Rightwing newspaper ignores the facts to fawn over GOP candidate

The continued rightwing stand of the management and editorial board of the Livingston County Daily Press & Argus continues to amaze me.

After two straight days of trashing the Democratic Gubernatorial candidates, today Rich Perlberg and company are singing the praises of long-shot Republicans Gubernatorial candidate, Sen. Tom George, R-Kalamazoo, with an editorial called “Senator running for gov. deserves seat at policy table.”

“People such as George, who have seen the inside of both operating rooms and legislative chambers, are well-positioned to suggest meaningful changes. Regardless of the outcome of this year's race, there needs to be a way to get him a seat at the policy table.”

Well, considering George is the chair of the Senate Health Policy Committee and his party controls the Senate, he has more than a seat at the table, he has the head seat.

The editorial grudgingly acknowledges George is a long-shot, but it praises him without acknowledging his actions or doing a single bit of research on George. The editorial also says, “The four other announced Republican candidates have leads over him in both name recognition and campaign funds.”

That is not for a lack of trying on the part of Republicans. He has in the past given the GOP response to the Governor’s State of the State address, and he toured the state in 2008 speaking out against the successful Ballot Proposal 2 that allowed embryonic stem cell research.
He lost that battle, so he is currently trying to circumvent the will of the voters, and he has introduced and guided through his committee a package of bills – Senate bills 647-652 - that place so many restrictions on stem cells research that it will effectively kill it.

George, like all Republicans, is anti-worker, but it appears the newspaper supports that stance. Last year George introduced a resolution that urged “the Governor to work with the Civil Service Commission to require that state employees either work on President's Day or take the day off as an unpaid holiday.” The good news is that there were enough level heads in the Senate to defeat it.

But looking at the P & A’s online poll on Tuesday, we perhaps we see why the editorial board is fawning over George and ignoring the facts. The poll asks, “Yesterday, state employees had the day off for President's Day. Did you notice?”

Veteran journalist launches liberal and progressive blog/newspaper

I am pleased to announced I am now contributing to a new blog/newspaper called the “Opinion Artillery” operated by veteran journalist John Beckett.

According to the mission statement or description, Opinion Artillery “offers progressive commentary on U.S. policies and politics, and also keeps an eye on Michigan and Livingston County, the fastest-growing county in the state.“

The site is written and edited by Beckett. He, like me, is a Livingston County resident, but he is from Howell’s arch rival a few miles east down Grand River Avenue in Brighton. He reported and written for the then Brighton Argus - now the Livingston County Daily Press & Argus - for seven years and he spent 18 years at the Ann Arbor News, where he won numerous state and national awards.

It was while Mr. Beckett was at the A2 that I became aware of him. I worked for a few years at the bi-weekly Brighton Argus/Livingston County Press, and the A2 was our competition. It was the A2 work, combined with the decision by the Detroit News to open a bureau in Livingston County, that led to the LCP and the Argus to form the first new daily newspaper in Michigan in 50 years in September 2000. It was an exciting time, and I left a great job at the News Herald in Southgate to be a part of it.

The name of the blog is based on a quote by English journalist, political philosopher and novelist William Godwin: “Usurped powers cannot withstand the artillery of opinion."

Not only does the blog offer the work of contributing articles writers like me, Mr. Beckett accepts and publishes pieces from other writers.

I really like his take on the blog when he writes, “Because we're tired of how "liberal" has been turned into a dirty word. And because we believe our country needs a healthy dose of liberalism or progressivism or whatever you want to call it if we're going to meet the challenges of the 21st Century.”

I could don’t have said it better myself.

Author says U.S. is a dumping ground for unsafe products

LANSING -- The United States is the dumping ground for unsafe products and products manufactured with harmful chemicals, according to internationally acclaimed journalist and author Mark Schapiro.

Schapiro is the editorial director of the Center for Investigative Reporting, and spent more than two years writing his book, Exposed: The Toxic Chemistry of Everyday Products and What's at Stake for American Power. He was the featured speaker at the Ecology Center's annual membership meeting last week, as well as making a stop in Lansing to talk to lawmakers.

“The U.S. is becoming the recipient of products that are banned in other parts of the world,” he said. “That will only increase in the future. I never thought that would happen here.”

That is already happening with toys made in China, and the U.S. market has created a situation where products – such as cosmetics, personal care products and cleaning products -- with less stringent controls and regulation are made for the U.S. market and safer products go to places like the European Union. Schapiro’s book looks at the economic effect the EU’s decision to implement stricter controls is having on the U.S. In 2005 the EU passed the U.S. as the world’s largest consumer market, and it is also requiring the manufacturers of consumer products to eliminate potentially harmful chemicals.

“The European Union has taken a proactive approach to getting these harmful chemicals out of products,” Schapiro said. “The EU takes an approach that it wants to prevent hazards before it causes harm.”

In the EU market, it’s up to the manufacturers to prove the chemicals in their products are safe, but in the U.S. it’s the exact opposite. In other words, the burden of proof in the U.S. is on the consumer to prove something is unsafe. To prevent or remove a chemical from the market, the Environmental Protection Agency, the Food and Drug Administration or individuals in court must demonstrate that the chemical presents severe risk to humans. Schapiro also said the problem is compounded in the U.S. because the proof must be overwhelming and beyond a shadow of a doubt, and a perfect example of the absence of 100 percent proof is the debate over global warming.

“In science, it’s very hard to come up with absolutes,” he said. “That often leaves us in a state of paralysis.”

Schapiro said that while hundreds of potentially harmful chemicals are being phased out with safer alternatives and other chemicals are being vetted to see if they are safe in the EU, there has not been a chemical removed from the U.S. marketplace in 18 years. He also said more than 6,000 chemicals were grandfathered in when the law governing chemicals in consumer products went into effect in 1981, and those chemicals have not been completely vetted for safety.

“The fact is 90 percent of the chemicals in the market here have never been vetted,” he said. “The EU is requiring data on every chemical.”

Schapiro said he realizes chemicals are necessary, but he said there are safe alternatives that our chemists and engineers should be looking into. The fear with more regulation in the U.S. is that jobs will be lost and the cost of making the products will increase. Schapiro said that’s true in the short run, but profits are up in the EU. Schapiro said that’s because when given a choice between a similarly priced product made in the U.S. and one made in the EU, consumerswill choose an EU product over a U.S.-made product because they know the EU product is safer.

“We live in a world where chemicals do a lot for us in everyday life; there’s no question,” Schapiro said. “I spent a lot of time looking at the economic effects of the EU effort.

“A year after they made the decision to implement the regulations, they had their biggest profit ever in cosmetics,” he said. “There is no question that there is an initial cost to change, but there is a savings in the long run.”

The EU standard has had a positive effect because many companies are quietly – very quietly – abandoning the practice of making a separate version of a product for the EU market and another for the U.S. market, and they are now just making the safer and higher standard product for both markets.

To be sure, some companies are fighting the change tooth and nail. “We have seen a major increase in the lobbying effort by U.S. companies,” Schapiro said. “You have seen K-Street in Washington move wholesale to Brussels because that’s where the changes are taking place.”

But because of the higher EU standards many U.S. companies, such as Dow Chemical in Michigan, are scrambling to release data on the chemicals they use in their products, and Schapiro said that would benefit U.S. consumers.

“You have a major company right here in Michigan assembling a whole array of toxic data on chemicals they never had to before,” he said. “For the first time Americans are going to have a real choice on the products they use.”

“The bottom line is that the rest of the world is finding alternatives to these toxic chemicals,” Schapiro said.

Investigative journalist to discuss toxic chemicals in everyday products and what to do about them

What can Michigan legislators do to help improve protections for the public against toxic products? That's one of the questions to be addressed by investigative reporter Mark Schapiro this week in Ann Arbor.

Internationally acclaimed journalist Schapiro is editorial director of the Center for Investigative Reporting and author of the book "Exposed: The Toxic Chemistry of Everyday Products and What’s at Stake for American Power." He will be the featured speaker at the Ecology Center’s annual membership meeting set for 7:30 p.m. Thursday at Washtenaw Community College, 4800 E. Huron River Dr. in room 101 of the Morris Lawrence Building in Ann Arbor.

Schapiro’s new book investigates how corporations intent on thwarting passage of stricter environmental and health guidelines in the United States are forced to meet new demands by the European Union to improve their products. In his speech he will cover that issue and also discuss why Michigan receives toxic products from around the world and what the Michigan Legislature can do to help protect the public.

Schapiro has been an investigative journalist for more than two decades, focusing on environmental and international affairs, and his work has appeared in "Harper's, The Nation, Mother Jones" and "The Atlantic Monthly." He's also been a correspondent on the PBS program "NOW with Bill Moyers."

The Center for Investigative Reporting is a nonprofit organization focusing on investigative reporting. The work is led by a small West Coast staff and augmented by a nationwide team of independent reporters and producers.

The Ecology Center is a membership-based, nonprofit environmental organization founded by community activists after the country's first Earth Day in 1970. It works at the local, state and national levels for clean production, healthy communities, environmental justice and a sustainable future. The event is free and open to the general public. Call (734) 761-3186, extension 104, for more information.

New way to get Lansing news that mainstream media may miss

With shrinking newsrooms and newsroom consolidation, only the state’s two largest newspapers and the largest newspaper chain maintain a Lansing bureau, meaning there is less reporting on what is going in the capital. But for those wanting to keep a closer eye on what’s going on in Lansing, the Mackinac Center for Public Policy recently launched a new bi-monthly publication called “Capitol Confidential.”

The publication is free. It's available just by signing up at the center’s Web site, and it's also available online.

The Mackinac Center for Public Policy “is a nonprofit, nonpartisan research and educational institute devoted to improving the quality of life for all Michigan citizens by promoting sound solutions to state and local policy questions,” according to its mission statement. Many people call it a conservative think tank, but the center describes itself as “dedicated to providing a free-market perspective on public policy issues that are economic in nature.”

Capitol Confidential, one of eight periodicals published by the Mackinac Center, focuses on the votes and proposals in the state Legislature that traditional, mainstream media may not cover.

Capitol Confidential complements and is similar to the Michigan Votes Web site operated by the Mackinac Center. The Web site allows people to search for bills and resolutions by number, keyword or lawmaker, and it gives the voting record for each bill, as well as the voting record for the individual lawmaker. You can also go to the site to set it up to receive individually tailored e-mails of bills when they are introduced by subject or lawmaker.

Capitol Confidential contains some of the same raw data, but it also provides more analysis of bills, resolutions and proposals.

Online poll unmasks WJR’s bias

Either Detroit radio station WJR-AM 760 is not aware there was also a Democratic primary in Michigan or it’s finally admitting it only caters to the right side of the political spectrum. A recent poll asking people who they plan to vote for during Michigan’s Jan. 15 presidential primary only listed Republican candidates among the choices.

The poll confirmed what many former listeners of the powerful radio station have been saying for years since the station lost the broadcast rights for Detroit’s professional sports teams. To illustrate how conservative the listeners of the 50,000-watt radio station have become with a steady diet of conservative radio hosts, the poll put former conservative Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee in second place with 25 percent over Arizona Sen. John McCain with just 10 percent. The real election results were much different, with McCain finishing in second behind former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney with 30 percent of the vote with Huckabee in third with just 16 percent.

The self-proclaimed “Great Voice of the Great Lakes” has become the “Great Conservative Voice of the Great Lakes” with an almost exclusive line-up of conservative hosts that includes Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Mark Levin and Dr. Laura Schlessinger. Even the few local hosts are conservative, and in a poll the Michigan Messenger conducted last October, WJR morning host Frank Beckmann was voted the second most biased commentator or reporter in Michigan. This was an honor Beckmann did not appreciate, and he claimed in numerous emails he was fair and balanced, despite plenty of documentation to the contrary.

McCain picks up endorsement of Michigan’s largest newspapers

Republican Presidential candidate Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., received a major boost in Michigan with the endorsement of Michigan's largest newspaper, the Detroit Free Press, on Sunday.

The Free Press endorsed McCain in 2000 when he won the Michigan Primary, and the paper did it again, saying McCain's steadiness and consistency make him the choice for Michigan Republicans.

“John McCain is, again, the best candidate to carry the GOP banner into the fall. While the Free Press differs with McCain on a number of issues, the Arizona senator is a smarter, more tested and pragmatic leader who has shown since 2000 that he knows how to build bipartisan alliances around issues.”

Last week McCain picked up the endorsement of Michigan's second largest newspaper, the Detroit News. The Free Press has a circulation of more than 353,000 readers on weekdays – according to the Michigan Press Association - and a circulation of more than 712,000 on Sunday. The Detroit News has a weekday circulation of more than 226,000.

The Detroit Free Press is owned by Gannett, and it remains to be seen if the entire chain in Michigan will endorse McCain. Gannett products in Michigan include the Battle Creek Enquirer, the Lansing State Journal, the Livingston County Daily Press and Argus and the Port Huron Times Herald.

FCC ownership ruling will hurt Michigan

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) recently overturned a 32-year-old ban aimed at doing away with media monopolies and ensuring there is a diversity of voices on the airwaves and in print

The administrative ruling will let owners of a TV or radio station buy a newspaper, or vice versa, in the nation's 20 largest media markets. The ban put in place in 1975 barred a single company from owning a TV station and newspaper in the same market. Republican FCC Chairman Kevin Martin was joined by his two fellow Republican on the commission in favor of the proposal, and the commission's two Democrats voted against it.

Before the ink is even dry on this new rule it will allow waivers for six new newspaper-broadcast combinations and 36 grand fathered stations.

The Detroit News, owned by Denver-based Media News Group – one of the largest newspaper companies in the United States – immediately came out with an editorial favoring the move. The editorial did point out that its parent company did own a TV station, but the editorial skirted the issue of the problems with the consolidation of all of the news outlets into one giant voice. Detroit is the 11th largest media market in the country, and this ruling will apply to Detroit. The gist of the editorial is that because of technology like blogs and other new information sources, “there's no way a company can control the flow of news and entertainment by owning a newspaper and TV station in the same market.”

That may be good news for blogs like the Michigan Messenger, but if it will be good for traditional journalism and the general public remains to be seen.

Critics like the Economic Policy Institute (EPI) - a nonprofit, nonpartisan think tank - allowing more media consolidation will diminish local newsgathering. Proponents of the new rule say allowing cross-ownership may help to forestall the erosion in local news coverage by enabling companies to share newsgathering costs across media platforms.

But it ignores the danger of consolidating all the media voices into something owned by a few companies. Newspapers are a perfect example, and there are few independent newspapers anymore. Take the Detroit News, for example. Their parent company owns and operates 57 daily newspapers in 12 states with combined daily and Sunday circulation of approximately 2.6 million and 2.9 million, respectively, and they are proud to tell you those facts on their web site. Just recently in 2005 the News was purchased by from giant newspaper chain Gannett, the largest newspaper publisher in the U.S. that publishes 85 daily newspapers, including USA TODAY. After the smoke had cleared, Gannett walked away with ownership of the Detroit Free Press and the bulk of metro Detroit suburban weekly newspapers known as the Observer and Eccentrics.

During the 1920s more than 500 cities and towns had two or more competing newspapers - including about 100 cities that had three or more - today only about a half dozen communities have a least two newspapers, and those tend to operate under joint agreements allowed under the Newspaper Preservation Act, like the News and Free Press in Michigan under the Joint Operating Agreement (JOA).

This consolidation means there are less reporters and less competition. According to the EPI, since 1975 the number of media outlets has indeed increased, but at the same time ownership has become more concentrated. Today there is simply less diversity of opinion and less diversity of news sources.

This corporate takeover of newspapers means solid reporting, independence and integrity are taking a backset to profit and pleasing the shareholders. Media conglomerates are stressing profit maximization over concerns of localism and diversity, according to the EPI.

The situation is not much different in TV and radio where the airwaves are provided free by the government in exchange for diversity of views and opinions and informing the public. Anyone who has listened to radio station WJR-AM, the most powerful radio station in Detroit, knows about that lack of diversify of opinion. In contrast to the News editorial, there many be 24-hour cables news outlets, but news programming offered by affiliates of NBC, CBS, ABC and Fox still accounts for about half of all television viewing.

When Is Calling Someone a Wacko Not Name-Calling? When Beckmann Does It

In the world of conservative radio host Frank Beckmann, calling someone a “wacko” is not name-calling.

Last week Beckmann, who hosts the morning show on WJR-AM, was railing against the international scientific body the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change that just issued a report that said, "warming of the climate system is unequivocal.” His take on all those who believe climate change and global warming are serious problems is that they are environmental wackos. “They have really gone over the edge; that’s why I call them wackos,” Beckmann said. “I’m not into name-calling.”

Why he does not consider calling someone a wacko as rising to the level of name-calling I have no idea. But after about a month of monitoring his show for two and a half hours a day, I have begun to see how his conservative Republican bias manifests itself despite repeated denials and claims that he is fair and balanced.

His conservative guests outnumber other guests by a wide margin, and when he does have the conservatives that reflect his views and opinions on, he rarely has anyone from the other side to counter what they say. They can rest assured they will not be asked any tough questions or challenged, and chances are very good that Beckmann will agree with everything the person has to say.

A perfect example of that was at play Tuesday when Republican presidential candidate Duncan Hunter was a guest in what turned out to be little more than a 10-minute campaign infomercial. Duncan’s quote that, “We (Republicans) are the party of the middle class” really surprised me; not so much that he said it but that it went unchallenged. It’s Republican tax cuts over the years that benefited the richest 5 percent in this country at the expense of the disappearing middle class that has created a huge and widening gap between the rich and poor and shrunk the middle.

Beckmann’s support for the Iraq invasion is pretty clear, and that’s reflected in his choice of guests, including author and retired Lt. Col. Ralph Peters, who was on the show Tuesday. His support for the war is so strident that Peters has been described by some people as being from the “Diplomacy Be Damned, Shoot the Bastards" wing of the Republican Party.

The same show also featured an interview with John Howell about a boycott of the anti-Iraq war film "Redacted." You can be sure that neither Peters nor Howell got any tough questions.

On Wednesday, U.S. Rep. Thaddeus McCotter, R-Livonia, was on the show. McCotter was riled up about people in his district receiving robo-calls about the inability of the federal government to hold Communist China accountable for its repeated violations of fair trade policy. He was there to complain about the “Great left-wing attack machine,” and he had a receptive audience. This is the first time I have ever heard of this alleged machine. McCotter, and Beckmann too, seem to believe only Democrats and liberal groups use “attacks,” as he calls it.
I wonder where they were during the Clinton presidency when rich guys like Richard Mellon Scaife were offering rewards for people to dig up dirt on the Clintons through the so-called "Arkansas Project." I wonder if McCotter has ever been publicly accused of murder, rape or drug smuggling like Clinton was.

He also made the ridiculous statement that Republicans don’t use robo-calls.

McCotter’s biggest complaint was over the McCain–Feingold Act and what he calls attack ads by faceless, liberal groups that receive unknown financing. The McCain–Feingold Act is a bipartisan campaign finance bill that tried to regulate so-called “soft money.” Getting the bill passed was a hard-fought battle, and it has not been very successful at regulating soft money, but apparently McCotter thinks it does not go far enough. If he has a bipartisan proposal to improve it then he should propose it.

“When Frankenstein turns on them, then perhaps we will see something done with the wonderful McCain–Feingold Act that so many liberals and well-intentioned people want to make politics more transparent and free of money,” he said.

Beckman’s agreement that only Democrats engage in attack ads was very interesting. “They say we have the American Family Values and the political right that finance campaigns,” he said. Apparently, the word "we" means Beckmann includes himself in the Republican Party.

As Globe Warms, WJR's Beckmann discredits Granholm's Climate Initiative

WJR-AM radio host Frank Beckmann took his act -- and his conservative views -- on the road last week to the Los Angeles Auto Show.

On Thursday, he railed at Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm’s executive order creating the Michigan Climate Action Council to develop a comprehensive climate action plan for the state. Beckmann is well known for claiming climate change and global warming is a huge conspiracy and hoax thought up by liberals.

While the world’s most prominent scientists tell us the debate now should be about how best to combat the problem of climate change, not whether it is or isn't occurring, Beckmann thinks he has all the answers.

Beckmann complained that there were no scientists on the new council, which is still being formed, but he said the “… wackos will be represented.” His comments came just a couple of days before the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, an international scientific body, issued its fourth assessment, which said “warming of the climate system is unequivocal.” I’m sure very soon Beckmann will use his daily show to prove the world’s best scientists wrong.

Beckmann joked that the high Michigan unemployment rate should help reduce the world’s reliance on energy, which contributes to warming. It may have been funny to him, but for the worker who saw his or her job outsourced, it may not be so hilarious. I wonder where Beckmann was in the ‘70s when the unemployment rate in Michigan was in double digits and gas stations were running out of gas and closing. That stretch of driving less didn’t seem to relieve the country's reliance on foreign oil much.

Beckmann, who came in second in an informal Michigan Messenger poll of the most biased commentators, has demonstrated one thing in recent years: If you want to get on his show, all you really need to do is find fault with the governor. He had Livonia Mayor Jack Kirksey on his show on Thursday to talk about the decision by online mortgage broker Quicken Loans to move from its Livonia headquarters to Detroit. Who do you think Kirksey was upset with over the move -- Quicken? Or perhaps Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick? No, he was upset with the governor for her role in the decision to move. Instead of complaining that 4,000 jobs are going from Livonia to Detroit, he should be celebrating that 4,000 jobs stayed in Michigan.

But Beckmann’s take was that Granholm aided the Quicken deal because she owed a debt to the city and Kilpatrick for helping get her re-elected last November. With her landslide win, garnering almost 60 percent of the vote, I don’t think she’s beholden to anyone.

As an online company, I would guess Quicken could have moved its headquarters anywhere in the world. I’m reading a good book called “The World is Flat,” by Thomas Friedman, in which he talks about jobs being outsourced to India and other developing countries. Quicken not only had the governors of 49 other states throwing money and incentives at it, I’m sure many other countries were making offers. It would have been incompetence for Granholm not to become involved, and I can guarantee Beckmann would have hammered the governor if those 4,000 jobs had gone out of state.

Kirksey called it job raiding, but it should be called job retention and expansion. I wonder how many companies fled from Detroit to the suburbs since 1967? How many people who work at Quicken actually live in Livonia?

The rest of the week brought more examples of Beckmann’s consistent bias, which includes primarily booking conservative guests on any issue and getting his own opinion in even when asking questions of the few non-conservatives be books.

A perfect example was William Cohen, who was on the show Thursday. Cohen, a former Republican congressman and U.S. senator, was secretary of defense from 1997-2001 under President Clinton. Beckmann tried to blame the draw-down and the “wrecking of the military” after the end of the Cold War on Clinton, but Cohen pointed out that it occurred during the senior George Bush's presidency, when he cut the military by one-third.

Cohen told Beckmann that Clinton actually increased military spending. Instead of admitting his obvious mistake, Beckmann's response was “… that was the Gingrich Congress.”

Despite a short week conservative talk radio host has lots of examples of his bias to choose from

Despite being only on the air for two shows last week because of illness, conservative WJR-AM radio host Frank Beckmann has plenty of examples of his bias on display.

His show on Wednesday, as are all of his shows, served as a two-and- one half hour platform for his conservative views. That’s fine, but not when he claims he is fair and balanced. He chose Wednesday to talk about what he calls the Global Warming hoax. Despite every reputable scientist agreeing that global warming and climate change have been caused by human beings through the high emission of greenhouse gases Beckmann, apparently, really knows the truth because he did the research on the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) web site. He referred the guest to the links on his web site to prove he has the answers on climate change that Nobel Prize-winning scientists do not. So, I took a look. The things he chose to link to clearly demonstrates his bias.

A few that really got me were, “As discussed by (Republicans) L Brooks Patterson and Bob Daddow at the (Detroit Regional Chamber of Commerce) Mackinac Policy Conference” and “Satirist, Lecturer, Writer, and Political Commentator recently spoke to the (conservative think tank) Heritage Foundation, "Regurgitating the Apple: How Modern Liberals 'Think."”

The day after Michigan resident Michael Moore’s latest movie “Sicko” was released on DVD, Beckmann had as guests on his show the makers of the documentary “Manufacturing Dissent,” a 2007 documentary that exposes what the creators say are Moore's misleading tactics and mimics Moore's style of small documentary makers seeking and badgering their target for an interview. The film was made over the course of two years by Canadians Debbie Melnyk and Rick Caine. Beckmann did not bother to hide his glee at going after Moore, and his closing comment to the filmmakers said it all, “We’re going to convert all of you liberals.”

On Thursday Beckmann had state Senate Majority Leader Mike Bishop, R-Rochester, as a guest The softball questions he throws at Bishop are bad enough, but the disturbing part is what Beckmann lets him get away with saying without ever challenging him. Like this gem:

“The Republicans are in the minority in the Legislature,” Bishop said.

I almost fell out of my chair on that one. Even though that’s what voters clearly intended to do last November when 60 percent of the total votes cast for Senators were for Democratic Senate candidates, the Republicans still control the Senate 21-17.

Detroit News editorial page editor Nolan Finley had a few gems of his own. On Thursday he wrote, “Chrysler's new CEO Bob Nardelli is taking on more than just the nuts and bolts turnaround of the automaker. He appears to be out to break the mentality of collective entitlement that permeates the domestic auto industry, and infests much of Michigan as well. Nardelli is considering extending bonuses beyond the executive suite deep into the ranks of Chrysler workers, based on the company's performance and an individual’s contribution.”

The “mentality of collective entitlement?” We know where Finley stands.

Recently, the obscene compensation CEOs were making has been an issue as the gap between the rich and poor widens and the middle class is in danger of going the way of the dinosaurs. Nardelli was the poster boy for that problem.

In 1965 the average CEO was earning 24 times what the average worker was making. But in 2005, the average CEO was making 262 times what the average worker is making. As the CEO of Home Depot, Nardelli made $38 million, or roughly $100,000 a day, in 2005, but the average worker who is selling the product and is the public face of the company is making just $10 an hour on average with few if any benefits. Nardelli continued to make this outrageous salary despite the company’s stock going down 6 percent in six years, and it fell 40 percent during his tenure.

Finley uses his Sunday column to tell us how wonderful Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney is and how bad Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton is.

“Romney gets the auto industry -- in fact, he's offered himself up to run an automaker if this politics thing doesn't work out. “

I’m sure he’s qualified.

Detroit Free Press reporter Dawson Bell came in third in our poll, but I have seen no bias. He wrote three articles last week: a story on the Supreme Court argument on same sex benefits, the court decision to stop the Michigan primary and a feature on term limits.

More newspapers and readers voting "no" on candidate endorsements

Do you vote the way your local newspaper tells you? More and more, the answer is no.

Many newspapers are no longer endorsing political candidates, and experts say the public is also placing less stock in endorsements.

Many experts say the charges of political bias that newspapers face when they make an endorsement are not worth the effort. Further, a 2004 study by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology on endorsements from 1940 to 2002 concluded that an endorsement has very little effect on the outcome of an election.

“I think serious people read what a newspaper has to say about a candidate, but they don’t want to a newspaper telling them how to vote,” said John K. Hartman, a journalism professor at Central Michigan University. Hartman is the author of two books about USA Today, which has the largest circulation in the nation but does not endorse candidates.

“Some newspapers have stopped endorsing because it makes readers angry,” he said. “If they get angry at a news source they often just stop subscribing. It’s a business decision not to endorse.”

Phil Jerome -- who recently retired as the executive editor of Hometown Newspapers that once published community newspapers in Livingston County, South Lyon, Milford, Novi and Northville before being purchased by Gannett – said the advance of the Internet and other news sources has also diluted the effectiveness of newspaper endorsements.

“I don’t think they make as much difference as they used to,” he said. “It might have a lot to do with the advent of electronic media.”

The electronic media may actually make for a less-informed electorate. For example, 30-second ads – often attack ads – are taking the place of news analysis. According to the Michigan Campaign Finance Network (MCFN) - a nonpartisan, nonprofit coalition of organizations and individuals concerned about the influence of money in politics and the need for campaign finance reform in Michigan - in the last general election in November 2006, political coverage averaged 1.46 minutes of airtime during a 30-minute newscast in the Lansing TV market. Prior to November, the average fell to a mere 27 seconds of political stories during a newscast. It was even worse in the Detroit market, with the average in October and leading up to the November election 1.23 minutes of airtime, compared to 22 seconds in September. But political advertising in the Detroit market during the fall of 2006 averaged 4.21 minutes per newscast for an average of about nine political ads. In fact, political ads, as well as weather and sports coverage, took up more than half of newscasts at 6 and 11 p.m.

Many people feel the drop in circulation for daily newspapers can be blamed directly on people getting their news instantly from TV, radio and the Internet. At the same time, community newspapers, which offer local news, are thriving. Similarly, many political experts say newspaper endorsements carry less weight the more visible and higher the office but more weight for local races.

“I think the more local the endorsement the more difference it makes,” said James Wojcik, a professor of journalism at CMU and a member of the CMU Journalism Hall of Fame. “If there is a hot local issue, newspapers will have more of an impact.”

The reputation for fairness and accuracy of the newspaper may also have an effect on how the endorsement is perceived. Dan Rock, campaign manager for the successful 2006 state House campaign of Kathy Angerer, D-Dundee, said the endorsement of the employee-owned Monroe Evening News was very important.

“Getting the endorsement was like an authority figure saying it’s OK to vote for this person,” he said. “Just the name recognition -- it gives is a big help.”

Often the circulation of the newspaper determines how the endorsement is made and who makes it. On a large metropolitan newspaper, the editorial page editor and the editorial writers may make the decision; on some smaller newspapers, various editors and the reporter who covers the candidate or race may make the decision. And some newspapers may have citizens on the editorial board.

Jerome has sat in on countless endorsement interviews, and he said editors use face-to-face interviews, questionnaires and public statements to reach a decision. “You are looking for knowledge on the issues,” he said. “You are also looking for quality and where they stand on the issues.”

Citizens may assume that a newspaper is making an informed decision when it makes an endorsement. But when five of the six members of the editorial board of the Lansing State Journal voted to endorse Jim Marcinkowski for the U.S. House in the 8th District over incumbent Mike Rogers, R-Brighton, publisher Leslie Hurst opted to quash the editorial and endorse nobody it shook some of that confidence..

Jerome still thinks newspapers can play a viable role in the election process, but it will be in local races where the only information that readers get on a candidate is from the local paper.

“The local newspapers have more of an opportunity to make more of a difference,” he said. “They [readers] all know pretty much already who they are going to vote for in the national and statewide elections.”

WJR's Beckmann balks at being rated among most-biased

WJR-AM radio commentator Frank Beckmann is not happy with the results of a Michigan Messenger reader survey.

Readers ranked Beckmann in second place among the most biased reporters, columnists and commentators in Michigan.

Beckmann tried to laugh the poll off, but it bothered him enough to email me six times.

Detroit News editorial page editor Nolan Finley was picked as the most biased. But the impression I got from him was basically an amused “so what.”

Beckmann was a little different. Those who have watched Bill O’Reilly on his Fox News show "The O’Reilly Factor” constantly describe the national blog Media Matters as a “left-wing smear site” know how some people react when you hold a mirror up to them. What is Media Matters' great sin and how is it smearing O’Reilly? Simply by posting actual video of some of the stuff he says on his show.

“I addressed this on the air this morning," Beckmann wrote of the survey, "and stressed my disappointment at finishing second.....clearly, I failed to energiize (sic) my base and plan to get a better turnout next year......you must be pleased with your truly massive response of 43 votes in a week....that's impressive.....I also adopted you as my official liberal website.”

I explained to Beckmann that although I too was disappointed at the small number of votes cast, Michigan Messenger has only been around for some six weeks, and that any startup venture in any medium begins slowly. I also explained that an online newspaper is a completely new medium, and obviously more people owned radios than computers. Also, to vote you had to register with a screen name and password, and like talk radio, many people may listen or read but they do not all call in or comment; I guess that’s where the term “long-time listener, first-time caller” came from. But the 43 votes was a constant theme with Beckmann, and he pointed it out in almost every email.

“You act as if your vote with 43 ballots is somehow significant,” he wrote. “By all measures, my show has been a success.....The Michigan Association of Broadcasters afforded me two major awards last year, for 'News Coverage' and for 'Personality of the Year.' ”

I pointed out to him, again, that although the 43 votes were fewer than I had hoped for, still it was the readers and not me who chose him as one of the most biased commentators. Perhaps the question I should have asked was if he thought a mere 43 votes was so insignificant, why was he wasting his time emailing me. He offered to let me appear on his show, but it wasn't clear he was serious.

I listened to his show last Wednesday and Thursday while working and a small portion of the show on Friday while driving. I discovered Beckmann was correct when he said he regularly has liberals and progressives on. But after listening I have little doubt that those who voted for him made a good decision. He clearly treats non-conservative guests he disagrees with much more differently than conservatives.

On the first show, on Halloween morning, just a few hours after the Michigan House had met until 4 a.m. to approve the final budget bills and avoid a second state government shutdown, he had a lot to say about the budget. He told his audience that the budget just passed actually was an increase from the previous year’s budget, but then failed to say why or point out that many payments made in this budget were payments that were delayed from last year’s one-time fixes that were due.

It was very telling who his first guest was. Tricia Kinley, the director of tax policy for the Michigan Chamber of Commerce, was there to push the chamber's attempt to kill the recently approved sales tax on some services. There was no one from the other side as a guest, and as always, there was no one to talk about how the budget would be balanced without the tax increase.

Beckmann did have former Democratic Gov. Jim Blanchard on the show, but Blanchard had to call him out on trying to pass off White House talking points on the Iraq occupation as his own opinions.

The next day, Thursday, Beckmann had the House Republican leader, Rep. Craig DeRoche, R-Novi, on to talk about the budget, despite the fact that every published report pointed out DeRoche had absolutely nothing to do with the budget negotiations that avoided a government shutdown. Beckmann let everything DeRoche said go by unchallenged, including the misleading claim that House Speaker Andy Dillon, D-Redford, has grown government and the number of state employees.

The truth is that there are fewer state employees now than there were in 1973, as there were more state employees under Republican governors Bill Milliken and John Engler than there are now. After Dillon’s segment, Beckmann chose to comment on what Dillon had to say but not DeRoche, and DeRoche's comments went unchallenged again.

On Friday, he had the Senate Majority leader, Sen. Mike Bishop, R-Rochester, on to talk about the budget, and he got more softball questions than DeRoche. Beckmann did not bother to ask him how he actually planned to balance the budget without the revenue increases. Senate Minority Leader Sen. Mark Schauer, D-Battle Creek, should have been on to counter Bishop’s claims -- following the pattern of the day before, when the leaders of both parties in the House were on the show. But that did not happen.

Stop the Presses! Readership Decline Spells Bad News for Newspapers

Newspaper readership has declined every year for the past 20 years, but that decline is starting to accelerate as new and faster ways of getting news to people becomes more available.

In the fall of 2006 U.S. daily newspapers saw their biggest drop in circulation in 15 years when the Audit Bureau of Circulations reported that average daily circulation dropped by 2.8 percent during a six-month period that ended Sept. 30, 2006, and circulation for Sunday papers – traditionally the biggest generator of ad income for newspapers - fell by 3.4 percent.

The drop in circulation has launched a vicious cycle and as circulation drops newspapers cannot charge as much for advertising, revenue falls and jobs are cut as newspapers try to cut costs. Ownership of newspapers by a few mega-chains is also having an affect as the newspapers try to turn a profit by cutting costs, but some observers say that bottom line mentality is hurting quality. In Michigan, The Flint Journal, The Detroit News and the Detroit Free Press are planning to cut staff with voluntary buyouts. However there may be more layoffs because newspapers are notoriously quiet about personal moves, and some papers are not filling empty jobs.

Phil Jerome - a reporter and editor for more than 30 years who recently retired as the executive editor of Hometown Newspapers that once published community weekly newspapers in Livingston County, South Lyon, Milford, Novi and Northville - said the large newspaper chains have had a negative effect on the quality of journalism. Mega newspaper chain Gannett, which publishes 85 daily newspapers, including USA Today, and nearly 1,000 non-daily publications, purchased Hometown Communications Network in 2004 from former University of Michigan Regent Phil Power. The purchase also included the weekly suburban Observer & Eccentric Newspapers.

“The big chains come in and just look at the bottom line,” Jerome said. “They need to please stockholders, so they cut costs.”

James Wojcik, a professor of journalism at Central Michigan University and a member of the CMU Journalism Hall of Fame said less reporters in the newsroom means less people to spread the workload around to, and the pressure to turn out a large volume of copy can have a negative effect on accuracy.

“Anytime you have less reporters the newsroom does not work as well,” he said. “When you have fewer reporters there is not the same scrutiny and transparency.”

But John K. Hartman, a fellow professor at CMU and an author of two books on USA Today – the most widely read newspaper in the nation, said because there is less advertising the news hole has shrunk; that means there is less of a need to churn out so much copy. Hartman said he sees newspapers, especially daily newspapers, in a state of transition. In the past newspapers made up to 25 percent of their income from subscriptions and single copy sales, but he sees them going to a free model in an effort to get the product into more people’s hands.

“I think when they go to the free model circulation will increase. Young adults will not put 50 cents into a newspaper box but if you give them a free copy they will read it,” he added.

The Internet has also had a significant effect on the industry, and more and more people, especially younger people are getting their news from the Internet, TV or other vehicles. It was not so long ago that almost every household in America subscribed to at least one newspaper but that’s not the case anymore. A recent study said the percentage of Americans who read a paper every day has fallen to just under 35 percent today from around 70 percent in 1972. The drop is even more dramatic for those people under age 30 where just 16 percent read a paper daily. But many people are reading newspapers free of charge online. According to a report by Reuters, a global information and news gathering company, the number of people visiting U.S. newspaper web sites rose 3.7 percent during the quarter that ended on Sept. 30, 2007.

The loss of circulation has meant a drop in jobs, and that has made competition for the fewer jobs keener and driven down wages and benefits.

“The wages are sub par and the benefits are awful,” Jerome said. “If I had to do it all over again I would not go into journalism.”

There are few union newspapers left in Michigan, and those few that remain are feeling the pressure of newsroom cutbacks. The Detroit News and Detroit Free Press, represented by Detroit Newspaper Guild Local 22, are offering Voluntary Separation Packages for those newsroom employees who are age 50 or above and have been with the paper 10 years or more. Eligible employees will receive two weeks of severance pay and health insurance for every two years of service up to a year’s worth of salary. Management will decide by Nov. 13 what applicants will be offered the package based on job titles and experience. The Flint Journal is offering a similar incentive to cut staff but management is mum about how many jobs it will cut.

“The Free Press said they want to keep the number (of employees) taking the package down to 16 and The Detroit News wants to keep it at six,” said Lou Mleczko, Newspaper Guild President.

Mleczko is having his first go at negotiating a contract with Gannett after it took over operation of the Observer & Eccentric Newspapers, and the 40 newsroom employees the Guild represents have been working without a contract since July as concerns over health care have slowed the process.

“It’s not a real concern right now, but it could be a problem if we don’t reach an agreement soon,” he said.

Despite the low pay and benefits CMU professors Wojcik and Hartman said there is no drop-off in students entering the field of journalism. The interest in blogs, online publications and other new media has spurred an interest in both writing and reporting.

“There is still a good deal of interest in journalism,” Hartman said. “There is a much bigger interest in writing, and I think e-mail, texting and other multi-media things are driving that interest.”

Despite growing concerns over the possible death of newspapers most experts see community news and community journalism thriving if they embrace some of the new technologies.

“My philosophy is pretty simple,” Wojcik said. “I think the newspapers that are going to survive are the ones that provide constant updates on what’s going on right in my own backyard.
"If I want to find out what’s going on in Iraq I can tune into any of the 24-hour cable channels that cater to any bias I have. I am concerned if the city council is going to pick up my garbage,” he added.