Matters of Opinion

Extension of Remarks: Protecting public information

OK, so there is a vast media conspiracy. Many newspapers are following the lead of the Society of Professional Journalist's Struggling to Report project and calling on the U.S. Senate to follow the House and pass the Free Flow of Information Act. That's what reporter-types call a "shield law" that would provide a qualified privilege for journalists to keep the confidence of an anonymous source of information without risk of being fined or tossed in jail for unspecified amounts of time.

The Buffalo News editorial making that argument ran today: The real beneficiaries are people who know things that the American people should know, and the people who need to know those things.

Elsewhere:
* In Texas, The Lubbock Avalanche-Journal [love that name for a newspaper] quotes Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott: An informed citizenry and the preservation of news information sources are of vital importance to a free society.
* The Post-Tribune in Gary, Indiana, rejects the notion that the law would make it harder for law enforcement to do its job: The government, as we've seen, has vast powers to investigate, subpoena and convict criminals. It does not need to use the private sector -- in this case, media -- to aid it.
* The Seattle Times: The wisdom of the bill is that it would put a judge in charge of determining whether the privilege applies. Now, there is no federal standard for reporter's privilege — except what is determined by the U.S. Justice Department, which opens the door for all kinds of self-serving political mischief.
* The Saginaw News mentions some cases -- the shameful conditions at Walter Reed Medical Center, the Enron scandal and steroid abuse in Major League Baseball -- that might never have come to light without confidential sources.
* The Capital Times in Madison, Wisconsin: The United States must end its embarrassing jailing of journalists whose biggest crime has been to shed light on information that the public has a right and a need to know.

Gee. Wonder why I can't find a newspaper editorial against a federal shield law. Well, the Bush administration's [it figures] objections to the bill are spelled out on Politico.

--George Pyle/Editorial Writer

Create new file: Hospital exec from western New York...

The big news in Atlanta today was the selection of Michael A. Young, currently head of Erie County Medical Center, to be the boss of that city's very troubled Grady Memorial Hospital. Bigger news there than it was here.

Grady has many things in common with ECMC: Deep budget woes, caused by the fact that it is the hospital of last resort for people who cannot pay and the first choice for anyone in need of immediate trauma care, causing a revolving door of CEOs and unhappy government officials.

Says Young, in his best Lone Ranger style: "I've done my job here." The man was not known for his modesty or his calm disposition. But he may have been just the bull in the china shop ECMC needed to turn its financial picture around. That, apparently, is what they were looking for in Atlanta.

-- George Pyle/Editorial Writer

Extension of Remarks: Obama cover has bite, benefits

Many years ago I worked for an editor who, when asked if his witty headlines might be misunderstood, remarked, "If anybody's that stupid, I don't want them reading my newspaper anyway."

Last I heard, he wasn't a newspaper editor any more.

When I first saw the now globally known New Yorker cover depicting Barack and Michelle Obama as radical terrorists bumping fists in the Oval Office, I thought it was a hoot. Of course, just as the magazine's editors found themselves explaining, it's a joke, a satire of all the absurd rumors about the Obamas being Muslims, radicals, radical Muslims, etc. But, then, we prairie pseudo-intellectuals who grew up hoping people would see us reading The New Yorker in the library always appreciate irony. New Yorker creator Harold Ross laid out his Manifesto for the magazine saying, among other things, that it would "hate bunk," and, "it will assume a reasonable degree of enlightenment on the part of its readers."

On today's Buffalo News op-ed pages, Chicago Tribune columnist Clarence Page lives up to Ross' assumption. Washington Post [former Buffalo News] cartoonist Tom Toles worries that other people won't. Many more cartoons collected on Slate. Other recent political covers, mostly aimed at Republicans, by artist Barry Blitt laid out at The New Yorker.

The real problem with the cover is that, instead of drawing people to read the in-depth article by New Yorker writer Ryan Lizza, it may totally overshadow it. Lizza, by the way, was left out of the press pool following Obama on his tour of Europe and the Middle East.

By the way, if you don't do that fist bump just right, it hurts.

--George Pyle/Editorial Writer

Extension of Remarks: Fight crime/Presume innocence

A crime theme to today's Buffalo News Opinion Page.

The lead editorial, "Improve life, fight crime," laments the recent spike in homicides locally (even though violent crime overall is down), but offers no quick and simple solution:
The fight against street violence still must be waged in detective work, police enforcement and much larger anti-blight efforts. But small steps are important, too. To the extent that this city has a culture of violence that too often claims innocent victims, every avenue that replaces it with a positive culture of hope and advancement must be explored.

The follow-up, "Presume innocence," notes that it took 12 years for law enforcement officials in Colorado to use DNA analysis to formally clear the family of John and Patsy Ramsey [right] in the infamous, and still unsolved, murder of their 6-year-old daughter JonBenet:
There is value in withholding judgment. At a time when DNA testing is freeing hundreds of wrongly convicted prison inmates, showing that even guilt beyond a reasonable doubt is a fallible concept, it seems prudent to adopt a public mind-set of innocent until proven guilty.

The point isn't to be tough on crime or soft on suspects. The point is to do it right. Every innocent person in prison, or even in a prosecutor's sites, means there is a guilty person out there, somewhere, under the radar.

Elsewhere:
* Chicago Tribune cultural critic Julia Keller writes: "JonBenet toxic gossip was in itself a true crime."
* On The Wave, somebody called Seanbaby says this about Boulder County District Attorney Mary Lacy: "Lacy, You Got Some ’Splaining to Do".
* On Slate, William Saletan talks about evidence that is right under our nose, from DNA to water on the moon.

--George Pyle/Editorial Writer

Extension of Remarks: Debating the time line

Appropriately, it was The Clash that sang, loudly, "Should I Stay or Should I Go?" The clash in Iraq changes complexion with the official end of The Surge, and the clash between Barack Obama and John McCain is shifting from the stupid economy -- sorry, the economy, stupid -- to Iraq and Afghanistan. [Associated Press analysis here.]

In an editorial today, The Buffalo News argues that if the elected leadership of Iraq wants a timetable for U.S. withdrawl from their country, we have to give it to them: If Iraq is a sovereign country, which Bush says it is, and that government wants us to leave, we’re going to have to leave. If it later turns out that Iraq wasn’t ready, that it will find itself unable to cope with terrorists, tribalists or Iranian troublemakers, that’s going to be bad — but unavoidable, because we can’t stay there forever.

Elsewhere:
* In The Boston Globe a couple of think-tankers hope that Iraq's newfound backbone will: save the United States from its own worst impulses, by making it impossible for it to pursue an illogical policy of open-ended military engagement.
* The Chicago Tribune notes the difference between timetables proposed by U.S. Democrats who think we lost, and Iraqi officials who think we've won.
* The deep thinkers at The Economist say the argument over the wars is getting more complicated. Which is a good thing.
* Chicago Sun-Times columnist Lynn Sweet notes that, at least on Afghanistan and Pakistan, where both candidates agree things are going badly, it is Obama who comes across as the hawk.
* Over on AlterNet, Tom Hayden says: Obama is serious about a withdrawal plan for Iraq, but he's committed himself to expanding the wars in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Dumb Idea.
* In Seattle, The Post-Intelligencer gives Obama props for being tough and smart: More than anything, Obama combined principle with realism. In practice, that's a tricky balance, but rarely has it been so sorely lacking as over the past seven years.

--George Pyle/Editorial Writer

Extension of Remarks: Climate policy

The editorial page of today's Buffalo News has a theme going: Climate change and what the Bush administration is, or isn't, doing about it, at home and at last week's G-8 summit of the world's top economies.

The top editorial, "Climate policy is weak," chastises President Bush [right, with Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi] for taking more than seven years to come to the conclusion that global climate change is real and that greenhouse gas  emissions need to be limited. It also rejects the idea that the U.S. and the other developed G-8 nations deserve to be let off the hook as long as emerging economies such as China and India won't make changes, too: It should be the highest priority for the next president of the United States to rise to the world’s great need and stop daring the other nations to go first. On this matter, like others, the United States is the indispensable nation. What we do, or fail to do, matters most.

The second slot goes to an editorial titled "Cooking the books." It's about fresh, and credible, charges that Vice President Dick Cheney has been ordering other agencies to cut the guts out of congressional testimony and other reports that should have raised the alarm about how climate change will harm public health: Time was that the American vice presidency was thought to be a meaningless appendage on the executive branch of government. Ah, the good old days.

Elsewhere:
* Writing in Canada's National Post, financial columnist Benny Peiser gives the G-8 more credit for forming a united front that will push the emerging economies into some action of their own.
* On The Guardian's Comment is Free [...but facts are sacred] Web site, David King finds more hope dining among the giants of industry: We are used to hearing groups such as Greenpeace berate big energy, yet the truth is that it's now governments who are lagging behind both public and business opinion. Examples of good corporate behaviour are everywhere. Once derided as 'socially responsible', measures to run cleaner businesses are leading to improved profit margins.
* In an editorial called Kyoto's Long Goodby, The Wall Street Journal is cheered by the very turn of events that annoyed us at The News: [T]he G-8 signed on to what has been the White House approach since 2002.
* England's Financial Times, in a piece called "Pipe dreams and cigar smoke," throws up its editorial hands: For proof that the G8 has outlived its usefulness, one need look no further than the inability of the world’s richest democracies to forge an agreed global strategy for tackling climate change. The refusal by China and India to endorse its proposed cuts in carbon dioxide emissions renders this week’s G8 summit in Japan pointless. Any notion a club of eight nations could run the world – never plausible – is now so discredited as to call into question the value of all its declarations.
* The Seattle Post-Intelligencer editorialists, in an essay called "Climate change: U.S. not interested," play connect the dots: Sometimes, all one can do is appreciate the synchronicity of things. On the very day we hear about the glacial progress on climate change at the G-8 summit, with President Bush at the table, of course, we hear of the cuts Vice President Dick Cheney's office ordered in congressional testimony on the health consequences of climate change.

-- George Pyle/Editorial Writer

Extension of Remarks: Compromise on energy

The lead editorial in today's Buffalo News stands with Sen. Chuck Schumer [left] and his statements [thanks to Newsday] that Democrats and Republicans ought to find some common ground on energy policy -- more drilling, even offshore, maybe even in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, AND tighter environmental standards with demands that everything that uses energy use it much more efficiently.

Schumer says, and we agree, that such a deal won't come until we have a new president:
Now that Republicans have chosen as their candidate someone who rejects the old Dick Cheney line of conservation being only a personal virtue, and Democrats are rallying behind a nominee who stresses a post-partisan approach to government, we might be able to have some of the best of both worlds.

Elsewhere:
* The Arizona Republic doesn't mention Schumer at all, but gives the credit to fellow Westerner Harry Reid, Senate majority leader, for what it calls a stunning move toward compromise in the face of higher energy prices: Out of chaos comes opportunity. And considering the economic chaos that skyrocketing fuel prices have created, opportunity abounds for reasonable reform of the nation's energy policies.
* Writing in The Wall Street Journal, Gulf Oil president Joseph Petrowski has firm words for both parties: [R]emedies are to be found in both supply and demand – and both Democrats and Republicans need to demonstrate their command of this fact. Energy is too important a cornerstone of domestic prosperity and international stability to be used as a debating prop.
* House Minority Leader John Boehner op-eds in The New York Post that we need to use all the tools in the kit to face our energy needs. But, oh by the way, it's all Bill Clinton's fault.
* The Rochester Democrat and Chronicle reports that western New York's Rep. Randy Kuhl has been deputized by the aforementioned Boehner to lead Republican efforts to blame Democrats for not drilling enough.

--George Pyle/Editorial Writer
 

All News Is Local: Census shows...

Word -- it might be a stretch to call it "news" -- that the population of Buffalo and most of upstate New York shrank slightly last year, pushed its way up to the front of the City & Region section of today's Buffalo News.

But it was the big-deal front-page splash in Cleveland's Plain Dealer because: More people left Cleveland last year than any other major city in America, the U.S. Census Bureau will report today. Since 2000, only hurricane-ravaged New Orleans weathered a sharper rate of population loss.
What's really got to hurt the folks trying to puff up Cleveland is that, while New Orleans was the biggest population loser in the U.S. over the past seven years, it was the biggest gainer for the 12 months ending July 1, 2007.

The Census numbers were also big news in St. Louis [down], Dallas [up] Tucson [moving to the 'burbs], but oddly didn't get that much play in New Orleans [way up, after being way down].

Elsewhere, Indianapolis joins Buffalo in dealing with a horrible spate of murders.

And, the Headline of the Day: "TV anchor promoted sludge deal" - from The Detroit News.

--George Pyle/Editorial Writer

Extension of Remarks: All bets are off

Well. So much for "The house always wins."

The lead editorial in today's Buffalo News takes note of the federal court ruling that will, if not overturned on appeal, kill the Buffalo Creek Casino that the Seneca Nation of Indians is already building just down the way from our offices. All we're sure of is that we're not sure. And we imagine the Seneca's aren't, either.
While the judge made plain that the casino could not legally operate, the details and ramifications were muddy enough that even the Senecas canceled a press conference they previously announced to respond to it. The lawyer for the casino opponents said he would immediately petition the chairman of the Gaming Commission to shut down Buffalo Creek Casino, but how quickly that could occur, or whether an appeal would forestall it, was uncertain. And if the casino is shuttered, what other use would the Senecas make of the land?

The News article announcing the decision is here. [Depending on the rotation, it may be accompanied by a Web ad for the Senecas' Niagara Falls casino.] The text of the ruling from U.S. District Court Judge William M. Skretny - which goes back to the 15th century to set the stage - is here. The Web site for the Buffalo Creek Casino is still here and, as of Wednesday morning, said nothing about the ruling.

Meanwhile, for what it's worth, this is the centerpiece of today's Indianapolis Star: No longer a sure thing: For the first time in more than 12 years of legalized casino gambling in Indiana, booming growth has halted and business has declined. Long considered a recession-proof industry, the casinos' struggles show how rising gas prices and falling home values may be crimping consumer confidence across the state. For the first six months of this year, money spent at Indiana casinos generated $465.6 million in tax revenue, down from $488.6 million for the same period a year ago.

--George Pyle/Editorial Writer

Extension of Remarks: Open government updated

The New York Legislature in its recent session passed a handful of bills that recognize the migration of many, if not most, government records from paper to computer storage and transmission. The lead editorial in today's Buffalo News urges Gov. David A. Paterson to sign those bills, which go a long way to push the spirit of the Freedom of Information Law into cyberspace along with the rest of state and local government.
The bad news is that a bill to allow photo and video coverage of courtroom proceedings, and another to require all public bodies to allow audio-visual coverage of open meetings, failed. In an era when such coverage can be easy and unobtrusive, that’s a stunning shortcoming. But the sunshine bills that did pass allow hope that those barriers to open government may soon fall, as well.

Other moves to make New York government open and available on the Internet include State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli's Open Book New York, searchable databases of state agency spending and state contracts, and Attorney General Andrew Cuomo's Project Sunlight: A Public Integrity Initiative, another data base of lawmakers, lobbyists, contributions and how all of the above interact.

Of course the governor, Senate, Assembly, courts each have their own Web sites, with lots of searchable information, all accessible through, of course, NY.gov.

Shucks. It's getting harder and harder for ordinary citizens to say they never realized what their government was up to.

--George Pyle/Editorial Writer