Tuesday it started. Letters were received by advertisers, complaining about us and the incident.

Wednesday, Public Advocate Mark Green’s office called. Thursday, Councilwoman Koslowitz. They each got letters. There must have been others — probably lots of them. I explained the situation to each caller. We discussed the discomfort of the innocent Forest Hills woman. It seems that the advertiser started calling the woman for leads. (Now stop it, it’s not a laughing matter.) I felt terrible.

We emailed the Forest Hills women and informed her we were going to run a copy of her letter to advertisers and withhold her name. Her letter was aimed at starting diaologue about adult advertising. We thought we’d encourage the dialogue by printing the letter. She emailed back demanding that we not print her letter. We didn’t.

Thursday: ABC’s Tappy Phillips was the next call. She was doing an item for TV. She and I discussed the incident and seemed to agree about what happened. However, I declined an on air interview. She asked if we verified phone numbers of our advertisers. I said we didn’t. She asked if verifying was industry policy. I said I didn’t think it was. She asked if the New York Times verified phone numbers. I told her I had used their classified section frequently and never recall getting a verification call. She said that perhaps they used the phone company database (available online or by disk). I had the New York Times called, so did Tappy — we agreed the Times does not verify.

Thursday afternoon, Tappy calls me from outside the Trib office where she is taping part of the segment. I go outside to say hello — off camera. She asks for a copy of the current Trib... presumably to check that the same error didn’t appear... it didn’t. Tappy has found a couple of dailies that do verify classified phone numbers. I indicated that the Trib shall probably do so for adult ads on a go-forward basis. It makes sense.

She tapes and moves on. The segment aired this week.

Now, I’m certain that our Forest Hills woman has nothing nice to say about the Trib. And about the advertiser, I can only imagine.

Thursday night I went home and quietly wrote the following email to the innocent woman in Forest Hills:

I have tried to reach you at home without success, and so I thought it would be best to drop you a line via e-mail.

I understand that what has happened to you as a result of a mistake made by a business that advertises with us is very upsetting and I am sorry for your upset. I can only imagine the inconvenience and disruption to your life. I’m sorry that our phone conversation dealt with anger instead of understanding.

I am also sorry that you did not want us to run the letter you have distributed. I believe that open dialogue and debate between rational and calm people is the best way to run a newspaper and influence a community. You have raised an interesting issue and your energy has kept it on my desk.

If there is any further request or comment you would like to make, please feel free to email me at: mschenkler@queenstribune.com.

Good luck in your search for a returned peace of mind.

Friday, all was quiet.

Now that the ABC segment aired, it could all start over again.

A publisher’s job ain’t easy!

 

PETITION FRAUD? Can you imagine what it’s like to see what purports to be your signature staring back at you from a legal document you know you never saw before, never mind signed?

Well, that’s what Marcia Moxam Comrie encountered at her door first thing Sunday morning when two people — a man and a woman — from State Senator Malcolm Smith’s campaign rang her bell.

Marcia is Associate Publisher of the PRESS of Southeast Queens, our new sister newspaper serving the middle class black communities of the area.

Leroy, her husband, is an active member of the Guy Brewer Democratic club — and, according to insiders, is the likely heir to the Archie Spigner Council seat. He had been to the Board of Elections as part of the Smith effort to review the petitions of the opponent... former Assemblywoman Cynthia Jenkins. As I recall, Cynthia lost her Assembly seat over a petition challenge alleging fraudulent petitions.

Leroy had just returned from an errand when the doorbell rang and didn’t get a chance to tell Marcia they’d just discovered her signature on Cynthia Jenkins’ petition.

Marcia had never met the man and woman at the door, and was startled when the man held up a copy of the petition with her signature, through the screen door. He asked, "Marcia Moxam, is this your signature?"

She wasn’t wearing her glasses but knew it wasn’t her signature since she had not signed Jenkin’s petition. She ran for the glasses and took a closer look to confirm that the signature was forged.

The folks doing the challenge have told Marcia that she is merely one of more than 400 forged names they’ve discovered thus far from the same petition carrier.

Marcia, who found the experience unnerving, will likely be called as a witness in the Board of Elections quasi-judicial proceeding where they will challenge Jenkins’ petition — we assume claiming it is permeated with fraud.

Cynthia never learns! She was busted several years ago for the same thing and here she goes filing petitions again without checking them for authenticity and she certainly didn’t file a huge excess of signatures to bolster her cause.

C’mon Cynthia, everyone else in Queens politics knows you use signatures of the recently deceased when you’re desperate, not the folks who are easy to spot.

Although we haven’t heard the word, we do expect a second challenge to Cynthia Jenkins Democratic District Leader petitions — there too, her numbers come up without much of a cushion.

Goodbye Cynthia.

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