Will The Last Honest Reporter....

[piper17 1]

Would the Last Honest Reporter Please Turn On the Lights?
By Orson Scott Card

Editor's note: Orson Scott Card is a Democrat and a newspaper columnist, and in this opinion piece he takes on both while lamenting the current state of journalism.

An open letter to the local daily paper — almost every local daily paper in America:

I remember reading All the President's Men and thinking: That's journalism. You do what it takes to get the truth and you lay it before the public, because the public has a right to know.

This housing crisis didn't come out of nowhere. It was not a vague emanation of the evil Bush administration.

It was a direct result of the political decision, back in the late 1990s, to loosen the rules of lending so that home loans would be more accessible to poor people. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were authorized to approve risky loans.

What is a risky loan? It's a loan that the recipient is likely not to be able to repay.

The goal of this rule change was to help the poor — which especially would help members of minority groups. But how does it help these people to give them a loan that they can't repay? They get into a house, yes, but when they can't make the payments, they lose the house — along with their credit rating.

They end up worse off than before.

This was completely foreseeable and in fact many people did foresee it. One political party, in Congress and in the executive branch, tried repeatedly to tighten up the rules. The other party blocked every such attempt and tried to loosen them.

Furthermore, Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae were making political contributions to the very members of Congress who were allowing them to make irresponsible loans. (Though why quasi-federal agencies were allowed to do so baffles me. It's as if the Pentagon were allowed to contribute to the political campaigns of Congressmen who support increasing their budget.)

Isn't there a story here? Doesn't journalism require that you who produce our daily paper tell the truth about who brought us to a position where the only way to keep confidence in our economy was a $700 billion bailout? Aren't you supposed to follow the money and see which politicians were benefiting personally from the deregulation of mortgage lending?

I have no doubt that if these facts had pointed to the Republican Party or to John McCain as the guilty parties, you would be treating it as a vast scandal. "Housing-gate," no doubt. Or "Fannie-gate."

Instead, it was Senator Christopher Dodd and Congressman Barney Frank, both Democrats, who denied that there were any problems, who refused Bush administration requests to set up a regulatory agency to watch over Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and who were still pushing for these agencies to go even further in promoting sub-prime mortgage loans almost up to the minute they failed.

As Thomas Sowell points out in a TownHall.com essay entitled "Do Facts Matter?" ( http://snipurl.com/457townhall_com] ): "Alan Greenspan warned them four years ago. So did the Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers to the President. So did Bush's Secretary of the Treasury."

These are facts. This financial crisis was completely preventable. The party that blocked any attempt to prevent it was ... the Democratic Party. The party that tried to prevent it was ... the Republican Party.

Yet when Nancy Pelosi accused the Bush administration and Republican deregulation of causing the crisis, you in the press did not hold her to account for her lie. Instead, you criticized Republicans who took offense at this lie and refused to vote for the bailout!

What? It's not the liar, but the victims of the lie who are to blame?

Now let's follow the money ... right to the presidential candidate who is the number-two recipient of campaign contributions from Fannie Mae.

And after Freddie Raines, the CEO of Fannie Mae who made $90 million while running it into the ground, was fired for his incompetence, one presidential candidate's campaign actually consulted him for advice on housing.

If that presidential candidate had been John McCain, you would have called it a major scandal and we would be getting stories in your paper every day about how incompetent and corrupt he was.

But instead, that candidate was Barack Obama, and so you have buried this story, and when the McCain campaign dared to call Raines an "adviser" to the Obama campaign — because that campaign had sought his advice — you actually let Obama's people get away with accusing McCain of lying, merely because Raines wasn't listed as an official adviser to the Obama campaign.

You would never tolerate such weasely nit-picking from a Republican.

If you who produce our local daily paper actually had any principles, you would be pounding this story, because the prosperity of all Americans was put at risk by the foolish, short-sighted, politically selfish, and possibly corrupt actions of leading Democrats, including Obama.

If you who produce our local daily paper had any personal honor, you would find it unbearable to let the American people believe that somehow Republicans were to blame for this crisis.

There are precedents. Even though President Bush and his administration never said that Iraq sponsored or was linked to 9/11, you could not stand the fact that Americans had that misapprehension — so you pounded us with the fact that there was no such link. (Along the way, you created the false impression that Bush had lied to them and said that there was a connection.)

If you had any principles, then surely right now, when the American people are set to blame President Bush and John McCain for a crisis they tried to prevent, and are actually shifting to approve of Barack Obama because of a crisis he helped cause, you would be laboring at least as hard to correct that false impression.

Your job, as journalists, is to tell the truth. That's what you claim you do, when you accept people's money to buy or subscribe to your paper.

But right now, you are consenting to or actively promoting a big fat lie — that the housing crisis should somehow be blamed on Bush, McCain, and the Republicans. You have trained the American people to blame everything bad — even bad weather — on Bush, and they are responding as you have taught them to.

If you had any personal honor, each reporter and editor would be insisting on telling the truth — even if it hurts the election chances of your favorite candidate.

Because that's what honorable people do. Honest people tell the truth even when they don't like the probable consequences. That's what honesty means . That's how trust is earned.

Barack Obama is just another politician, and not a very wise one. He has revealed his ignorance and naivete time after time — and you have swept it under the rug, treated it as nothing.

Meanwhile, you have participated in the borking of Sarah Palin, reporting savage attacks on her for the pregnancy of her unmarried daughter — while you ignored the story of John Edwards's own adultery for many months.

So I ask you now: Do you have any standards at all? Do you even know what honesty means?

Is getting people to vote for Barack Obama so important that you will throw away everything that journalism is supposed to stand for?

You might want to remember the way the National Organization of Women threw away their integrity by supporting Bill Clinton despite his well-known pattern of sexual exploitation of powerless women. Who listens to NOW anymore? We know they stand for nothing; they have no principles.

That's where you are right now.

It's not too late. You know that if the situation were reversed, and the truth would damage McCain and help Obama, you would be moving heaven and earth to get the true story out there.

If you want to redeem your honor, you will swallow hard and make a list of all the stories you would print if it were McCain who had been getting money from Fannie Mae, McCain whose campaign had consulted with its discredited former CEO, McCain who had voted against tightening its lending practices.

Then you will print them, even though every one of those true stories will point the finger of blame at the reckless Democratic Party, which put our nation's prosperity at risk so they could feel good about helping the poor, and lay a fair share of the blame at Obama's door.

You will also tell the truth about John McCain: that he tried, as a Senator, to do what it took to prevent this crisis. You will tell the truth about President Bush: that his administration tried more than once to get Congress to regulate lending in a responsible way.

This was a Congress-caused crisis, beginning during the Clinton administration, with Democrats leading the way into the crisis and blocking every effort to get out of it in a timely fashion.

If you at our local daily newspaper continue to let Americans believe — and vote as if — President Bush and the Republicans caused the crisis, then you are joining in that lie.

If you do not tell the truth about the Democrats — including Barack Obama — and do so with the same energy you would use if the miscreants were Republicans — then you are not journalists by any standard.

You're just the public relations machine of the Democratic Party, and it's time you were all fired and real journalists brought in, so that we can actually have a news paper in our city.

"A man can never have too much red wine, too many books, or too much ammunition"...Rudyard Kipling

[DanG 1]

Wow. That article has enough strawmen to fill all the fields in Kansas.

As to factual content:

Quote

As Thomas Sowell points out in a TownHall.com essay entitled "Do Facts Matter?" ( http://snipurl.com/457townhall_com] ): "Alan Greenspan warned them four years ago. So did the Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers to the President. So did Bush's Secretary of the Treasury."

These are facts. This financial crisis was completely preventable. The party that blocked any attempt to prevent it was ... the Democratic Party. The party that tried to prevent it was ... the Republican Party.

Gosh, my history escapes me. Who was in charge of the White House and both houses of Congress four years ago? I seem to recall it wasn't the Democrats.

Logic dictates that either the Republicans did not try to prevent the crises, as claimed, or that they are so horribly incompetent that they can't get anything done even whan they have total cntrol of the goverment. Take your pick.

Neither party is 100% to blame. This article is even less accurate that most of the biased crap you reprint.

- Dan G

[Channman 2]

> This article is even less accurate that most of the biased crap you reprint.

Stick to Skydiving, it suits you.

[DanG 1]

I like skydiving. Do you have a point?

- Dan G

[Thanatos340 1]

Orson Scott Card is much more than a Democrat and a newspaper columnist. He is one of the best writers of the past century in my opinion (Second only to Heinlein). His book Enders Game and all the supporting books show an amazing insight and understanding of both Political and Military mindsets and consequences of political/military action.

Journalism is dead in this country. The media discovered long ago that FEAR sells. Both ends of the Spectrum know that secret to selling their “News” is to spin it in a way that will scare people the most.

[Darius11 12]

I agree. Talk about BS.
Of all the things mentioned where is the false war in Iraq hmmmmmmmmmm what could we do with all that money?

You can't be the deciders for 8 years then say your not the one who decided once every thing is fucked.

I'd rather be hated for who I am, than loved for who I am not." - Kurt Cobain

[AWL71 0]

Journalism is dead and that is a shame. Every journalist is trying to push their agenda or the agenda of the person that is paying them. You would be hard pressed to find a journalist that puts aside their feelings and reports on the facts.

The most terrifying words in the English language are: I'm from the government and I'm here to help.

[DanG 1]

He may be a great writer (I've never read Enders Game, but have heard it is good, maybe I'll check it out) but that does not mean that he is never wrong.

This article is BS. I haven't seen any articles that lay the blame of the current crises solely at the feet of Bush and McCain. I've seen and heard lots of journalists try to explain a very complex situation by showing how both parties are to blame in their own ways.

Then again, I get my daily news from NPR or the BBC, and for more in-depth analysis tend to read the New Yorker. Even that supposed bastion of left-wingery has not tried to blame the Republicans. This article is just another attempt to discredit all the negative stories about the Republicans as products of a biased media, while simultaneously ignoring all the negative stories about Democrats.

There are certainly biases in any media source, but to claim that the entire US media is involved in some kind of massive cover-up is just not believable. Obviously there are media sources where anti-Democratic stories are being told, just read anything posted by piper17. This article is silly and one big strawman.

- Dan G

[Thanatos340 1]

This goes well beyond just the biased election coverage (On Both sides, FOX news just as guilty for slanting everything to the right).

Even the local nightly news will usually run commercials that say things like "Local Playgrounds could be killing your children, Story at 6:00pm on WKXY" or other such crap. Their jobs are to get rating and any journalistic integrity is lost along the way. What ever they can scare you with today will be the top story.

The local Paper will look at the news and choose the most frightening headline they think they can get away with because they know that is what sells papers.

[billvon 2,400]

Your one warning.

[Trent 0]

There's no anti-republican bias in the media! Look over there!

Oh, hello again!

[StreetScooby 5]

Excellent writeup. And very true re: Dodd and Frank. Did you know that Frank's live-in "lover" was actually in a policy making position at FNMA during this time, who was focusing on the "affordable housing initiative"? Since this shit has hit the fan, they've broken up.

We are all engines of karma

[DanG 1]

I think Thantos is right on this one. They report on what sells papers/ads/whatever. If you really think the media gave Clinton a pass, then you have an amazing ability to forget the 24 hour media circus revolving around a hummer.

George Bush gets hammered because George Bush is in the White House (and the country is having a lot of problems). If Obama gets elected, he will get hammered, too.

Most of the American media would rather report on the latest missing, pretty, white girl (MPWG) than on anything of real substance. That's one reason I like NPR. They refuse to run MPWG stories and other sensationalist crap. Before I started listening to them, I always assumed a liberal bias. Once I actually started listening, I noticed that they go out of their way to cover both sides. It's refreshing, you should try it.

- Dan G

[Andrewwhyte 1]

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Excellent writeup. And very true re: Dodd and Frank. Did you know that Frank's live-in "lover" was actually in a policy making position at FNMA during this time, who was focusing on the "affordable housing initiative"? Since this shit has hit the fan, they've broken up.

Why would that be a problem?

[Trent 0]

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I think Thantos is right on this one. They report on what sells papers/ads/whatever.

Correct.

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If you really think the media gave Clinton a pass, then you have an amazing ability to forget the 24 hour media circus revolving around a hummer.

He got a pass on many many things until he got some sexin', and that sells so they couldn't ignore it.

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George Bush gets hammered because George Bush is in the White House (and the country is having a lot of problems). If Obama gets elected, he will get hammered, too.

I really really doubt Obama would get his feet put the the coals as president if he were elected. That, of course, remains to be seen but there is no way the media will shit all over their darling the way they did do Bush.

I wonder, do you think they'd have the balls to make a political cartoon mocking Obama as a monkey like they've done over and over to Bush? I doubt they'll do much mocking at all unless it's "right wing" media.

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Most of the American media would rather report on the latest missing, pretty, white girl (MPWG) than on anything of real substance. That's one reason I like NPR. They refuse to run MPWG stories and other sensationalist crap. Before I started listening to them, I always assumed a liberal bias. Once I actually started listening, I noticed that they go out of their way to cover both sides. It's refreshing, you should try it.

I wake up to, and spend 30 minutes driving with NPR. Now what?

Oh, hello again!

[StreetScooby 5]

It's generally referred to as a "conflict of interest".

We are all engines of karma

[Trent 0]

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It's generally referred to as a "conflict of interest".

But Elmer Fudd Frank gets a pass because you can't criticize a Democrat, much less a gay one. Hell you can't even get them out of office when they've got people running gay escort services out of their offices.

Oh, hello again!

[StreetScooby 5]

I have just made www.npr.org my home page.

We are all engines of karma

[DanG 1]

Do you think NPR shows a liberal bias? Honest question. I don't think they do, but I'm curious as to your perception.

- Dan G

[Trent 0]

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Do you think NPR shows a liberal bias? Honest question. I don't think they do, but I'm curious as to your perception.

I think that some of the individual reporters do lean a bit left. Some are pretty straight up stickin' to the facts. Usually, when I feel like there's a bit of bias, it's more along the lines of what they're reporting on rather than how they're reporting it. But it really does depend on who's reporting.

Oh, hello again!

[kelpdiver 2]

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Orson Scott Card is much more than a Democrat and a newspaper columnist. He is one of the best writers of the past century in my opinion (Second only to Heinlein).

#2 in the past century, eh? Nevermind Hemmingway, Steinbeck, Asimov, (insert your own).

Of course, when you have Heinlein as #1, that certainly clouds the assessment. RH was significant, without a doubt, but hardly the best of the 20th century, and unlikely to be the best even in the scifi genre.

A column that blames subprime borrowers, while ignoring Wall Street, is garbage.

[klingeme 0]

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He may be a great writer (I've never read Enders Game, but have heard it is good, maybe I'll check it out) but that does not mean that he is never wrong.

Fantastic series I've read the first 4 (game, xenocite, speaker, children) 5 or 6 times.

[livendive 8]

Just out of curiousity, do you not see a difference between an incoming President firing all US prosecutors and a 6 year President firing just select prosecutors for political reasons?

Blues,
Dave

"I AM A PROFESSIONAL EXTREME ATHLETE!"
(drink Mountain Dew)

[downwardspiral 0]

Quote

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He may be a great writer (I've never read Enders Game, but have heard it is good, maybe I'll check it out) but that does not mean that he is never wrong.

Fantastic series I've read the first 4 (game, xenocite, speaker, children) 5 or 6 times.

I read Enders Game when I was in highschool. A fantastic book. Hated the ending though.

www.FourWheelerHB.com

[Trent 0]

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Just out of curiousity, do you not see a difference between an incoming President firing all US prosecutors and a 6 year President firing just select prosecutors for political reasons?

What's the difference between firing people who you think won't cooperate you and firing people who won't?

Yes, I see a difference. Clinton stacked 'em up so he didn't have to fire them later.

Oh, hello again!