Posted by SHARON KRAMER on 6/27/09

Ha! Gotta love that poetic justice. Veteran LA Times reporter, Jim Rainey, wrote an article last week titled “LAWeekly’s aggressive slant erodes quality”.

LA Weekly’s aggressive slant erodes quality

It was about Daniel Heimpel’s biased opinion pieces of LA Mayor Villarosa that were thinly veiled as professional journalism.

Stewart is a real piece of work who, according to Rainey’s article, has a long standing reputation for using these tactics. Heimpel appears to be her MiniMe.

If you ALL recall, this dynamic duo did a hit piece on my family and I last summer. We were the victims de jour of these less than forthright tactics used by Ms. Stewart and her prodigy, MiniMe Heimpel.

As you all know, I advocate for people made ill from environmental exposures to mold. Through my and others’ efforts, we have effectively exposed a deception in US public health policy. At our urging, Senator Edward Kennedy requested a Federal Government Accountability Office audit into the matter. As a result, we now have less conflicted science over the issue coming from the Federal government.

For my efforts of being a good and involved citizen, Stewart and Heimpel chose to character assassinate not only me, but my husband and children – who are not even involved in advocating over the issue. Through this assassination they attempted to discount my words and thus discount the words of all of those for whom I advocate.

No less than seven of the people Heimpel claimed to have interviewed for the hit piece article, stated in writing to LA Weekly that they were grossly misquoted or never even interviewed at all. Some, who were interviewed via email, provided documentation of the false quotes attributed to them. One even blogged of Heimpel’s misquotes of him. He wrote that he was never asked about me by Daniel Heimpel or anyone at LAWeekly. This blogger is not even on the same side of the issue I am.

Overlawyered – LA Weekly: The Mold Rush and the case of Sharon Kramer and Bruce Kelman

Even after being told of all the misquotes, told that I was getting hang up calls in the middle of the night and told that I was fearful for the safety of my children from the hatred inciting, false light writing of Heimpel and Stewart; LAWeekly, and their parent company of New Times, Village Voice, still refused to retract.

Now, Jill Stewart is whining that she has been wronged by the media. calling Mr. Rainey’s truthful writing a “cheap broadside”.

A cheap broadside on the LA Weekly – News editor Jill Stewart defends her work at the L.A. newspaper

Personally, I find it now to be even greater insight into Stewart’s character that she would cry foul for someone bringing the harm from her interpretation of journalism to greater light. Apparently, Stewart can dish it out but she can’t take it.

I also find it to be a poor taste joke that MiniMe Heimpel received an investigative journalist award for this garbage about the Mayor. This is an insult to the true journalists that are left out there who try to report balanced and accurate news.

Mr. Rainey’s understanding of Jill Stewart’s bizarre interpretation of the word “journalist” is exactly correct. From what I can tell, many of these little weeklies and their linked blogs have become nothing more than a vast, agenda driven, marketing network of Village Voiceovers, who could care less about truth in journalism.

Disguised as investigative journalists, the dynamic duo of Stewart and Heimpel are a real danger to society.

Sharon Kramer
snk1955@aol.com

toxlaw.com