Bucks County Herald – June 5, 2008

Scott McClellan Media

Dear Friends,

Good morning. After watching Meredith Viera’s interview about Scott McClellan and his expose of the Bush administration, I ordered McClellan’s book. “What Happened” is McClellan’s account of the White House when he was the Press Secretary. On the Today show (May 29), McClellan told Viera that he was frustrated with how business is conducted in Washington.

He says that both parties who fight each other rather than doing the public’s work have stymied the country for 15 years. McClellan’s certainly right about that but that’s hardly new news. Actually, it’s much longer. I got to thinking about the national mess that we’re in.

Why do we have it and who’s to blame?

“What Happened” is a book about why George W. Bush’s legacy is doomed…according to McClellan. But the title, “What Happened,” could speak to the last 34 years. Why doesn’t America have an energy policy? Why does Bill Gates, the Microsoft billionaire, accurately say that America’s high schools are obsolete?

What Happened?

My answer is that it’s my fault and yours too.

I belong to the media so I’m not an innocent. The news business has not been doing its job since Watergate. Why? Because newsrooms are shrinking across America, that’s why. With the exceptions of community weeklies owned by individual families, corporate America owns most of the dailies, radio and television stations, today.

Investors in public media companies demand higher dividends, which come from profits. With newspaper advertising declining, the quickest way to reduce payrolls is to shave news departments. The result is fewer dollars available for investigative reporting.

Fifty years ago, most of America’s dailies were family owned. Newspapers like the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Boston Globe, Chicago Tribune, Los Angeles Times, Philadelphia Inquirer, and Washington Post didn’t worry about outside investors because families owned them…100 percent.

That’s no longer the case.

Not far from here, a public newspaper chain owns several dailies and many weeklies. To squeeze higher profits, some of its weeklies employ a skeleton staff to gather the news. In many cases, it’s cheaper to fill its pages with government press releases rather than spending its money to research what’s happening in municipalities and school districts.

You readers are fortunate that the Bucks County Herald is family owned.

Turning back to the national scene, why didn’t reporters challenge the Bush administration as it was selling America to wage war with Iraq? Why did the media fail to hold Presidents Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan, Bush I, Clinton, Bush II accountable for the absence of an energy policy? Why didn’t we, the media, hold their feet to the fire? Why did the media fail to blame every legislator during those 34 intervening years?

Yes, it’s my fault. But it’s yours too.

The public understands that lobbyists supply the funds to insure that legislators get reelected. And the public realizes that the vast majority of legislators at the national and state levels blindly follow orders from their party leadership. Political rules prevent U.S. Senators Casey and Specter, Congressman Murphy, State Senators McIlhinney and Wonderling, and State Representatives Clymer, Watson from bringing bills up for a vote.

Why don’t you register to vote? Why don’t you vote? Why don’t you tell your state representative, state senator, congressman, U.S. senators to create term limits or you’ll expel them at their next election?

It’s your fault and mine too.

Sincerely,

Charles Meredith

PS. Next week, I’ll write about Marty Moss-Coane’s interview with Edward Humes on National Public Radio. Moss-Coane was a former trustee at the Solebury School. Humes’ book, “Over Here” is the story of the G.I. Bill at the close of World War II. It’s about how a single law enabled millions of highly motivated and grateful Americans to transform our country, the book’s cover explains.

There are bills in both the Congress and Senate, which would expand the original G.I. Bill for today’s veterans. Unfortunately, those bills are opposed by the Bush administration and the military.

I’ll have lots to say about how the military sometimes gets it wrong.

Stay tuned.