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| Topic: A Little Truth | |
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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. This article first appeared in The Rhinoceros Times of Greensboro , North Carolina , and is used here by permission. ©1999- 2008 Meridian Magazine. All Rights Reserved. About the Author: Photo Credit: Bob Henderson Henderson Photography, Inc. Born in Richland , Washington , Card grew up in California , Arizona , and Utah . He lived in Brazil for two years as missionary for the Church. He received degrees from Brigham Young University (1975) and the University of Utah (1981). He currently lives in Greensboro , North Carolina . He and his wife, Kristine, are the parents of five children: Geoffrey, Emily, Charles, Zina Margaret, and Erin Louisa (named for Chaucer, Bronte and ****inson, ****ens, Mitchell, and Alcott, respectively). To learn more about Orson Scott Card please click here. Related Resources: Ideas and Society Archive What do you think? Share your thoughts, comments, and impressions about this article. Format for Print Click Here |
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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. This article first appeared in The Rhinoceros Times of Greensboro , North Carolina , and is used here by permission. ©1999- 2008 Meridian Magazine. All Rights Reserved. About the Author: Photo Credit: Bob Henderson Henderson Photography, Inc. Born in Richland , Washington , Card grew up in California , Arizona , and Utah . He lived in Brazil for two years as missionary for the Church. He received degrees from Brigham Young University (1975) and the University of Utah (1981). He currently lives in Greensboro , North Carolina . He and his wife, Kristine, are the parents of five children: Geoffrey, Emily, Charles, Zina Margaret, and Erin Louisa (named for Chaucer, Bronte and ****inson, ****ens, Mitchell, and Alcott, respectively). To learn more about Orson Scott Card please click here. Related Resources: Ideas and Society Archive What do you think? Share your thoughts, comments, and impressions about this article. Format for Print Click Here |
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No, we have to be biased here.... it's all the fault of REPS!!!
Funny thing....in light of recent events, i would say the dems tries to push this economic stabalization act through. The reps voted it down the first time. I think i would ask who wrote the policies, and who voted them into action. WHOA!! All of a sudden party lines get blurred.... |
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Edited by
Unknow
on
Wed 10/29/08 04:19 PM
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No, we have to be biased here.... it's all the fault of REPS!!! Funny thing....in light of recent events, i would say the dems tries to push this economic stabalization act through. The reps voted it down the first time. I think i would ask who wrote the policies, and who voted them into action. WHOA!! All of a sudden party lines get blurred.... |
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No, we have to be biased here.... it's all the fault of REPS!!! Funny thing....in light of recent events, i would say the dems tries to push this economic stabalization act through. The reps voted it down the first time. I think i would ask who wrote the policies, and who voted them into action. WHOA!! All of a sudden party lines get blurred.... Yet it was voted through twice by the republicans. Yep, the reps were either bribed and/or threatened. Unfortunately there are just as many, well, actually now, more democrats that are bought and paid for. Funny thing that it was a democratic congress that passed the bill. Hmm, maybe the dems aren't the answer after all..? |
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No, we have to be biased here.... it's all the fault of REPS!!! Funny thing....in light of recent events, i would say the dems tries to push this economic stabalization act through. The reps voted it down the first time. I think i would ask who wrote the policies, and who voted them into action. WHOA!! All of a sudden party lines get blurred.... Yet it was voted through twice by the republicans. Yep, the reps were either bribed and/or threatened. Unfortunately there are just as many, well, actually now, more democrats that are bought and paid for. Funny thing that it was a democratic congress that passed the bill. Hmm, maybe the dems aren't the answer after all..? |
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I get ya. Seriously i do. I think it's funny too.
But, I seriously dont think the dems would have done differently, as they really haven't fought any major issues. Now they are voting the same ones through. You know, and i know, that 2/3 of the congress should be removed. You know and i know that Obama and McCain should be amongst these removed. Then we could get someone decent in office that will try to do the right thing... |
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I get ya. Seriously i do. I think it's funny too. But, I seriously dont think the dems would have done differently, as they really haven't fought any major issues. Now they are voting the same ones through. You know, and i know, that 2/3 of the congress should be removed. You know and i know that Obama and McCain should be amongst these removed. Then we could get someone decent in office that will try to do the right thing... |
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I get ya. Seriously i do. I think it's funny too. But, I seriously dont think the dems would have done differently, as they really haven't fought any major issues. Now they are voting the same ones through. You know, and i know, that 2/3 of the congress should be removed. You know and i know that Obama and McCain should be amongst these removed. Then we could get someone decent in office that will try to do the right thing... Its pretty bad around here too. I'm with ya bro. I will admit i learned a lot since last election, and i shall be putting this knowledge to good use this time around as well 
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I will admit i learned a lot since last election, and i shall be putting this knowledge to good use this time around as wel
now read up on the Dem/Rep Presidents since Roosevelt. What is happening now is just the latest wrinkle of, and is a direct result of all the stuff that happened between then and now to put all the politics of now in perspective you should know about Goldwater and Nixon and Carter and Reagan and JFK and Bobby and Teddy. What's going on now is not a snapshot in time but a continuation of a long process |
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I will admit i learned a lot since last election, and i shall be putting this knowledge to good use this time around as wel
now read up on the Dem/Rep Presidents since Roosevelt. What is happening now is just the latest wrinkle of, and is a direct result of all the stuff that happened between then and now to put all the politics of now in perspective you should know about Goldwater and Nixon and Carter and Reagan and JFK and Bobby and Teddy. What's going on now is not a snapshot in time but a continuation of a long process Yes it certainly is. And BTW the wrinkel you spoke of with Roosevelt actually started in 1913. Most almost all of our economic meltdowns are the result of one central bank trying to control a free market. Another horrable decision in 1971 was the unbacking of our dollar. This increased the potential for a major economic collapse. Now you have the bailout, which is just a continuation of the above scenarios. The act will cause hyper inflation, increasing the cost of medicine, oil, and even education drastically, due to it destroying our dollar. Hopefully everyone else worldwide will experience this to so it won't effect us QUITE so badly. BTW a reminder of those that backed this bill; 2/3 of congress to include McCain, and Obama. But don't worry folks, Obama will start government programs to take care of you after he makes sure you can't take care of yourselves... |
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Edited by
Drivinmenutz
on
Thu 10/30/08 09:36 AM
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- Lets take away their guns, and give them government protection
- Lets send jobs overseas, but increase the benefits of welfare - Lets raise the cost of living so they can't pay for healthcare, but offer them free, government healthcare - Lets raise the cost of education, but then offer then a free, government controlled education - Lets dumb down our books a bit, because the old ones are just too difficult to "decipher". - Lets make the food less healthy to allow them to use our healthcare more often Lets make it so people can't take care of themselves. Instead they can rely on us to take care of them, and they will praise us for it... Think about it folks... |
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Edited by
Unknow
on
Thu 10/30/08 10:01 AM
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- Lets take away their guns, and give them government protection - Lets send jobs overseas, but increase the benefits of welfare - Lets raise the cost of living so they can't pay for healthcare, but offer them free, government healthcare - Lets raise the cost of education, but then offer then a free, government controlled education - Lets dumb down our books a bit, because the old ones are just too difficult to "decipher". - Lets make the food less healthy to allow them to use our healthcare more often Lets make it so people can't take care of themselves. Instead they can rely on us to take care of them, and they will praise us for it... Think about it folks... |
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Edited by
Drivinmenutz
on
Thu 10/30/08 10:15 AM
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Preventive medicine would solve a lot of our problems.
Yes we do pay now. You offer a good argument. In Maine we have medicare and maine care, and probably a handful of free healthcare systems... I've spoken with high ranking hospital staff memembers a few times... According to them these systems don't pay full price. They pay about 1/4 or 1/5 of what was charged, and the hospitals have to accept it. Unfortunately according to most, this is causing hospitals to cut back on staff and equipment. Another thing to think about is the cost of this system. Yes we are paying for increased health insurance costs, but if we have national healthcare coverage we would be dishing out 70 to 100 billion a year (according to the math). This raises the cost of living due to the printing of money. We will pay for it either way my friend... I think the only way to solve this problem is to put more money back in the pockets of the people... We need to concentrate on bringing up the value of our dollar and getting businesses back over here. In order to do this we need to stop throwing our money away by sending our military to fight everone else's war. Do that, have the military handle the borders and do away with the department of homeland security. That'll save over 2 trillion a year. cut one trillion, and put the other on our deficit... Save our dollar, lower the cost of living, and peopel can afford their own insurance... |
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Edited by
Unknow
on
Thu 10/30/08 10:46 AM
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Preventive medicine would solve a lot of our problems. Yes we do pay now. You offer a good argument. In Maine we have medicare and maine care, and probably a handful of free healthcare systems... I've spoken with high ranking hospital staff memembers a few times... According to them these systems don't pay full price. They pay about 1/4 or 1/5 of what was charged, and the hospitals have to accept it. Unfortunately according to most, this is causing hospitals to cut back on staff and equipment. Another thing to think about is the cost of this system. Yes we are paying for increased health insurance costs, but if we have national healthcare coverage we would be dishing out 70 to 100 billion a year (according to the math). This raises the cost of living due to the printing of money. We will pay for it either way my friend... I think the only way to solve this problem is to put more money back in the pockets of the people... We need to concentrate on bringing up the value of our dollar and getting businesses back over here. In order to do this we need to stop throwing our money away by sending our military to fight everone else's war. Do that, have the military handle the borders and do away with the department of homeland security. That'll save over 2 trillion a year. cut one trillion, and put the other on our deficit... Save our dollar, lower the cost of living, and peopel can afford their own insurance... |
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