A lie does not equal one side of a story

I was asked to clarify something to which I referred in an earlier blog about journalism. Namely the lack of fair and thorough reporting in the US, especially when it comes to the Bush administration.

Here's how it works:

US Attorney General Alberto Gonzales tells a lie. He tells congress - officially - that there were no accounts of any reports of civil liberties being denied or abused because of the Patriot Act, which gives the government lots of leeway to track down real and imagined "terrorists" within the US.

This lie is reported as "one side" of a story, instead of questioned, which puts the "other side" of the story (that's a lie) on the defensive.

First, if anyone had investigated, they would have found that his statement - apparently one of the few things he could remember - was not true. Several complaints had in fact already been registered to the FBI, all of which went to his office.

Result: misinformation put out to the public.

Generally, it was reported this way: "US Attorney General Gonzales says that, despite concerns about the Patriot Act, no civil liberties have been reported to be denied or abused."

Do you remember that story? I do because I didn't believe it.

So the "other side" of the story is defensive, saying that there have been civil liberties abuses.

Those who are certain there have been abuses - or even those who have actually filed abuse complaints - sound like weak whiners. Or bitter liberals. Or just plain liberals who "hate the Bush administration."

Eeeeeeeeeew.

To those "critics," the response is simple: those people don't like Bush. They do not bother to even try to find or tell us the truth. It is simply their way or the fairway.

The fact that there were complaints of civil rights abuses and complaints before Gonzales' testimony for congress was later reported, but not in a way that would challenge his dishonesty.

Except on Keith Olbermann's MSNBC program, which was reported long after Gonzales testified.

The only way a lie should be considered a story is when something is reported to be a lie.

For example, the story *should* read, "US Attorney General Alberto Gonzales lied to congress today when he assured them there had been no complaints of civil liberties abuses due to the aggressive enforcement of the Patriot Act. In fact, before his first appearance before congress, six were confirmed by the FBI and forwarded to his office..."

This would put the liar on the defensive, rather than the truth tellers.

But thanks to so much misinformation and outright lies told by the memory-challenged Gonzales, the judicial branch of government has been hijacked; it is the first domino to fall in the long line of tumbling judicial domino's that are disabling the branch.

It starts at the top.

If the folks at the top, like Bush, don't respect the rule of law - ignoring it, snubbing their nose at it or not care about breaking the law because they know they won't be held accountable - how do they expect any of us folks down the food chain to respect it?

If government leaders tolerate or even perpetuate lies rather than facts; if media news chiefs don't make certain their reporters question sources - especially those known to misrepresent information or outright lie, the voting public remains ignorant and misinformed. Which keeps the abusers in power.

To get the truth, reporters need to make certain they do their research - or have time to do it before they're expected to tell the listening, reading or viewing public.

If news organizations are understaffed or staffed with too many inexperienced reporters, little research gets done so the "other side" of the lie is not reported. I remember one major national story that wasn't even recognized as a major national story because none of the inexperienced reporters (cheaper labor) was old enough to remember the initial event that made it such a huge deal.

Without the necessary knowledge or research, the "story" only goes out as the same old BS "he said," "he said," news, rather than reporting the actual facts - like the truth - or include any perspective.

If "we report ... he said x and she said y ... you decide." That is not journalism or reporting. It's transcribing what people say, whether it's a lie or the truth.

Meanwhile, speaking of the judicial branch: I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby had his 30 month prison sentence commuted by President Bush because Bush said Libby's family had suffered enough.

This is a boon to defense lawyers everywhere! Because according to the law, judges are never to consider family and other extraneous personal matters when determining the sentence of a convicted criminal.

Since the president himself has done it, watch for defense attorneys to ask judges to consider these personal matters when the judges before whom they appear determine the sentence for their clients.

There is still a year and a half of the Bush administration to go, and I cannot even imagine the amount of destruction to the government and the nation this guy and his henchmen will generate.

Sadly, Democrats come across as weak, powerless and incapable to do anything about these extraordinary abuses. They complain about the horrors of the administration, but then do little or nothing to stop or even curb them.

They can't stop this administration's hubris, arrogance and outright criminal destruction caused by an ignorant, incompetent, spiteful administration that chooses to live in denial of the wrath it has created in its own nation and the world - leaving in it's wake the bodies of thousands upon thousands of innocent victims and courageous military service people killed from Louisiana to Iraq.

Deadlines

When I worked more than full time as a mainstream media journalist in TV, radio and newspapers, my life was all about deadlines.

I would think far ahead to make the most of my available story gathering-writing-editing time before the deadline.

I was constantly thinking hours, days, weeks and even months ahead of the present time - especially for television news - to make certain I would be able to have all the elements of a story lined up, contact the right sources, get enough - and the correct - background information, shoot the right visuals, and so on.

Not for just one story, but several that I would be covering in the future.

In addition to doing the larger stories over a period of time, there were those on which I would report during the day. When, again, I would think ahead: I'd write and edit the story in my head before I was back at the station so I could barrel through, getting it done properly (sometimes my stories were a little visually/audio complex) with narration voiced, in time to build it in the program.

When I worked at combined TV/radio stations, I'd also file stories for the radio station.

I always enjoyed doing the lead story for TV newscasts, but of course that means the story has to be done *before* everyone else's stories get on the air! Which means I had less time to get it all together.

I *loved* my work, to be sure. I feel that pure journalism is a true and honorable calling.

But ... The management of news operations (commercial and non-commercial) drove me batty, so I left. Every time I took a job in radio or TV news, I felt like I lost IQ points. I can't afford to lose any, let alone many.

The same time line pressure of deadlines is true for newspapers, which also have their own serious management problems.

When I left journalism, the energy change was so great, my legs felt wobbly - as if I had been on a small boat for a long time and stepped onto land. I had to regain my land legs and start to think in real time. That took many months - and I couldn't help but note all the stories and information I found missing in newscasts--

But I digress.

While deadlines exist for every aspect of our lives - from anniversaries to graduation to taking tests to making dinner - it's as important, perhaps even more so, to think in real time and not create faux deadlines.

Old school Hollywood and lots of actors actually believe that if you haven't "made it" by the time you're 21, you are TOO OLD! I described a very talented actress to a long-established talent agent in Hollywood. He was very interested. Until I told him she was 27. "That's ancient here," he responded.

Well, guess what?

Another talent agent told me that the demand for *older* actors (30-60) was greater than the younger age category these days.

You are where you are. You are the age you are. If you're good - or better yet, great? You'll get work.

In short, while I love to live in the moment, making the most of every day? I don't see myself on some sort of living deadline, because face it - I could get whacked by a car any moment, and never see it coming.

It's all about that balance thing. What makes for your most fulfilling life? Go for it, and do it in a way that brings happiness to you and yours as you take the journey.

It is always, in all ways, the journey that matters and what will be remembered most fondly, not the destination. Reaching a goal only means the beginning of another journey.

33 dead - because it started as "just" a domestic case

Several years ago, when I was the ombudsman/Reader Advocate for The Seattle Times (my experience there is another story you'd find fascinating) I wrote one of my weekly columns about the mistaken age-old journalistic philosophy that relationship, psychological and sociological stories are "soft" (read: *not real*) news, while murders, accidents, fires and basically fall in front of your face with photo ops incidents are "hard" (read *real*) news.

The outcome, unfortunately, of all too many of what they believe to be "soft" news becomes unnecessary "hard" news because the issues inherent in those "soft" stories are not explored adequately.

How we interact, treat ourselves and each other, relate and communicate - or fail to - all too often results in significant abuse and even homicide/suicide.

Worse, it spawns future generations of adults who have learned as children dysfunctional relationship reasoning and actions, which is nurtured by unceasing violent media, news and music images.

When adults finally understand their thinking and behavior is unhealthy, dysfunctional and out of whack and they choose to seek help, they've got a couple of footlockers stacked on all the childhood baggage they have to work through first.

Ouch.

Of course, the only way to address this with significant and faster results is to teach children how to treat themselves and others in a smart, healthy, protective and caring way. Most effectively, this is done by example.

Like, if you're telling your kids not to drink alcohol - while the first thing you do when you get home is open a bottle of beer, or consider a celebration barren of meaning unless there's alcohol - from wine to whiskey to scotch to tequila to champagne ... um, they only hear what you do, because what you say obviously isn't the truth.

So two people at Virginia Tech are killed by an unknown assailant at 7:15 a.m. yesterday, but police don't become too excited or consider the situation extremely urgent because, as one of their own police officers said - they believed it was "just" a domestic problem.

As they saw it, given their interpretation of the crime and evidence, their problem was to track down the "domestic" shooter. The armed shooter who had not just killed his innocent former girlfriend but another innocent individual as well - who what trying to mediate their argument.

The rest is another, abhorrent chapter in US gun abuse history by a guy who couldn't have his way, whose "woman" wouldn't do what he wanted her to do. Another coward who planned his revenge because he couldn't handle himself when he believed he lost control over someone who would not do his bidding. Who refuses to be owned by him.

By the way, these monsters don't "snap."

They carefully plan obtaining weapons and ammunition, how to reach their destination without being detected, how to find and access their victim, as well as an escape plan - even if it's suicide.

Recently, a woman was shot and killed at the University of Washington by a former boyfriend-turned-stalker. She did everything right. The UW has a thorough system of addressing such problems - it was just never put into motion.

For whatever reason, her complaints, her notification of all the officials who were supposed to be contacted, the evidence of the "domestic" crimes he had already committed against her along with her clear and present pleas to police and campus authorities that he was out to kill her ...

Yes, for whatever reason, her information was not passed up the chain of command to people who could have properly protected her and her co-workers.

It is believed that if the complaint had been other than a "domestic" dispute, it would have been handled differently. Like all other cowards, including the mass murderer at Virginia Tech, the UW woman's killer killed himself so he would not have to be accountable for his actions.

Domestic violence is not decreasing in the US.

American women are still assassinated in large numbers in domestic disputes, as are men, and the failure of the nation, law enforcement, judicial and government to be outraged and take severe action against perpetrators of domestic violence continues.

I believe in reasonable gun control, especially for automatic weapons.

But if the NRA got smart, they'd invest lots of their lobbying billions in programs to help families, kids and individuals learn how to live without harming and killing each other.

Unfortunately they're hard on selling guns, soft on helping to prevent people from abusing them.

Filmmaker John Waters is producing a reality courtroom program about spouses who kill one another. He notes that juries *never* get tough on the killer because, he says, they understand homicidal rage that occurs in those marriages.

A culture of violence is nurtured by a government that proclaims an unnecessary war is a proper means to solve a non-existent problem (oil) - killing tens of thousands of innocent people ("collateral damage") as well as our own and our allies' soldiers; a country that pushes the death penalty as a legal punishment even though several of those put to death have been found to be innocent; music, films and TV programs that glorify guns and killing as a means to solve problems; people who immaturely decide that the best way to deal with an issue is a straight line between a gun and its living target.

People smarter than me have said it; there is a hole in the soul of our (US) nation. The only way to fill it is to find out what is missing in our individual souls and what created the hole so we can learn to fill it once again. Many outside our nation who once admired and even revered the American promise - which depends on having a national soul - believe we have lost it.

But it all starts with that soft news story still put on the lower shelf of the what's urgent news code: what makes us treat ourselves and others with disrespect or respect; abuse or care; meanness or kindness; and an abiding interest in finding new and other ways to solve problems.

Just a thought.