Taking news Liberty A Portland response to Fox News goes national BY SARA DONNELLY

If you tune in to the progressive program Liberty News TV, you might never guess that the show is produced in a Portland basement studio the size of a broom closet. The half-hour finished product is sleek, with bold coloring, charming anchors, and dramatic direction like the Fox News channel broadcasts it’s modeled after. There are two anchors — Kevan Patriquin (who goes by his stage name Kevan Quinn here), a former actor and stuntman, and Liz Chambers, a local actress. On the show, the actor-anchors appear to sit beside each other at a long, curved news desk in a studio spacious enough to make Brian Williams drool. Behind them is a large projection of the countries of the world. When the anchors address a story, a large preview box appears in the upper-left-hand corner of the screen while, in the lower-right-hand corner, the Liberty logo hovers, featuring a sketch of the Liberty Bell.

All of this sleekness and space, however, is created during the magic of postproduction thanks to digital video software. In reality, the two anchors who appear to share a desk at Liberty News have met only once and have never actually shared a real on-air conversation. The set consists of only a blue plywood board suspended from the ceiling with string, a stiff folding chair, and a rickety blue plywood desk barely long enough for "Quinn" to rest his elbows. Surrounding the news desk are steel racks piled high with wooden planks, cookware, and storage boxes. Snarls of thick orange electrical cords blanket the floor and pipes crisscross the low ceiling. A single camera peers out of this jungle of odds and ends, its steady dark eye trained at the blue desk.

"This is a real grassroots movement," says producer and basement-owner Matt Power, standing with his crew of five in the underground studio.

"The grass roots are right out there," quips his wife Lori, pointing to the wall.

"I see this as a remedy for biased journalism," Power says. "It’s what all shows should be. It’s all about facts."

Power and company claim Liberty News is the answer to national news shows that they say are so steeped in corporate influence they can’t even lean to the middle, much less the left. But Liberty News, which has enjoyed some success on digital television and public access stations both locally and nationally, is hardly an unbiased account of the news, though Power is loathe to admit it. A review of the June Liberty News show and the Liberty News Web site shows that the facts are delivered in a forum with a pointed bias against any and all things Bush. The line between commentary and news report is blurred here as it is on Fox News — the administration is referred to as "corrupt," Bush is "dangerously unconcerned" with slowing the proliferation of nuclear weapons, and, in one editorial delivered by anchor Quinn, the "Bush regime" is charged with turning the US into the next fascist state.

On a show where digital editing can make two people who aren’t in the same room appear to share a conversation, touting the broadcast as honest and factual could be, well, misleading. Power and his crew maintain that, if Liberty News has an agenda, it’s only to encourage "a better lifestyle and more informed individuals." And Power isn’t alone in his defense of slanted news. Liberty News TV is part of what some media critics claim is a national progressive movement to take back the media and fight Fox with fire. It’s called the "opposition press" and bias here is no longer a problem, it’s good journalism.

BE THE MEDIA

Like many great ideas, the one that sparked Liberty News TV came out of an evening bitch session among friends. It was November 2004 in the dark days after the election. The Powers, Patriquin, and Patriquin’s wife Rhonda Carlson were sitting in the Powers’ living room in Portland, watching the evening news, sipping tea, and lamenting the country’s plight. Bush had just been reelected for a second term. Fox News was seemingly the most popular news channel on television. Corporate governance of the news media — radio, print, and television — looked to be steaming ahead unabated with no end in sight. It was almost enough to turn Power’s tea sour. And then, someone, they can’t remember who exactly, came up with a big idea.

"Everybody was all disheartened by the election," says Matt Power of that day.

"We felt like we had to do something," recalls his wife.

"Instead of just wallowing!" says Carlson.

"It was about the time the Air America message was being appreciated," says Patriquin. "And we realized there was something we could do."

"You look around and you go, why isn’t anyone doing this?" Matt Power explains. "It was one of those things that just happened."

What happened was the Powers and their friends decided to broadcast their own version of the news with the truth as they saw it. And so Liberty News TV was born. The first episode of Liberty News TV was broadcast on Portland’s public access channel 2 in February. Since then, they have produced five other monthly installments of the show, including the latest earlier this month, on topics like corporate personhood, social security reform, and whether it’s time to impeach Bush. The stories are almost all national in scope and are culled secondarily from newspapers like the New York Times and the Washington Post and liberal magazines like the Nation and Mother Jones. As important as the national news content is the image of the show itself — two attractive anchors intoning progressive views with video clips to drive their points home. The format is no accident — the group knows packaging is crucial.