Tuesday, August 19, 2008

Annenberg Interview Transcript   [Stanley Kurtz]

Below you will find a transcript of the radio interview Chicago talk radio host Jerry Agar conducted with a University of Illinois at Chicago spokesman regarding the Chicago Annenberg Challenge records.  Although done quickly, this transcript should be at least 95% accurate, and is probably more so, but if in doubt, listen to the audio interview in my earlier post.  Here is the transcript:

Prepared Statement by Bill Burton of UIC library:

"The university library supports the teaching, research and service missions of the university by acquiring, organizing, preserving and providing access to information. The library is open to the public and dedicated to free inquiry. The university has not received ownership rights to the Chicago Annenberg Challenge Collection. The university is aggressively pursuing an agreement with the donor. And as soon as an agreement is finalized, the collection will be made accessible to the public.

Question and Answers:

Q: Who’s the donor?

A: I’m not sure I’m at liberty to release that information.

Q: Is the donor Bill Ayers?

A: Not to my knowledge.

Q: Why is this a problem? If they give the material to a library, why would they hold up after giving permission. Your library gave permission to Stanley Kurtz to look at this material. Why was he suddenly shut down?

A: We were only made aware that there was not a formal ownership agreement as recently as he was so informed.

Q: How long can that take?

A: As I said we are aggressively pursuing an agreement with the donor.

Q: Stanley Kurtz I believe points out in his column he finds it hard to believe you would get 132 boxes of material without that agreement being put in place ahead of time?

A: I can’t help what he find hard to believe. But in fact there is no ownership agreement.

Q: Can this be done before the election?

A: I’m sorry.

Q: Can this be done before the election?

A: It can be done very quickly once we have an agreement.

Q: Can the agreement be done before the election?

A: Excuse me, and if it can’t be done we’ll simply return the materials to the owner.

Q: Do you understand that it looks you guys are trying to help someone hide this information from the media?

A: That’s not the case as I just told you.

Q: Thanks for your call.

08/19 01:50 PMShare