WE WRITE LETTERS

ALL THE NEWS THAT'S FIT TO PRINT

I saw this in the Bremerton Sun yesterday. I decided to send in my reply but don't think it'll make it into the paper because they had published one I wrote earlier this month. See my reply after the below letter.

Where's the outrage against Newsweek?

To the Editor:

The Newsweek scandal regarding the Queran has reinforced my perception of that magazine's bias against the military and its civilian chiefs. A "journalist" was permitted to publish false statements regarding military personnel abusing the Queran, and this made headlines around the world.

As of this writing, 15 people are dead. Newsweek then delayed printing a retraction, and defended their position that this was a responsible article of unimpeachable integrity. When finally forthcoming, the retraction was treated as a very minor story. Where is the public outrage against this behavior?

Dan Rather learned the hard way to ensure the truth of his assertions. Like Dan Rather, the "journalist" at Newsweek published his article without proof of the facts quoted. He should receive the same treatment as Dan Rather, and the editors that passed this garbage on to the public should be fired.

Until the news media of all types, print or electronic, whether conservative or liberal, deal only in the truth, they can't be trusted. Samuel Langhorn Clemens was right. There are "...lies, damned lies, and statistics."

The American public, left or right, liberal or conservative, deserves hard facts, not editorial opinion in disguise.

J. G. USN retired

YOU CAN'T BE SERIOUS

This is in reply to J. G. letter today.

Paragraph 1: You are dead wrong, these allegations have NOT been proven wrong. I don't think you really want to talk about "FALSE STATEMENTS" because it just might remind you on how we ended up in Iraq. We don't even want to talk about Social Security do we.

Paragraph 2: Your blaming Newsweek for the deaths…you can't be serious. You do know that these same Quran charges have been out there for almost TWO YEARS, don't you? This isn't breaking news.

Paragraph 3: Newsweek did what all news organizations do. Maybe the Pentagon might have something to say about that. Remember Gen Richard Myers on May 12th said "the protests in Jalalabad, at least, were more about local politics than anti-American sentiment stirred by the Newsweek report." Got it on tape.

Paragraph 4: Right on. You see we can agree but alas I'm afraid I'll continue to read, watch TV, listen to the radio and surf the net and make up my own mind without the help of the White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan, thank you very much.

Paragraph 5: Oh NUTS, I was with you until you added "in disguise", if I wanted that I'd watch FOXNEWS.

WHERE'S THE OUTRAGE AGAINST SOCIAL SECURITY

With all the talk about what Newsweek did or didn't do, should or shouldn't do the one thing that is true is that they admitted their mistake and published a retraction (which I don't think they needed to do).

Well what about the MISTAKES (I should say lies) about Social Security that the President has been spreading all around the country.

Well in the spirit of the Newsweek "BS" maybe the White House could do their own apology. This'll be hard as the president can't "REMEMBER A SINGLE MISTAKE" they have ever made.

Here is a GREAT outline that they could use, but don't hold your breath.

Social Security: Another Media Failure

By Mark Weisbrot

After it was established that the Bush administration's stated reasons for invading Iraq were false -- Iraq's alleged nuclear program, weapons of mass destruction, links to Al-Qaeda -- many journalists, editors, and producers felt that the U.S. media had not done its job during the march to war. The New York Times and Washington Post published articles criticizing their own reporting.

A similar but more candid note from the media -- broadcast, cable, and print -- is in order for their misreporting of President Bush's effort to change Social Security. Here is what an honest confession might look like:

"We apologize for having failed our listeners and readers in our reporting on Social Security. The extent of this failure can be clearly measured by the public's complete misunderstanding of the problem being discussed. A recent New York Times/CBS poll found that 68 percent of Americans under 44 think they won't even get a benefit from Social Security. Even according to President Bush's (Social Security Trustees') numbers, Social Security will always be able to pay a benefit that is higher than what retirees get today. This is after adjusting for inflation, and it is true even if we were to do nothing and allow the Social Security Trust Fund to run out of money.

Where did Americans get the idea that they would get nothing from Social Security? They got it from us, the same place they got the ideas that Iraq was close to producing nuclear weapons and was involved in the massacre of 9/11. One thing we did wrong was to report false or unsubstantiated allegations over and over, without countervailing facts. This makes it easier for politicians to pursue a "big lie" strategy -- to deliberately repeat false information until it is accepted as truth.

President Bush can say, as he did recently, "Without changes this young generation of workers will see a UFO before they see a Social Security check."

This should have the same credibility as the statement, "Elvis Presley is alive; I just talked to him yesterday."

Our second mistake was to leave out or downplay crucial facts. Few Americans know that according to the President's own numbers:

(1) Social Security is financially stronger than it has been throughout most of its 70-year history;

(2) the whole shortfall over the next 75 years is less than what we fixed in each one of the decades of the 50s, 60s, and 80s;

(3) fifty years from now, the average real wage will be over 70 percent higher than today (so workers won't be hurting if they have to pay a little bit more to Social Security);

(4) the year 2017 -- when Social Security payments are projected to exceed payroll tax revenue -- has absolutely nothing to do with Social Security's solvency.