North Coast Online

Is Our Journalists Learning?

One hell of a correction from the New York Times.

They had Iran mixed up with Azerbaijan.  From today's New York Times corrections section:

A map of Central Asia with an article on Saturday about the construction of a bridge linking Tajikistan and Afghanistan misidentified the country shown in the lower left. It is Iran, not Azerbaijan.

But, hey, we trust them to critique the nuances of the administration's Iran policy.

Well, if we agree with them, we do.

Maybe We Can Put Him On Display At The Fair

Dammit, I told you that publishing the story of the guy in the bunker was a mistake.  Now, his family's embarrassed and he's become a local bar celebrity. What the hell would have been wrong with just leaving him alone? 

I suppose that was just too much to expect in a society where we're all supposed to be social and interdependent -- or even dependent. Anything but independent; no, we can't tolerate that.

Finally -- Real Bipartisanship

It must be bad legislation indeed that both right and left -- albeit for different reasons -- can agree to hate.

Out Of His Area Of Expertise?

Just-released tapes bring home the horror of one of Canada's worst air crashes.

After years of legal skirmishes, Canadians can finally hear the gripping soundtrack for one of the country's worst aviation disasters.

The Swissair Flight 111 air traffic control tapes, kept under lock and key since the 1998 tragedy, have been released to The Canadian Press following a tortuous court battle that went all the way to the Supreme Court of Canada.

The hours of recordings include 12 critical minutes, starting as the aircrew reports smoke in the cockpit and ending with a last desperate transmission as the aircraft nose dives at high speed into St. Margaret's Bay, N.S., near Halifax.

"Swissair one eleven heavy is declaring emergency," says one of the pilots in a heavy Swiss-German accent, as the second pilot makes a nearly simultaneous transmission in the cockpit confusion: "We are declaring emergency now."

"Heavy" refers to the aircraft's nearly full fuel tanks as it began its transatlantic flight from New York to Geneva on Sept. 2, 1998.

Um, no.  "Heavy" refers to the airliner's size.  It was a "wide-body," it had more than one aisle.  We might at one time have called it a "jumbo" jet.  Reporters often don't know what they're writing about, do they?  Neither do I, obviously, but then I don't get paid to do it.

This Isn't Exactly "News"

Here's one of the great values of blogs illustrated quite nicely, I think.  James Rummel cites a Reuters article on the shameful lack of guaranteed vacation time in the United States.

While the French get 30 days of paid leave and most other Europeans receive at least 20, the country with the world's biggest economy does not guarantee workers a single day, researchers said on Wednesday.

Most U.S. firms do in fact give employees vacations, but the lack of government guarantees means one in four private-sector workers do not get paid leave, said researchers for the Center for Economic and Policy Research, a Washington think tank.

"The United States is the only advanced economy in the world that does not guarantee its workers paid vacation days and paid holidays," said economist John Schmitt.

"Relying on businesses to voluntarily provide paid leave just hasn't worked," he added. "It's a national embarrassment that 28 million Americans don't get any paid vacation or paid holidays."

But one of James's commenters points out that this isn't a news story -- it's a regurgitated press release.

This is typical make-news. Schmitt works for a left-leaning think tank and has just published a report that needs to be promoted. The quotes in the Reuters article are taken from the accompanying press release. The rest of the information in the article is taken directly from the report (pdf). The Reuters article does not present any information or even opinions from other sources.

The reporter has framed his story as if he'd gone out and interviewed some plucky researchers, while in reality, he's simply borrowed a press release and restructured it.  The result is that a think tank with an agenda succeeds in getting its opinions published as "news."  This happens a lot, I suspect.   

Supreme Misinterpretation

In its zeal to criticize President Bush, the Buffalo News editorial board has seriously distorted a recent Supreme Court ruling.  The President, of course, isn't doing enough in the board's estimable opinion to stop us from using oil in the quantities we've become accustomed to.

Responding to two key votes — last year’s turn of Congress to Democratic control and last month’s Supreme Court ruling that greenhouse gas emissions are indeed air pollution — Bush popped up in the Rose Garden Monday to announce that he’d ordered up a new stack of reports and proposed regulations on fuel efficiency and emissions from six different federal agencies. [emphasis mine]

This is breathtaking ignorance.  The Supreme Court most certainly did not rule that "greenhouse gas emissions are indeed pollution."  It made no scientific judgements whatsoever.  The Court simply decided that the State of Massachusetts had standing to proceed with its lawsuit which would -- if won -- force the EPA to to treat CO2 as a pollutant.

But the Supreme Court did not decide the case, it simply allowed it to proceed and it told the EPA that it had the responsibility to state why greenhouse gases should not be considered pollutants.  Look, I'm not a lawyer and I didn't even stay in a Holiday Inn Express last night, but the Buffalo News has access to the same (and probably more) information than I do and a whopper like the above is inexcusable -- and very misleading to its readers.

Take That, Warmonger

The Buffalo News editorial board is happy to recommend that Paul Wolfowitz be dismissed from the World Bank.  His job's in danger over an allegation that, after having pledged to end the endemic corruption that plagues that dinosaur agency, he engaged in some himself by arranging a new gig for his girlfriend with a big raise to boot. 

It's really all just a smear job by well-entrenched European bureaucrats who don't like at all the sensible reforms Wolfowitz had proposed.  And I suspect that the local paper doesn't care so much about the fake scandal as much as it wants to see the public humiliation of an influential former Bush adviser. 

Not So Fast

It doesn't change the point of the editorial, but the Buffalo News really should check its facts.

The British monarchy has a tradition of service. The White House and Congress — with the exception of Sen. Jim Webb of Virginia, whose son is serving with the Marines in Iraq — have largely orchestrated this war from afar without any flesh and blood at stake.

At least five other members of Congress have children who are serving or have served in Iraq.

1. Rep. Joe Wilson, R-SC
2. Sen. Kit Bond, R-MO
3. Rep. Todd Akin, R-MO
4. Sen. Tim Johnson, D-SD
5. Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-CA

It's admittedly still precious few.

But That Was Then

Judging by his columns, I'd term Doug Turner a liberal.   But if my assessment is even correct, then I'd also add that he's certainly an old-fashioned liberal.  You know, the kind you could talk to and debate with.

That Nixon secretly escalated the war in Laos and Cambodia does not alter the fact that he and then Senate Majority Leader MikeMansfield, D-Montana, were in constant secret talks on how to wind down the conflict. Mansfield put the nation first.

Never did Mansfield, like today’s counterpart Harry Reid, D-Nev., blow his cool and hysterically announce that the war “is lost,” brutalizing battle-weary American troops and those about to be ordered over there.

Amen.

 

What's The Name Of That River?

If you deny that we're fighting an actual war against terrorism, you'll love this Buffalo News editorial.  If you understand the truth, it'll just annoy the hell out of you.