Grand Rapids Institute for Information Democracy

Analysis:

This story has no relevance to West Michigan. Viewers could rightly question what rational WZZM has for running this piece on the local news.

Story:

WZZM Newsreader – The weather is cold, very cold in Lithuania, the temperatures across the Baltic’s and Russia dropped below zero today where they’ve held steady for several days. Swans have gone to warmer waters coming in from a thermal plant along the Baltic sea. And a belly dancing convention refused to reschedule, they promised to perform despite the cold.

Total Time: 25 seconds

Analysis:

This story focuses on the recently announced candidacy of former State Representative James Koetje. Koetje becomes the 3rd Republican to announce their running for this seat, along with Joanne Voorhees and Mark Jansen, making all of the GOP candidates former members of the State House. The article however, doesn’t provide readers with information on Koetje’s platform or voting record while in the House, instead it focuses on a 2002 dispute about whether or not Koetje moved his residence in order to run in a re-districted race. We have documented over the years this type of coverage of elections in reports entitled “An Informed Vote.” One previous example was also a State House race, where the only story that ran 30-days prior to the election was about a yard sign dispute in 2002 – see page 15 of the report. Readers should ask themselves how this type of reporting helps voters make decisions on who to vote for?

Story:

Koetje to seek Sikkema seat

Former state representative will challenge Jansen, Voorhees in Republican primary

Jim Koetje is running again, and he is moving again.

In announcing to several area city councils this week that he intends to run for state Senate, the Grandville attorney becomes the third former lawmaker seeking to succeed term-limited Senate Majority Leader Ken Sikkema, R-Wyoming.

He joins ex-lawmakers Mark Jansen and Joanne Voorhees in what promises to be a competitive Republican primary.

“I look forward to getting back to lend my experience and ideas” to the Legislature, said Koetje, 50, who served in Sikkema’s old House seat from 1998 to 2004.

Koetje raised eye-brows by buying a Walker house so he could run in his redistricted seat in 2002. And even though his Grandville home is in the Senate district, he plans to move again – this time to Wyoming’s “panhandle” neighborhood, where new homes are being built. He says the move is not designed to run out of a populous base or to cut into Voorhees’ territory, but “to get something more accommodating to my family.”

Koetje sold his Walker home last spring, only weeks after his final House term ended. He bought the home to move into the redistricted seat just before the 2002 race, but created a furor when it was learned that he was still making Grandville his primary residence.

Koetje, who intends to sell his Grandville home, said he doesn’t expect residency to be an issue in the campaign.

“I don’t know what people will say, but I’m running based on who I am and what I can bring to the table,” he said. “I’m not intending to engage in any sort of negative campaigning. People will vote for who they believe can do the best job and who represents their best interests.”

Voorhees, of Wyoming, also served in the House from 1998 – 2004, while Jansen, of Grand Rapids Township, served from 1996 – 2002. Democrat Albert Abbasse has also announced his candidacy.

The Senate seat covers much of Kent County surrounding Grand Rapids. With a population of nearly 70,000, Wyoming is the district’s largest city.

More than 60 percent of Koetje’s old districts are in the Senate district’s boundaries, Koetje said.

Koetje’s positions on various business-related committees during his House tenure would serve him well in the Senate, he said.

“The experience will be very helpful in these times where the biggest issue is jobs and job retention,” he said. “The focus of this race will be the economy and jobs.”

Analysis:

This Press story, which ran in the “Briefs” section of the paper on page B12 looked at how much Senate incumbent Debbie Stabenow has for her campaign. Beyond the figure of $5.7 million, the story doesn’t look at what individuals or Political Action Committees have been the primary donors to her re-election bid. The story does mention the source for the amount of money raised by Stabenow, the Center for Responsive Politics, but no details about where the money has come from. According to the site about 80% of the money is from individual contributions and 20% from PAC money. Readers should ask themselves if details on the larger contributors is useful information in an election cycle?

Story:

US Senator Debbie Stabenow heads into the 2006 election year with nearly $5.7 million on hand, her campaign said Wednesday. The Democratic incumbent continues to have a wide fundraising lead over her potential Republican rivals. She raised about $1.3 million in the last three months of 2005 and a total of $5 million for the year. Since becoming a senator in 2001, she has raised $8.1 million, according to campaign records and the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics. Campaign finance reports for 2005 aren’t officially due until Jan. 31. But some candidates have released early estimates of how much they expect to raise. Three Republicans – Oakland County Sheriff Michael Bouchard and ministers Keith Butler and Jerry Zandstra – are seeking to unseat Stabenow in November.

Analysis:

The headlined reads “Bishop calls for fair distribution of resources,” but the story doesn’t really communicate how or why the world’s resources should be distributed fairly. The article does say that the Bishop referred to Catholic Social teaching of this issue, but never provides an actual source, even though Gumbleton sourced each of his quotes from church documents. The Bishop also cites several statistics, but the reporter never verifies or provides sources for the statistics on poverty. The only concrete example of wealth distribution in the Press article was when Gumbleton referred to the minimum wage campaign in Florida, but Gumbleton also discussed trade policies such as NAFTA and the recently passed trade policy CAFTA. Gumbleton even cited a Catholic Bishops statement from the US and Central American Bishops that was opposed to CAFTA.

This information could have been reported and would be useful to readers, but the Press article instead devoted a full third of the story to Gumbleton’s recent disclosure of being sexual abused by a priest when he was in school, despite the fact that Gumbleton never mentioned this issue at the lecture.

Story:

Bishop calls for fair distribution of resources

By Patricia Mish
The Grand Rapids Press

GRAND RAPIDS — In one image, an African girl collapses from hunger, while a vulture hovers nearby. In another, an American 4-year-old boy clad in hockey gear prepares to take to the ice.

Detroit Auxiliary Bishop Thomas Gumbleton used the photographs to illustrate the widening gap between rich and poor in a world where a fifth of the population uses 87 percent of the resources. The bottom fifth live in “absolute poverty,” he said.

“The reason it’s an injustice is it need not be that way,” Gumbleton told about 375 people at Aquinas College on Tuesday.

The activist bishop had spoken earlier the same day about another injustice — sexual abuse.
Gumbleton told reporters states should remove time limits preventing victims from suing the church, and revealed he was “inappropriately touched” by a priest when he attended Sacred Heart Seminary High School.

Gumbleton would not name the priest, who he said died 10 or 15 years ago. The first bishop to disclose he was abused, Gumbleton said he was not traumatized by it but felt compelled to speak out. He did not address the issue at Aquinas, focusing his remarks on poverty.

He said God created the world with enough resources for all.

“A few of us have far more than we have a right to when a majority of people do not have enough,” he said.
The African girl is one of 30,000 to 40,000 children who die of hunger daily, Gumbleton said. “Is there any one of us in this room who does not have more than we need?” asked Gumbleton, pastor of St. Leo Parish in Detroit. “I doubt it. If we have more than we need when other people lack the necessities, then we have those material possessions unjustly.”

He cited Catholic social teaching, in which popes and bishops have called for an end to unbridled materialism and a fairer distribution of the world’s resources. He challenged the audience to not only share their resources but to change the societal structures that create the disparity. Gumbleton cited the example of Florida, where voters recently approved a $1 hike in the minimum wage to $6.15 per hour and linked the wage to the inflation rate. “That’s the kind of change we need to make in our whole nation,” he said.

Fielding audience questions, Gumbleton encouraged voters to be informed on all issues. “Just because one party or another party proclaims itself to be pro-life doesn’t mean they’re pro-life,” he said, adding the term means not only opposing abortion but supporting and protecting life.

Tom and Margaret Merkel, who brought their 6-week-old son, agreed. “I’ve never really heard a Catholic come out and say being ‘pro-poor’ was being pro-life,” said Tom Merkel, adding Gumbleton’s talk “does make you want to redouble your efforts to live simply.”

Consolata Sister Zelia Cordeiro said she has heard Gumbleton before and praised his calls for justice and peace.
“To me he is one of our prophets,” she said.

Analysis:

This article is about how the Kent County Republican Party will be bringing author and columnist Ann Coulter to Grand Rapids to keynote their annual Lincoln Day Dinner this March. In the article two people are quoted, Carol Van Andel and John Van Fossen, who are the co-finance chairpersons for the Kent County Republicans. They describe her as “Edgy” and say that “she’ll inspire and excite people.” No other people are interviewed in the piece about Coulter. The article describes Coulter as a “firebrand conservative” and that she “rips liberals at every opportunity.” It is noted in the article that Coulter once stated that “I think we ought to nuke North Korea right now just to give the rest of the world a warning. Boom! … thay’re a major threat. I think it would be fun to nuke them and have it be a warning to … the world”.

This style of rhetoric is typical for Coulter, who has a history of making statements calling for the physical destruction or imprisonment of people she disagrees with. She recently wrote in a column that “I think the government should be spying on all Arabs, engaging in torture as a televised spectator sport, dropping daisy cutters wantonly throughout the Middle East and sending liberals to Guantanamo.” Shortly after the attacks on Sept. 11 2001 she gained notoriety for saying “We should invade their countries, kill their leaders and convert them to Christianity.” She was also reported saying that “We need to execute people like John Walker in order to physically intimidate liberals, by making them realize that they can be killed, too. Otherwise, they will turn out to be outright traitors.” Readers should ask themselves that given the fact that Coulter has called for the intimidation and imprisonment of Americans she disagrees with as well as unprovoked nuclear attacks on sovereign nations, if perhaps the Grand Rapids Press was making a rather significan understatement when they referred to her in the headline as “edgy.”

Story:

‘Edgy’ speaker brings fire to local event

Saturday, January 14, 2006

By Steven Harmon

The Grand Rapids Press
GRAND RAPIDS — You don’t know what envelope Ann Coulter, firebrand conservative commentator, will push when she gets going.

But that’s the draw, Kent County Republican Party officials said Friday in announcing Coulter will keynote their Lincoln Day Dinner in March.

Described by Time magazine last year as “quite likely the most divisive figure in American politics,” Coulter is expected to attract upward of 1,500 to the annual event as Republicans gear up for an active 2006 campaign season.

“What I like about her is she stands up for what she believes and she doesn’t mince any words,” said Carol Van Andel, the party’s co-finance chairwoman who came up with the idea of bringing in Coulter. “She’s edgy. I like edgy.”

Coulter’s $30,000 speaker’s fee will be picked up by the Kent County Pachyderms, a group of GOP women whose mission is to get women involved in Republican politics. The event will be held March 16 at DeVos Place’s Steelcase Ballroom. Ticket cost has not been determined.

“She’ll inspire and excite people,” said John Van Fossen, the party’s other co-finance chairman and director of external affairs for the Van Andel Research Institute in Grand Rapids. He is a former chief of staff for U.S. Rep. Pete Hoekstra, R-Holland. “She’s going to do what Lincoln Day dinners are supposed to — attract more to the party and motivate the base.”

Previous speakers at the event in recent years were U.S. Sen. John McCain, R-Arizona, Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, and presidential adviser Karl Rove.

Plans have not been finalized, but Coulter has said she will make herself available for other events on that day, such as a book signing, GOP officials said. She has had four bestsellers on the New York Times list, including a 2003 book “Treason: Liberal Treachery from the Cold War to the War on Terrorism.”

In that book, as she does at every opportunity, she ripped liberals: “Whether they are defending the Soviet Union or bleating for Saddam Hussein, liberals are always against America. They are either traitors or idiots.”

Once, on CNN’s Lou Dobbs’ show, she said, “There are a lot of bad Republicans. There are no good Democrats.”

She aims her fire globally, too. Speaking to a New York Observer reporter, she said, “I think we ought to nuke North Korea right now just to give the rest of the world a warning. Boom! … They’re a major threat. I just think it would be fun to nuke them and have it be a warning to … the world.”

Analysis:

This story ran just before an event that the Kent County Democratic Part held that involved the statewide effort to raise the minimum wage in Michigan. Even though the reporter mentions up front that people are organizing to put the minimum wage on the ballot this year, event organizers or speakers are not interviewed for this story.

Instead, what WZZM 13 does is finds a random working person to get their feedback on a minimum wage increase. The reporter talks to a single mom who says she supports a wage increase, mostly because she is a mother of two and can’t make it off her current salary. Then the reporter talks with a representative with the Grand Rapids Chamber of Commerce who takes a position against any effort to raise the minimum wage in Michigan. Ask yourself, is it fair to put the comments of a working mother, who is not associated with the campaign, next to a representative of an organization that is pro business? It would have been more honest to have the event organizer’s comments followed by the GR Chamber of Commerce, which would have 2 organizational perspectives side by side.

Lastly, the story does provide some context to what the current minimum wage is and how long it has been at the current amount, but beyond that there is no investigation into how much a worker needs to live above the federal poverty level. The GR Chamber of Commerce representative does make claims about how this will be bad for business, but the reporter never verifies those claims.

Story:

WZZM 13 Newsreader – Michigan Democrats want to raise the minimum wage and tonight they are taking their campaign to the public. The minimum wage in Michigan has been 5 dollars and fifteen cents and hour for the past ten years. Their proposal calls for it to go up to six eighty-five. WZZM 13’s Phil Dawson joins us now from the Wealthy Theatre in Grand Rapids for more.

Reporter – Juliet, instead of relying upon the federal government or the state legislature to raise the minimum wage, organizers of a rally here at the Wealthy Theatre in Grand Rapids tonight are hoping to collect enough signatures to put the pay raise question before the voters this November.

Reporter – Tanning salon employee Tammy Wade is a West Michigan working mother would get a raise if the minimum wage goes up.

Tammy Wade – Big bonus for me, big bonus. Definitely.

Reporter – Entry level workers like Tammy Wade haven’t seen an increase in the five dollar and fifteen cent minimum wage since 1997, so some Democrats want to increase the minimum in Michigan to six dollars and eighty-five cents an hour.

Tammy Wade – I do have two children, and that’s definitely going to help with that. I also do have a vehicle that I am still paying on, so that would definitely be a little bit more helpful.

Jared Rodriguez (GR Area Chamber of Commerce) – We do not support that, as a way to increase wages.

Reporter – The Grand Rapids Chamber of Commerce opposes an increase in the minimum wage because they say it would increase the cost of doing business in the state, and could force companies to downsize and cut jobs.

Jared Rodriguez – If there’s less funds available to pay your workforce because of the increase, you’re going to have to shrink or streamline your workforce. Therefore there could be a net decrease or loss of entry-level jobs.

Tammy Wade – Yes it’s definitely a struggle, especially being a single parent and having children, yes.

Reporter – The minimum wage works out to be about twelve thousand dollars a year for a fulltime employee in Michigan. If the campaign that begins here tonight collects enough signatures, it will be up to the voters to decide if there will be a pay raise. In Grand Rapids Phil Dawson, WZZM 13 News.

Total Time: 2 minutes 4 seconds

Analysis:

This AP story begins by focusing on the increase in drug cultivation and drug trade in Afghanistan. The story cites Afghani General Mohammad Daud who claims that the international community isn’t doing enough to help them combat the booming opium trade, which according to the article, makes Afghanistan the number one heroin producing nation in the world, responsible for 90% of the world’s opium and heroin. The story shifts focus towards the end by looking at security issues in Afghanistan and that is the only time that other sources are cited, specifically UN and US military sources.

Gen. Daud is also cited in the story claiming that the Taliban is responsible for the drug trade as a way to “fund the rebel insurgency.” The story also says that the “international community is pumping hundreds of millions of dollars into anti-drug campaigns to train police, arrest smugglers, destroy crops and help farmers grow legal crops.” What the story did not say was that according to the UN office of Drugs and Crime “These efforts are undermined by police and government officials who profit from what is Afghanistan’s largest industry.” Even the U.S. State Department expressed similar concerns last month, “suggesting that rising corruption would fuel growth in Afghanistan’s opium trade in 2006.” One question that is not asked in this story is how is it that Afghanistan has become the largest opium and heroin producer when the US has militarily occupied and controlled most of the country since early 2002?

Story:

KABUL, AFGHANISTAN – The international community has been “very slow” to combat Afghanistan’s booming trade in opium and heroin, while the Taliban has forced farmers to plant poppies to fund the rebel insurgency, the country’s top anti-drug official said Monday.

The warning came as a U.S. soldier and two civilians were wounded in a suicide bombing, the latest in a series of militant attacks. About 1,600 people died in such violence last year, making it the deadliest since the Taliban was ousted in 2001.

The anti-drug czar, Gen. Mohammed Daud Daud, promised a crackdown on drug smugglers in 2006. Last year’s bumper opium crop — enough to make about 450 tons of heroin — sparked warnings the country is fast becoming a “narco-state” four years after the U.S.-led invasion ousted the Taliban for harboring al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden.

The international community is pumping hundreds of millions of dollars into anti-drug campaigns to train police units to destroy laboratories, arrest smugglers and destroy opium crops, as well as to fund projects to help farmers grow legal crops.

But Daud said the United States and other nations must do more to help eradicate narcotics in Afghanistan, the source of nearly 90 percent of the world’s opium and heroin, especially providing alternative sources of income for farmers.

“In 2005, we were not satisfied and the farmers were not satisfied,” Daud, the deputy interior minister and commander of a special anti-drugs force, said in an interview. “We need to increase alternative livelihoods for the farmers.”

He added that despite promises of help to curb poppy cultivation, the international community’s “action has been very slow,” and accused the Taliban of forcing farmers to grow opium. “They used to fund themselves through drug sales and they are now doing their best to continue this,” Daud said. The general said 1,300 police officers would be deployed this month from Kabul to provinces where help is needed to enforce the anti-poppy campaign. Speaking to reporters earlier Monday, Daud said 2006 “will be the year when we will arrest all smugglers, especially those working with the government.”

Afghanistan’s drug trade is blamed for fighting in some poppy-growing areas, especially southern provinces.
The suicide attack Monday that wounded a U.S. soldier and two Afghan civilians occurred in the main southern Afghan city of Kandahar. The assailant detonated explosives packed in a car near a U.S. convoy.

Meanwhile, in a move that has raised fears of further attacks on foreigners, the government ordered the U.S. Embassy, the U.N. and other organizations to remove security barriers blocking streets in the capital and causing traffic jams.

Kabul’s streets are dotted with large concrete barriers aimed at protecting offices and homes. Many organizations have closed off whole streets.

U.N. spokesman Adrian Edwards said the barricades are necessary “security provisions for doing our work here.” U.S. military spokesman Lt. Col. Laurent Fox said many international groups have “voiced their concerns regarding the government’s proposal.”

Analysis:

This Associated Press story is an attempt at assessing the US economy for 2005, based on new Labor Department figures. The story also includes the Bush administration’s take on what he calls “job growth” even though there is no verification of the numbers or what kind of jobs were created in 2005. The only dissenting point of view is from the Democratic Party, but no person is ever cited and their claims that the tax policy has only benefited the wealthy is also not verified.

There was a substantial amount of the story that was cut from the GR Press version as you can see. There are additional quotes from the President, a quote from House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi, as well as additional comments from representatives of Bank of America and an economist with Global Insight. Even with these additional sources in the original AP story, the perspectives tend to me fairly positive and one-sided. Looking at a few other economic policy sources and there is conflicting information about the 2005 economy. According to the Economic Policy Institute which says that the job growth is actually small for a recovery period, compared to other years and that the news jobs created may not be full time positions that can support many employees.

Story:

President touts economy’s rebound

He credits tax cuts, urges Congress to make them permanent.

Businesses boosted payrolls modestly in December, and the unemployment rate dropped to 4.9 percent — evidence, President Bush said, of the economy’s resiliency in the face of last year’s hurricanes and high energy costs. For all of 2005, employers added 2 million new jobs.

The employment report released by the Labor Department on Friday suggested that the job market headed into the new year in pretty good shape, analysts said. On Wall Street, the Dow Jones industrials closed up 77.16 points.
December’s jobless rate was down from November’s 5 percent rate. Payrolls grew by 108,000 last month a figure that was restrained by job losses in construction, which were blamed on bad weather in some parts of the country, as well as job cuts in retailing.

Employers, however, ended up adding 71,000 more jobs in October and November combined than previously reported. That took the sting out of December’s figure, which was about half of what had been expected.

In 2005, the economy added 2 million jobs an amount that economists described as solid and in line with the 2.2 million jobs created the year before. The economy lost jobs in 2001 and 2002 but saw a small gain in 2003. The unemployment rate averaged 5.1 percent last year, an improvement from the 5.5 percent average registered in 2004.
`We have a sturdy job market,” said Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s Economy.com. He expects another 2 million jobs will be created this year and the average unemployment rate for all of 2006 will drop to 4.9 percent.

Bush, whose standing with the public has improved but still remains relatively low, has shifted into a campaign-like mode to shine a spotlight on the economy’s good points in speeches around the country, including an appearance in Chicago on Friday. His economics team also fanned out to talk about the economy.

`The American economy heads into 2006 with a full head of steam,’ Bush declared. `We’ve been through a lot,” he said, referring to the 2001 recession, terror attacks, corporate accounting scandals, high energy prices and the Gulf Coast hurricanes that have punctuated the economic landscape over the last five years. Bush credited his tax cuts with helping the economy and called on Congress to make them permanent.

Democrats contend that the tax cuts mostly helped the wealthy and thrust the nation’s balance sheets into red ink. The middle class, they say, is getting squeezed by high health-care and energy costs.
In other economics news, consumer confidence sank in early January.

The RBC CASH Index, based on polling by Ipsos, showed that consumer confidence dropped to 78.2 this month from 85.5 in December. The decline mostly reflected Americans’ anxiety over the economy’s prospects and their own financial positions in the coming months. But they also felt less confident about the jobs climate.

Text from the original article ommitted from the Grand Rapids Press version:

`The Bush administration’s call for another round of tax cuts for the wealthy few when middle-class families are struggling to pay their bills is another example of misplaced Republican priorities,’said House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi of San Francisco.

On the jobs front, employees’ average hourly earnings climbed to $16.34 in December, up 0.3 percent from November slightly more than economists anticipated. Compared with a year ago, hourly earnings were up 3.1 percent. `Wages weren’t keeping pace with inflation last year,’ which is estimated to be around 3.8 percent, said Lynn Reaser, chief economist at Bank of America’s Investment Strategies Group. So workers are feeling pinched, analysts said.

To keep inflation in check, the Federal Reserve is expected to boost short-term rates at its next meeting on Jan. 31. That will mark the last session for chairman Alan Greenspan, who will retire that day after 18-plus years at the helm.

Another rate increase could come at the following meeting on March 28 the first one to be presided over by incoming Fed chief Ben Bernanke. Either way, many economists believe the Fed’s nearly two-year credit-tightening campaign will be winding down this year.

The employment report also showed that the average time the unemployed spent searching for work in December was 17.3 weeks, an improvement from the 17.6 weeks in November. Most private economists predict the economy will grow respectably this year topping 3 percent. Friday’s jobs report `suggests decent but not stellar economic growth,’ said Nigel Gault, economist at Global Insight.