Last week, my friend “Rufus” announced that he wants to create a new media source dedicated to “balanced” reporting. He believes that the principal reason the Democrats won in 2008 is not that the Democrats had a better story to tell. He believes the Democrats had a better media to tell their story.

I have observed that few Main Stream Media outlets misreport the news; they simply under report the news. The less we know, the more mistakes we make.

• Did you know that the taxpayer-funded subsidy for ethanol amounted to $1.45 per gallon of ethanol sold in 2006? That’s front page news that never appeared on any front page. We paid that out of our already taxed paychecks in addition to the price at the pump. Mistake #1.
• Did you know that the Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac bailout now amounts to $400 billion? That’s front page news that never appeared on any front page. We will pay that out of our already taxed paychecks in addition to the price “at the pump.” Mistake #2.
• Did you know that the United States cancer survival rates are significantly better than those in countries with national health care? That’s front page news that never appeared on any front page. About 62.9% of U.S. men and 66.3% of U.S. women survive for at least five years. In Great Britain, on National Health Care, just 44.8% of men and only 52.7% of women live for five years after diagnosis. Other deadly diseases have similar numbers. Mistake #3.

Does the Main Stream Media really twist the news by not publishing it? Do they do it on purpose?

I had hoped someone could tell me who decides what stories to report.

That decision is more than half the battle.

There are eight million stories in the naked city and at least 100 of them happen before deadline, day in and day out. You have 24 total pages for editorial, in between the ads and the funnies and no more because you can’t afford to buy any more pulped trees. You have 21 minutes of total air time less the 2-1/2 or 3 minutes of promos for the upcoming stories, the 4 minutes of weather, and the 3 minutes of sports because God ain’t making any extra minutes in your half hour. You can do up to 12 40-second shorts and one “in depth” 3 minute piece.

Tell me again what 87 stories NOT TO report?

The reason most of the Main Stream Media appears unbalanced has less to do with what they report and more to do with what they don’t.

Many of today’s 87 stories start with the dog biting the postal carrier. That’s news to the Post Office but the two cent stamp hike has far more effect on us. Of the rest, the reason no main stream journal reports that GM sold more cars last month than Toyota is that that fact does not fit the news myth that “no one buys General Motors cars.”

For the record, I have two GM vehicles. I like them.

Also for the record, ethanol in gasoline, bank bailouts, and healthcare are the biggest stories of the last couple of years. I do not like how hard it was to find real information about them.

The news does get managed.

I was asked to take down photos of the construction work in progress on the former Switlik estate. I did. The request was made “to protect the new owner’s privacy.”

• Privacy? Other sites have similar images (for other examples, check the Realtor’s “we sold this” site or Google maps). No worries there.
• Space? I have, essentially, unlimited space to publish. No worries there.
• Copyright? I shot a roll of film legitimately and without challenge. No worries there.

In the end those nice images did little to advance the story and, worse, brought a “paparazzi” feel to the reporting. I really had no need for them and no reason not to say yes to the request.

The news got managed.

I made an editorial decision for the best of reasons but even in this case, there is a little bit less news in the world.

Bottom line: Fewer stories of substance. Less information in the stories. Less news. The less we know, the more mistakes our “free press” assures that we make.

Dear Mr. President:

This is my application for the White House Fiction Corps, um, er … Press Corps. If you have any influence with the Main Stream Media, I would appreciate a little boost.

I’m really good at this stuff, you know.

“Just the facts, ma’am,” Joe Friday taught us.

The earliest visitors to this page last week will recall that I published a couple of photos of the construction work in progress on the former Switlik estate. I was asked to take them down to protect the new owner’s privacy.

Should I or should I not?

That essential question makes a nice jumping off point to consider how the Main Stream Media twists the news by not publishing it.

My friend “Rufus” started discussing “balanced” reporting. I now call him “Rufus” because I discovered I know too many people named Bob, Jim, and Jim-Bob. He observed that the published reports on auto sales included numbers for BMW, Ford, Honda, Mazda, Toyota, VW, and so on but none of the summaries had GM sales figures.

I believe, Rufus wrote, that there is a massive opportunity for a news organization to rise to pre-eminence by providing rigidly balanced reporting, and making sure it is clear exactly how the rest of the MSM is NOT, I suspect that they would pick up a pile of advertising support from businesses. WSJ is too clearly conservative and vested, and especially too much associated with big money and, well, Wall Street. It has to be someone else, and it can’t be a right-wing ranter. It has to be known for taking both sides to task and exposing their underbellies.

Alrighty, then.

Tell me who decides what stories they “rigidly balancedly” report.

Tell me why you think they would pick up advertising support.

Advertisers go where the potential buyers hang out, Rufus. Advertisers pay the bills. Advertisers have almost no (commercial) interest in what programming they buy beyond the demographics of the audience.

There are some exceptions. Hallmark, for example, remains the producer and primary underwriter for the Hall of Fame which is, I believe, the longest running anthology program on television. Maybe the longest running program of any kind on television. Hall of Fame airs before holidays for the obvious reason. There has never been a downbeat program or one that glorifies bad acts.

So, Hallmark does control content. Many other companies won’t sponsor spokesmen who do crimes — the Michael Phelps bong kerfuffle illustrates that — but Rufus really needs only to look at the Nielsens for the news programs; the newsie advertiser list shows how little most sponsors care.

Taking the sides to task, see, that’s not reporting. Reporting is much more banal than that. Reporting has no agenda to take a side to task. 60 Minutes does that sort of “ambush journalism” and, other than Andy Rooney, I often do not like 60 Minutes. They do ferret out facts but they edit deeply to tell the story most likely to jack us up, not simply to publish the facts.

People asking for “balanced reporting” really want complete reportage of the facts of the story they want the media to carry and only that story.

Well, if there is information to bash and support both sides of an issue, Rufus wrote, that would be a heluva start.

See, that’s still opinion writing, not journalism. Just like science, there are no sides in journalism; there are only facts. A fact has no sides.

Stay tuned. Next up: the effects of not publishing some of the news and my application for a job with the White House.

I made a mistake.

It was an honest mistake as opposed to a dishonest one, as if that makes a difference; it was an error in fact in this very blog.

Here’s the back story.

In a blog titled “For Sale, Cheap,” I wrote about Craigslist scams and the experience I had had selling a car and buying a refrigerator through that list. As my friend “Bob” said, “$1,200 is too much for a fridge. $3,000 is mindless.” I agree wholeheartedly so I bought a far cheaper new-to-me fridge and I spun a column out of the experience.

Nothing ever goes quite as planned, I wrote then. Prescient, I am.

The fridge was in the Stanley Switlik estate. That marvelous site boasts some of the most beautiful Marathon acreage. The former owner of the refrigerator told me she was moving because “D’Asign Source had bought the property for development.” I included that tidbit in the story. In fact, I wrote that they would tear down the mansion and build condos. None of that was important to the story itself except it added some local color.

[Photos Removed]

Terri Nuechterlein, Director of Marketing for D’Asign Source, brought me up short.

“D’Asign Source did not buy the old Switlik property,” she wrote as a comment. “We were hired to design and build a private home for the person who did purchase the property. You will be pleased to know there are no plans for condos.”

I am indeed.

D’Asign Source is a Marathon success story. Owned by a local family and a major local employer, they have grown in half a century from a modest concrete business to a significant building, interior design, and landscaping company that has changed the architectural face of the Keys. The family “wants their projects to be right for our area,” Ms. Nuechterlein said. I am personally fond of one of those projects, the ten unit Turtle Cays condos in Key Colony Beach. These units evoke the wood frame look of the old Florida Keys and make excellent use of a long, narrow lot. The yearly D’Asign Source landscape tour benefits Pigeon Key. They host the annual Habitat for Humanity fundraiser. They also donated the recyclable and reusable construction materiel to the Habitat for Humanity store. Good company. Good people.

The Switlik property sold for $7 million last November and the 1956 home is now gone. “It really was not in the best repair anymore,” Ms. Nuechterlein told me. The estate will become “a great private compound for a lucky family and plenty of friends!” That lucky family has “expressed an interest in several green initiatives.” The staged project will be completed in about two years.

Three hundred fifty word back story.

I write this blog as a hobby but that doesn’t negate my responsibility to check facts. I do, after all, include straight reportage as the underpinning of every opinion I write.

Fact checking is more important to the reader than to the writer or publisher. Oh, sure, the publisher wants to avoid serious, costly difficulties such as the disbelief, suspicion, and lawsuits that surrounded the high profile fraud of Dan Rather or Stephen Glass. The reader needs to believe that the words are accurate. After all, “It’s on the Internet so it must be true” is today’s mantra.

Ever wonder what moved the media far from the yellow journalism that sold so many newspapers for William Randolph Hearst? Fact checkers.

I believe that most newspapers have eliminated the position of fact checker, just as most newspapers have eliminated the position of copy editor. The cost of those positions was more than advertisers were willing to bear. It means that reporters must verify the information they publish. And that means you, dear reader, must now verify the information you see or hear.

Verification is a three-step process. The viewer or reader needs to derive if a piece is opinion or news. That is no small task even on a news program. Next the viewer or reader needs to determine if the story is complete or is slanted by omission. Finally the viewer or reader needs to decide the accuracy of each statement presented as fact.

“Just the facts, ma’am,” Joe Friday taught us. Fact checking requires quick and accurate research. I didn’t do that and for that I apologize to my readers and to D’Asign Source. I’ll do better.

Quite a project, I said this morning to one of the site workers on the estate.

“You ain’t seen nothing yet.”