(291) Sat 12 Jul 97 1:57 By: Christopher Baker To: All Re: CSICOP Announcement St: ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ @EID:c786 22ec0f20 Approved-By: SkeptInq@AOL.COM Date: Fri, 11 Jul 1997 16:15:02 -0400 Reply-To: CSICOP Announcement Sender: CSICOP Announcement From: SkeptInq@aol.com Subject: CNBC To Feature CMI Media Stock Fund To: CSICOP-ANNOUNCE@LISTSERV.AOL.COM --------------------- Forwarded message: Subj: CNBC To Feature CMI Media Stock Fund Date: 97-07-11 14:34:39 EDT From: SINisbet To: SkeptInq ******NEWS ADVISORY FOR TUESDAY, JULY 15******* CNBC will run throughout the day a feature on the Council for Media Integrity's Media Stock Fund. As part of CNBC's program "Hollywood Inc.", CSICOP chair Paul Kurtz will be interviewed on the need for a balanced portrayal of the paranormal in the media. Aimed at providing leverage for CSICOP's response to the television market's lucrative commercial marketing of fringe science and pseudoscience, CSICOP is asking friends and supporters to help it acquire common stock in media conglomerate companies. "The Media Stock Fund" will allow CSICOP to take part in shareholder meetings, where it can question the infatuation with the paranormal increasingly demonstrated in television programming. "We are deliberately targeting each of the major television networks, and well known media conglomerates Westinghouse (CBS), General Electric (NBC), News Corp (FOX), Time Warner(WB, Turner Broadcasting), and Disney (ABC)," Paul Kurtz, chairman of CSICOP stated at the launch of the Stock Fund. "The media have now virtually replaced the schools, colleges, and universities as the main source of information for the general public. The irresponsibility of the media in the area of science and the paranormal is a worldwide problem. But it especially applies to the United States, where the media have been distorting science, and in particular, presenting pseudoscience as genuine science. Indeed, we are appalled by the number of 'documentaries,' which are really entertainment programs, presenting fringe science as real science." The practice of organizing shareholder response within a company is common among advocacy groups that seek socially responsible corporate conduct through shareholder passed resolutions. As a shareholder, CSICOP will have opportunities to attend shareholder meetings, submit viewpoints to shareholder publications, and sponsor shareholder resolutions. While exercising these and other shareholder rights, CSICOP will be representing a broad, international constituency who support the critical investigation of paranormal and fringe-science claims from a responsible, scientific viewpoint while providing a balanced viewpoint to the public-at-large. "The Fund will allow us to make shareholder meetings into accountability sessions for the media giants when they package superstition and pseudo-science as fact" Kurtz said. With the "Media Stock Fund", supporters may contribute monies that will be applied towards the purchase of stock in General Electric, Westinghouse, NewsCorp, Time Warner or Disney. Dividends will be applied to the operating cost of the Council For Media Integrity. ***** --- DB B2300sl/001027 * Origin: Rights On! - Make me believe it! - Edgewater_FL_USA (1:18/14) SEEN-BY: 18/14 112/4 218/701 890 1001 353/250 374/98 1000 395/48 396/1 SEEN-BY: 3615/50 51 @PATH: 18/14 374/98 1000 3615/50 218/1001