Journalism at the very least should be informative. If news reporting tells neither the beginning nor the end of a story, as G.K. Chesterton once said, it should at least attempt to clarify the issues in the parts of the story it does tell. It shouldn't repeat, or echo, platitudes, cliches, and "common wisdom" as if they were accepted truths. Education writers, for example, should never use shorthand phrases like "failing schools" or "high performing schools" without taking the time to explain what that means, and how those designations are determined. And without then taking the extra step to point out the logical inconsistencies of using such labels to determine educational policy.
This story from the Associated Press about the "exodus of white students" from schools with increasing Hispanic populations in Nebraska is an example of an informative (and eye-opening) report that, although far from comprehensive, tells it like it actually is. It even provides some historical and social context:
"Like many of Nebraska's school systems, the Lexington district where Eisenhauer is superintendent has seen an influx of Hispanics, largely because of jobs at the meatpacking plants, and an accompanying exodus of white students to public elementary schools just outside town.
'And there is nothing Eisenhauer can do about it. Nebraska law allows students to switch schools without giving a reason.
" 'It bothers you when people come into your town and make comments like "You've got lots of Mexican kids",' Eisenhauer said. 'I feel distressed if they would opt out for that reason.' ..............
"Beginning in the 1960s, white flight to the suburbs left many big-city school systems across the country predominantly black. But what is happening in Nebraska is a different phenomenon: The white families are staying put; they are just sending their kids to school outside town."
Good story. And it avoids the use of misleading educational jargon to tell it.
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Too often, the media throws around abstractions like "vision" and "leadership" to describe what we need from our legislators, when it should be talking directly about increasing taxes to fund public services like education. It doesn't take a visionary to see that tax revenues have dropped in recent years. It takes a hardheaded realist, one willing to take a principled stand, and one who isn't fearful of alienating some electoral base, to break the fiscal impasse plaguing Oregon.
Here are the facts from the Oregon Center for Public Policy, and its executive director, Chuck Sheketoff:
“ 'In the 2005-07 budget cycle, corporations will pay just 5 percent of all Oregon income taxes, leaving 95 percent to households. In 1973-75, corporations paid 18 percent of income taxes,' Sheketoff noted.
"The public policy research institute has calculated that if Oregon’s profitable corporations were still paying taxes at the 1973-75 level, Oregon would have $1.8 billion more for state services in the upcoming budget period.
“ 'Oregon’s households would receive increased public services without paying more in taxes if we could just make profitable corporations pay their fair share,' added Sheketoff."
The OCPP doesn't shy away from the tax issue. Senior policy analyst Michael Leachman says that simple tax reform can solve our fiscal problems:
" 'If we choose, Oregonians can restore education, public safety, human services and other programs cut during the recession,' he said.
"Leachman set out a path to ending the Doonesbury Decade early. 'Tax reform focused on raising additional revenue from those with the greatest ability to pay will restore our investments in children, protect our communities, and renew our care of children, the sick, and the elderly,' said Leachman."
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And nationally the media repeats endlessly the Bush mantra, "war on terror." But they never get around to telling us what the "war on terrror" actually is. The phrase has entered our lexicon uninvited and unexamined. Even the opposition, such as it is, seems to have bought into the concept. We're at war. The enemy is terror.
In this piece on global warming, George Monbiot, asks:
"Why is this? Why are we transfixed by terrorism, yet relaxed about the collapse of the conditions which make our lives possible?"
Why indeed? Terror is a tactic, not a monolithic threat. Terror, however repugnant, is the weapon of the weak against the perceived oppression of the powerful. In Iraq, we're battling an insurgency largely of our own making. In Israel--Palestine-- the enemy is Hamas and Hezbollah, groups solely concerned with Palestinian rights. And so on and on and on. Terrorism arises in specific places in specific circumstances. It's idiotic to talk about a global war on terrorism. Terrorism is a chimera, used as a pretext to justify huge defense expenditures and, sadly, military adventurism.
Aided and abetted by the stenographers in the in the mainstream media.
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