She wrote:

Dear Al

Seriously please take my letter off your website and read the below news article written in the Independent newspaper in the UK - a highly respected paper I would like to point out.

I would like to point out that not all "commerical" (sic) media outlets are tarred by the same brush. My email to you was simply a very brief outline - I wanted at that stage to talk to someone to get some idea of the story.

I certanly didn't need a lecture and found your response condescending.

I hoped to do a TV version of the below story which I thought sounded very interesting. Forgive me if I don't live up to your lofty ideas.

All the best

(Name of 60 Minutes Producer)

The article she cites as worthy of a "TV version" is, as she glowed, from The Independent of London.

Wanna guess what this supposed "highly respected" newspaper's article about Rio de Janeiro is titled?

It is titled:

The City of Cocaine and Carnage.

I swear I'm not making this up!

The October 12, 2004 article by Tom Phillips and Thais Villela is available only by subscription over at the Independent website.

Yes, this is the same Independent of London that had the honor of publishing, last August 16th, the only story on earth that reported that Venezuela President Hugo Chavez had "lost" a recall referendum… when, in fact, he had won with 59-percent of the vote.

(The newspaper, again embarrassed by one of its Latin American correspondents, had to dump the bad reporter and hire our own Reed Lindsay to correct the record, but only after an international outcry led by Ron Smith and others here at Narco News.)

However, this latest story, calling Rio de Janeiro "The City of Cocaine and Carnage," really exceeds the August 16th blunder in high-blown deceptive rhetoric, sensationalism, and fiction-posing-as-news.

Here are some excerpts from the story that 60 Minutes wants to turn into a "TV version."

"Favelas (slums) across the city are erupting in violence that often matches the conflicts in Chechnya and Sudan for intensity, if not in headline-grabbing power.

With fierce turf wars igniting around Rio, many now fear the city is staring into the abyss…

Miles from the golden sands of Copacabana deadly conflicts are playing themselves out between youthful drug dealers with names worthy of cartoon characters, like "Dudu". A stone's throw from the road that links Rio's international airport with the world-famous Ipanema beach are some of the city's most explosive slums. To locals the area has become known as "the Gaza Strip". Between 1987 and 2001 nearly 4,000 of Rio's inhabitants met violent deaths compared with just 467 in the West Bank, an official war zone…

Dudu, who tried to invade Rocinha earlier this year, is reputed to feed his opponents to a pet alligator. Other drug lords treat their enemies with similar brutality - forcing them to swim through open sewers or burning them in so-called microwaves, makeshift crematoriums made of car tyres. In 2002, an undercover journalist was hacked to death with a Samurai sword by a trafficker known as Elias Maluco (Crazy Elias).

With drug wars endemic across the city Rio society is running scared…

"Society thinks that all you'll find in the favelas are poor black people, who walk around barefoot. But you can't even imagine how organised they are. They've got internet, radios, telephone... and their message is one a lot of people buy."

…for thousands of children and teenagers caught up in the drug trade, Rio de Janeiro is a city without a future.

Got it?

Extra! Extra! Read all about it! City of Carnage and Death! A city without a future! See the drug trafficker feed his enemies to a live alligator! Tour the human microwave made of car tires! They're not just "poor black people" - they have cellphones! It's Chechnya! It's Sudan! It's the Gaza Strip! All rolled into one! Tune in to "60 Minutes" and don't miss all the reasons why you should live in fear of drugs and poor people! It must be true: The Independent of London said so! A "well respected" newspaper! And an award-winning TV magazine show! Together to make you afraid, very afraid!

The article asks no questions about what causes the violence it reports, and therefore provides no answers.

Worse, is that non-governmental do-gooder organizations participated in this travesty against the truth… The Commercial Media calls them and they jump… Being their "guides" and "translators" for sensational and untrue stories like this one... Because, after all, when they get their names in "well respected" newspapers like the Independent, it gets them more attention and hopefully money… from people who are afraid, very afraid, of "poor black people… with cell phones! And drugs! And alligators!"

Pay no attention to the policy behind the curtain. The Mighty "Respected Newspaper" has spoken! And now the Mighty "Award Winning TV Magazine Show" wants to add its signal to the echo chamber...

Never mind that sensationalist drug war stories like this don't reflect reality or truth... What about the ratings? The journalist's career prospects? The need to keep the viewer scared or titilated to get him to stay through the next advertisements?

And the good people of Rio de Janeiro - a city that very much has a future, despite the "respected newspaper's" yellow conclusions - are dumped on once again by a Commercial Media for whom ratings and profits drive the collection and "reporting" of "news."

(I can hear the do-gooders saying, "Oh, but wouldn't it have been worse if we hadn't cooperated with them?" To that I answer: How could it possibly have turned out any worse than it did?)

I have a better idea. Send video cameras to the youths of Rocinha and other favelas in Rio... and invite them to cover the coming Civil War in Journalism through their eyes and experiences.

That would be a show I'd like to watch.