Sunday, May 11, 2008

The (Developers') Review Journal

Good journalism is objective. And the mass media wants you to believe they are “fair and balanced.”

But when it comes to reporting the Southern Nevada Water Authority Groundwater Development Project (the water grab), the Las Vegas Review Journal is about as biased as they can get away with.


For example: It was reported in February (in the Review Journal) that a notebook from a SNWA advanced research analyst was recovered – with the handwritten notes that say;

ignore negative information, make everything positive, and to save ink (by) forgetting anything negative.”

You would think this would be quite a news story. But now it's two news stories. Because the Review Journal “reporter,” Henry Brean, did everything within his writing power to make these notes appear insignificant.


His whole article was an attempt to make this SNWA note to “ignore negative information” seem as though that's just what he was trying to do.


The SNWA response to this revelation was an almost silly statement that “those were notes for how to calibrate a color plotter.” Excuse me. But how on earth do you calibrate a plotter by ignoring negative information? And if so, why bother to write down something as simple as that three times. This wasn't investigative journalism. This article was a cover up.


Another example: A March 2007 editorial in the Las Vegas Review Journal practically called Clark County Commissioner Chris Giunchigliani a traitor. And why? Because she had doubts about the outrageous prices SNWA was paying for ranches in Rural Nevada – and
felt that the practice should be looked into further. “She thought the money might be better spent on conservation programs.”


Pardon me, but that doesn't make her a traitor, that makes her sensible. And editorials such as this show just how biased the Review Journal is. This isn't information. This is disinformation. The Review Journal can do far better than that.

2 comments:

dortiz said...

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http://votegibbonsout.blogs.com/votegibbonsout/

Rick Spilsbury said...

Yeah, that's quite the site.