EDITORIAL ROUNDUP
Posted on Sunday, May 4, 2008
URL: http://www.nwanews.com/bcdr/Editorial/61480/
Full disclosure
“ Expert analysts, ” often labeled as nothing more, get a lot of TV time these days. They spend hours every day shaping public opinion — in a coherent, deliberate effort to deliver a W hite House-version of the Iraq war.
The regular viewer might not recognize this, though, because underneath the mainstreammedia broadcasts of glistening, respectable faces are simply the men’s titles and the words “ military analysts. ” Internal Pentagon documents repeatedly referred to these analysts as “ message force multipliers” or “ surrogates. ”
Media are responsible for disclosing potential conflicts of interest, particularly when the same talking heads repeatedly appear on the same shows.
Let’s expect news outlets to disclose the interests of their analysts so that we may form our own opinions — and let’s not follow “ experts” blindly.
— Montrose (Colo. ) Daily Press Standards too strict The U. S. Supreme Court upheld Indiana’s voter-identification law, considered the strictest in the nation. It requires voters to show government-issued photo identification, such as a driver’s license or a passport. The law may help prevent fraud, but it comes at too great a cost. A swath of the population risks being disenfranchised, including the poor, the elderly, the disabled and minority and young voters. Almost one in five 18- to 29-yearolds does not have a photo ID with a current address on it, according to a poll by Rock the Vote, which is working to mobilize young voters. Another study estimated that 6 percent to 10 percent of voting-age citizens don’t have a valid ID. We must protect the integrity of the ballot, but no one should be left out. The ruling could hurt both Barack Obama, with strong support among youths and African Americans, and Hillary Clinton, who draws large numbers of elderly and Hispanic voters, in the Indiana primary.
— Chicago Sun-Times Keep commercialism out of state parks In an effort to find alternatives to the proposed closing of nine state parks to save $ 4. 5 million in a state that’s going broke, the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection is sending up this trial balloon: corporate sponsorships of the parks. The DEP deserves credit for trying to find creative ways to avoid closing parks or curtailing activities like camping or swimming. Everything should be on the table. But some things need to be quickly swept off that table — like this idea. People go to state parks to escape the very thing that corporate sponsorship would bring to the parks. You go to a state park to camp out in the woods, to swim in a lake, to hike a trail, to enjoy the natural — read: noncommercial — world. No one wants to come around a bend in a trail, dappled sunlight shining through the treetops, only to discover … a sign for a bank. It’s a delight that the overcrowded, overdeveloped state of New Jersey has the wonderful parks that it does have. Let’s treat them as the natural treasure they are.
— The Press of Atlantic City