Was Fish & Ships censored?

My apologies to those of you who tuned in to KFAV Tuesday morning to hear our show. We recorded our show Monday afternoon and after the recording was complete I posted what we discussed. One of the things we talked about was the refusal of St. Peters to televise the report of the State Auditor which was held at City Hall Wednesday night. St. Peters has a history of trying to silence dissent and actually removed KFAV from its cable access because of criticism it received on our show.

Apparently, St. Peters was afraid of what we might have said on our show Tuesday and, therefore, Lisa Bedian, PR director for the city, contacted station mangement with those concerns. I had a lengnthy discussion with Steve Kaspar of KFAV on Wednesday who confirmed he talked with Bedian and then decided not to air the show. Kaspar indicated that at the time he spoke with Bedian he had not heard our show and that there was not enough time to review it before it aired. I do not believe Kaspar reviews each of our shows before they air but he indicated he wanted to hear this show because of the concerns raised by Bedian. (While Bedian was concerned about our show she had not listenened to it when she called the station to complain.)

Kaspar has agreed to review his decision not to air our show and Lyn and I will be meeting with him prior to recording our show Monday, that is if we record another show. Not only do I stand behind what we said on the show about St. Peters desicion not to air the report but after my intial review of the audit and the reason giving by St. Peters for not airing the report I believe the city intentionally mislead its residents. I will post more about that later this week. In regard to our show, both Lyn and I our in agreement that we will not continue to do the show unless we are given assurances we will be able to discuss issues without our views being censored unjustly.

To be quite honest, it is my opinion KFAV has given in to St. Peters in hope of being placed back on the cable access channel, however, it should be noted Kaspar denies played a part in his decision not to air the show. In fairness to Steve Kaspar he has, for the most part, allowed us to do our show without interference. I also applaud him for allowing us to provide news and commentary that other media outlets refuse to cover.


As to our show, you can listen to it yourself on the O'Fallon Watchdog and since I know Ms. Bedian likes to check my blog I invite her to listen to the show as well. After you're finished Lisa, send me an email setting out any statements of fact which we made that were incorrect and I will post it on here. And after you're done listening to the show I have some other suggested reading for you and the powers that be in St. Peters, it's called the United States Constitution.