Grand Rapids Institute for Information Democracy

Analysis:

This story was basically framed as a continuation of the official US government position, which basically says that the bombing of Hiroshima & 3 days later Nagasaki, were necessary to end the war and that it saved American lives. The main perspectives were that of 2 local WWII veterans, both of which state that the Hiroshima bombing was the right thing to do. The veterans also made claims about what was happening in the Pacific war at the time and that the Japanese Army “were the most barbaric fighters imaginable.”

The only other perspectives provided were that of 4 people who were randomly asked the question “Was it the right decision to drop the bomb on Hiroshima?” This is a pretty meaningless exercise for the Press, since these people have no apparent knowledge or expertise about this important historical event, it was just a person on the street perspective. The great omission here however, is that no where do other facts appear about the first atomic bombing. For years much of the internal documentation about the Hiroshima bombing had been classified, but now is available for the public to read. The National Security Archives has recently posted much of this documentation online. In reading these documents it becomes clear that the decision to drop the bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki had more to do with sending a strong message to the Russians at the time and that Japan was on the verge of surrendering, thus few America soldiers would have lost their lives had the bomb not been used.

Story:

Local WWII vets back using atomic weapon
By Ted Roelofs
The Grand Rapids Press

Like a lot of guys on the USS Indianapolis, William Mulvey was curious about the big wooden crate they took on board in San Francisco. He shrugged it off as just another secret of war.

He learned later in a hospital on Guam he had helped deliver the bomb 60 years ago that exploded over Hiroshima on Aug. 6, 1945.

“I think it was a good thing to do,” the 87-year-old Wyoming resident said. “That’s what ended the war, the bomb.”
Cascade Township resident Bernard Link was stationed in Hawaii, preparing with other members of the 5th Marine Division to invade Japan. He figured there was a good chance he and thousands of grunts like him would die in the effort.

Then he heard about Hiroshima.

Link, 79, never questioned President Harry S. Truman’s decision to unleash that terrible weapon. “I think in the last analysis it was the most humane thing that he could have done,” Link said. “It spared tens of thousands of Japanese lives, and it spared tens of thousands of our lives.”

The bomb incinerated 4 square miles of Hiroshima and killed about 140,000 people instantly or within a few months. Including those initially listed as missing or who died afterward from a loosely defined set of bomb-related ailments, including cancers, Hiroshima officials now put the total number of the dead at 237,062.

The Japanese agreed to surrender Aug. 14, five days after a second bomb decimated Nagasaki. That bomb killed about 80,000 people. Officials now link 137,339 deaths to that attack.

The explosion over Hiroshima ignited a debate with us today about the ethics of war and the use of weapons so potent they could obliterate humanity. Was it a necessary evil to cut short a brutal war? Or did it open a door through which there is no going back?

Link believes that those who pass judgment on Hiroshima gloss over the realities of combat in the Pacific. He learned those lessons first-hand, when he was part of the U.S. invasion of Iwo Jima in February 1945.
Link was a 19-year-old private who came ashore with the first wave of Marines. On the third day, he took shrapnel to the face and jaw that barely missed his carotid artery.

In some of the most vicious fighting of World War II, American forces suffered 25,000 casualties on just 8 square miles of volcanic terrain, including 6,800 killed. Most of the 22,000 Japanese on the island fought to the death, many in night-time bayonet suicide attacks.

“They were the most barbaric fighters imaginable,” he said. “In my mind, they were so fanatical in their devotion to their emperor and their country, and they were absolutely fearless fighters.”

Link sometimes wonders which is worse — the death suffered by the Japanese on Iwo Jima, where soldiers dug into caves and tunnels were incinerated by napalm — or death by atomic bomb. “I have seen people who have been incinerated by napalm, and I would take death by atomic bomb any time,” he said.

In April, American forces reached Okinawa, the last island step before invading Japan. That battle cost 12,000 Americans killed and 36,000 wounded. The Japanese suffered 107,000 soldiers killed and an estimated 100,000 civilian deaths.

War planners used Okinawa as a model to project the number of American lives invasion might cost. Japanese troop strength on the southern island of Kyushu — a likely invasion target — was projected to be at least 350,000. Casualty estimates ranged as high as 220,000.

Truman got word the evening of July 16 the atomic bomb had been successfully tested at Alamogordo, N.M. He never hesitated in approving its use over Japan.

By then, Chief Master at Arms William Mulvey was on a speed run aboard the USS Indianapolis toward the Pacific island of Tinian, near Guam. On board the battle cruiser, inside a black canister and large wooden crate that was sealed and guarded 24 hours a day, lay the components for the bomb.

Mulvey watched as a crane unloaded the crate July 26 on Tinian, while a contingent of high-ranking officers stood by.
“This thing here seemed a little unusual,” Mulvey remembered thinking.

The cargo later would be transported to the airfield on Tinian and loaded onto a B-29 called the Enola Gay. A few days later, a Japanese submarine happened upon the Indianapolis as it steamed toward the Philippines. A pair of torpedoes slammed into the ship, splitting it in two. It slipped to the bottom a few minutes after midnight July 30.
Of 1,196 men aboard, nearly 300 died in the explosion or were trapped when the ship went down. About 900 escaped into the sea, including Mulvey. Four-and-a-half days later, rescuers plucked Mulvey and 320 others from the sea.

The rest had drowned, died of dehydration or were eaten by sharks.
Mulvey was transferred to a Marine hospital on the island of Peleliu, then transported to a hospital on Guam. He dimly recalls a priest administering last rites as he hovered near death.
As he regained strength on Guam, he finally learned about the bomb. He thought then what he thinks today: They did the right thing. “It’s war,” he said.

Analysis:

Large private businesses, corporations, and even non-profit organizations employ thousands of public relations personnel for disseminating information about company policy, news, and products to the public with the primary goal of maintaining a positive public image. One of the most common and effective tools used by these professionals is the Video News Release (VNR). Television and print news media receive dozens of these VNR’s per week, sometimes per day, often using the footage, pictures and/or quotes to supplement their stories.

This particular story aired by WXMI FOX 17 is a textbook example of how not to serve the public interest when using VNR’s. The piece, running exactly 60 seconds without the anchor’s tag at the end, is a news release advertising a new feature available on new cell phones (Nextel was the name mentioned in the story). It features a young couple with a small child using this wonderful new technology to stay in touch while the husband is away at work. This family is non-regional, thus viewers often assume that they are locals. The anchor for the local news is the voice over for the piece, a common feature in VNR’s since they are often sent out without sound tracks for the parts where a reporter is supposed to speak, making it easy to overdub the voice later.

Whenever presented with a story that prominently features a business, corporation, or product, audiences need to ask questions while they are watching to determine if it is a VNR. Pay attention to the footage in the story; are you to believe Mr. Hill had a local camera crew in his hotel with him “thousands of miles” from home just to capture his expression when he hears his daughter’s voice? What purpose does the story serve besides advertising a product? Why would a news station run a pre-packaged VNR instead of producing their own news segment?

Story:

WXMI Newsreader – It’s a new feature that allows a voice message to be sent from a mobile phone directly to a computer. Here’s how it works; you just hit a special button on the phone, say whatever you’re going to say, then type in an email address. It keeps Brian Hill close to his family, even when he’s thousands of miles away from home on business.

Brian Hill – I do travel frequently across time zones, and so to have an option where they can leave voice messages for me that doesn’t cost a lot is a wonderful thing and it just helps me stay connected to home, just to hear their voices, to hear “I love you.”

Newsreader – For the Hill family, this special feature has other applications.

Mrs. Hill – Sometimes, even if he’s at work and I just need him to pick something up from the store on the way home, I can just click my button, leave him a message to bring something home, and then I don’t have to disturb him at work and make him answer the phone.

Newsreader – Even if they’re just down the street from each other, of on the other side of the globe. Nextel and other wireless companies offer the service for about $10 a month.

Time: 1:05

Analysis:

In the Friday July 29 edition of the Grand Rapids Press, this article appeared in the business section under the title “CAFTA victory could spur larger trade zone.” This article is partly written by an Associated Press reporter and partly by a Grand Rapids Press reporter. The first half of the article gives a very cursory description of CAFTA and frames it as a part of the effort to create the much larger free trade area of the Americas. The second half of the article titled “Michigan likes it.” This section quotes several Michigan people such as Steve Van Andel, Former governor John Engler who is now chairman of the national Association of Manufactures, and Tom Reardon, executive director of the Business and Institutional Furniture Manufacturers Association. The only voice quoted as critical of CAFTA is Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez. No Michigan voices critical of CAFTA are put forth, despite the fact that CAFTA was opposed in Michigan by labor unions, environmental groups, some agricultural sectors as well as many citizens in general.

Story:

Washington — Free trade supporters cheered the Central American trade pact’s passage Thursday, but said the narrow victory may provide little momentum for reaching their larger goal: a trade zone spanning the Western Hemisphere.
The Republican-controlled House barely approved the agreement known as CAFTA on a 217-215 vote early Thursday morning. President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney made a rare joint visit to the Capitol to lobby for the bill, and Republicans held the floor vote open beyond its allotted 15 minutes until they had secured a majority.
The senate already has approved CAFTA, which will end most tariffs on goods traded among the United States and the Dominican Republic, Costa Rica, El Salavador, Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua.
Both supporters and opponents agreed that Bush’s more ambitious goal of creating the Free Trade Area of the Americas would have become unthinkable without passage of the much smaller CAFTA.
While CAFTA covers a region that purchased only $15 billion worth of U.S. goods last year, the Free Trade Area of the Americas would turn 34 countries in the Western Hemisphere into a single trading zone encompassing about 800 million people. It also could deliver a gem to Atlanta: The city is bidding to become the headquarters of the Free Trade Area of the Americas.
“The importance of CAFTA all along has been that it would serve as a wind-up to give [the Free Trade Area of the Americas] momentum,” said Larry Birns, director of the Council on Hemispheric Affairs, a Washington-based research group.
Michigan Likes It

Tom Reardon, Business and Institutional Furniture Manufacturers Association executive director, said it is “tough to predict” what effect, if any, CAFTA’s passage will have on the office furniture industry.

“I wouldn’t be a bit surprised if some West Michigan companies did business in Central America,” said Reardon, who oversees the industry trade group based in Grand Rapids. “Still, it’s going to represent a relatively small percentage of sales.”

The trade agreement made sense to Alticor Chairman Steve Van Andel. “As an American manufacturer and exporter, we support CAFTA, because tariff reduction makes our products more competitive and helps us keep jobs here at home,” he said.

The National Association of Manufacturers applauded the vote, calling it “a big win for the United States, for Central America, and for the world.”

The group is led by former Gov. John Engler.

“The House rejected isolationism,” said Engler, NAM president, in a prepared statement, “and it affirmed that America’s economic future lies with open markets and a level playing field for international trade.”

Looking ahead, the obstacles to the FTAA are immense, particularly because of disagreements between the United States and Brazil. For example, Brazilians “feel wounded by our sugar subsidies and very, very high tariffs on orange juice,” said Edward Gesser, director of the Progressive Policy Institute’s Project on Trade and Global Markets.

At the same time, U.S. citrus growers and sugar producers fear being wiped out by cheap Latin American imports. Indeed, the stiffest opposition to CAFTA came from sugar producers and processors, who objected to the provision allowing a 50 percent increase in U.S. sugar imports over 15 years.

Gresser said another problem is growing anti-Americanism in Latin America. For example, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, in his weekly radio and television show, last month labeled FTAA “a perverse proposal of the Americans to turn us definitively into a colony.”

In light of such sentiments, FTAA “is not an easy puzzle to put together,” he said.

Analysis:

At two minutes and forty seconds, this story is rather long by local TV standards. Despite this, the story fails to give the viewer any information regarding the candidates that participated in this forum. Not even the names of the candidates are provided. The article does note that much of the forum is available online. While this is true (although the clips were not posted online at the time the story ran), the online resources do little to inform viewers without access to the internet.

Story:

Newsreader #1 – Well the city of Wyoming could have very different political leadership after the primary election next week. There are a total of eleven candidates for the mayor’s office and for three council seats. WZZM’s Phil Dawson joins us from Wyoming city hall where change is coming.

reporter – Lee the eleven candidates for the four jobs here at city hall include some new faces as well as some familiar names and tonight all the candidates were together for a forum to explain why they should win on election day.

Many of the citizens who crowded into the Wyoming library say they wanted to see and hear the candidates in person.

Citizen # 1 – It’s the only way you can compare one to the other, you can read all of his literature until the cows come home, you just don’t know until you see them face to face.

Citizen # 2 – This is a way that the public gets to really know the candidates I think.

Reporter – Next Tuesday Wyoming residents can either narrow down the number of candidates or make final their choices by giving one candidate for mayor over fifty percent of the vote, one candidate for 3rd ward council over fifty percent of the vote and two candidates for at large council seats over 25 percent of the vote. The Chamber of Commerce organized the forum.

Chamber of Commerce – Our government works because we have informed citizens casting valuable votes, and if they’re not informed, it’s not going to work well.

Reporter – New leaders have important issues to face in Wyoming. Twice voters have turned down tax increase requests for public safety and fire services. One fire station was closed and fire fighters were laid off. The candidates at the forum were asked to offer their solutions to these and other problems.

Citizen # 1 – They helped me make my decision about who I am going to vote for.

Citizen # 3 – And you may not agree with their opinion, that’s true, but everyone’s entitled to there own view.

Citizen # 4 – It’s a real important election because there are a lot of seats up right now, it could be a whole new council, a new mayor, it could be a whole new government here.

Reporter – If you miss tonight’s forum you can hear long excerpts from the candidates for mayor on our website WZZM.com, and Comcast cable station 26 will rebroadcast their entire televised coverage of the forum four times between now and election day next Tuesday. In Wyoming, Phil Dawson, WZZM 13 news.

Newsreader – And there are a number of other races in Grand Rapids. Voters in the first, second and third wards will choose candidates to represent them in the city commission. In Muskegon people are choosing a new mayor and in Grand Haven people are choosing two new council members. Again, the primary is next Tuesday, August second.

Total Time: 2:40

Analysis:

On Saturday July 30, the Grand Rapids Press ran two articles in the business section about the split between the AFL-CIO and UFCW. The first article is a summary, noting some of the reasons for the split and quoting some of the union leadership. One of the points made in this article is that the union split could somehow be beneficial; noting that competition between the unions could spur both to increase membership. The article notes that when the AFL and the CIO were separate in the 1930’s they saw increases in membership. This idea that the split might lead to more powerful unions rather than less is continued in the other article entitled “Labor Rift could mean increased competition.” This article further explores this theme of the labor rift as a potential positive for introducing competition between unions.

This frame of “competition is good” is a rather simplistic way of looking at this issue. To say that the unions did better in the 1930’s when separate, compared to later when united ignores a great deal of historical context. So for example, the depression was going on in the 30’s, a fact which might have more to do with explaining labors successes in that period than simply internal competition. Also, different eras have seen different levels of corporate and governmental hostility toward labor. These factors have to be taken into account for explaining the relative amount of success or failure that unions have experienced over the last century. Additionally, it seems rather ironic to frame this discussion about unions in the language of the market, i.e., that competition is good. Given that unions were created in large part to protect workers from the excesses of the free market system, it seems odd that this issue is being described in terms of competition rather than the traditional labor motto of solidarity.

Story:

UFCW bolts AFL-CIO

Departure means loss of more than 4 million members
Associated Press

WASHINGTON – The United Food and Commercial Workers on Friday joined the Teamsters and Service Workers in abandoning the AFL-CIO, depriving the labor federation of three of its largest unions and close to $28 million of its estimated $120 million budget.

The departure of the 1.4 million member UFCW from the labor federation means the AFL-CIO is losing more than 4 million of its 13 million members.

Grand Rapids-based UFCW 951, one of the state’s largest unions with 33,000 members, endorsed the move and said in a statement it “looks forward to working with its coalition partners in building a new, vibrant labor movement in the United States and Michigan.”

Earlier this week, the UFCW joined the Teamsters, Service Employees International Union and Unite Here – a group of textile, restaurant and hotel employees – in boycotting the AFL-CIO convention in Chicago. The Teamsters and service workers announced then that they were leaving the AFL-CIO. Unite Here is still considering its next step.
During the convention, AFL-CIO President John Sweeney was re-elected to another term and he pledged to make changes to address the woes of organized labor. But the departing unions say those changes are insufficient.

“The world has changed and workers’ rights and living standards are under attack,” UFCW President Joe Hansen said in a letter delivered to Sweeney on Friday. “Tradition and past success are not sufficient to meet the new challenges.”
The departure of the unions has frustrated labor federation officials.

“The UFCW leadership decision to leave the AFL-CIO, especially when working people are up against the most powerful, anti-worker corporate and governmental forces in 80 years, is a tragedy for working families,” said Lane Windham, spokesperson for the AFL-CIO. “Only union’s enemies win when unions split our strength.”

The unions breaking away from the AFL-CIO want to commit more money to recruiting new members and complain that the federation has committed too much money and placed too much emphasis on backing political candidates – particularly Democrats.

Hansen of UFCW said during a conference call that his union is healthy financially and that its alliance with the Teamsters and service workers is about cooperation, not money. Hansen said leaving the federation was not about saving money, adding: “I plan to devote as much money as I can to organizing.”

Hansen noted that “politics are extremely important. We might be more selective in some ways, searching out politicians who will support workers.”

At the same time, he said politicians who support labor will still see “a broad front of support” from unions.
“While our affiliation ends, our commitment to work with the AFL-CIO and unions affiliated with the AFL-CIO on issues and programs where we share common goals remains unchanged,” Hansen said in his letter to Sweeney. “I believe our movement is united in our basic principles and values, even if we pursue different strategies.”

The departure is part of the biggest rift in organized labor since 1938, when the CIO split from the AFL. Supporters of the breakup note that labor made big gains while the two groups competed.

When the AFL-CIO merged in the 1950s, one of every three private-sector workers belonged to a labor union. Now, less than 8 percent of private-sector workers are unionized.

Labor rift could mean increased competition
by Adam Geller
Associated Press

An angry rift between union leaders filled the spotlight when big labor gathered this week in Chicago. But to figure out what labor’s divide might actually mean for workers and employers, look beyond the dueling press conferences and listen to the union talk at Grandma’s House, a child care center Angenita Tanner runs from her basement apartment on the city’s South Side.

Tanner is one of Illinois’ 49,000 home child care workers, many self-employed, who voted overwhelmingly this spring to be represented by the Service Employees International Union.

The vote capped a nine-year campaign by the SEIU, and a bitter fight with a rival union for the low-paid service workers. The workers, nearly all women and most minorities, once would have been far outside the muscle and manufacturing mainstream of organized labor.

“There’s power in numbers,” said Tanner, trying to keep her voice in check as the seven children in her charge nap. “You cannot go to (the state Capitol in) Springfield by yourself and talk to senators and representatives and get heard … but if you go as part of a group, being represented as part of the masses, they’re going to listen.”

The unions’ drive to sign up the child care providers – and another recent campaign in Illinois for home health aides -turned on winning higher pay and health insurance. But they also reflect the split in organized labor, one experts say could fuel increased competition by unions for workers, particularly in service industries that are becoming the economy’s mainstay.

“The story of home care workers and child care workers in Illinois is a nice sort of case study of what’s been writ large in Chicago this week,” said Robert Bruno, an associate professor of labor and industrial relations at the University of Illinois’s Chicago campus.

The SEIU leads the group of unions breaking away from the AFL-CIO umbrella federation, arguing it is past time for the struggling labor movement to focus on signing up new workers. Its rival in the Chicago campaign was the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, one of the loudest voices for maintaining labor solidarity.

The national fight is partly about the egos and ambitions of their leaders, and control of the money and power held by the AFL-CIO. It is also about how each camp would strike a balance between building membership and politicking.

But the union drive in Illinois was awash in politics, proof that the split is not simply a disagreement about whether to spend money on activism or organizing. And it offers a window into the battling between unions that could give some workers not just a choice over whether to bargain as a unit, but of which union to join.
Some experts say the split reminds them of 1930, when a similar rift occurred. The fierce competition between unions that followed took membership to record highs in the mid-1950s, but growth stalled following the merger of the AFL and CIO in 1955.

With the new split, “the constraints will come off and they’ll be in direct competition for a lot of those same people,” said David B. Lipsky, a professor at Cornell University’s School of Industrial and Labor Relations.
Employers may interpret the labor infighting as disarray. But some experts say the divide could actually create more challenges for companies.

The labor rift “should be a huge wake-up call for employers,” said Philip Rosen, who leads the labor practice group at Jackson Lewis LLP, a law firm representing companies in workplace cases. “They really need to look at it and say: ‘The fight is coming to my worksite tomorrow.'”

Unions are already locked in scrums for some workers, although most of those have been in the public sector.
In Iowa, for example, the SEIU and AFSCME have also been competing vigorously for the right to sign up child care workers. The workers are not state employees, but run businesses paid by the state for caring for the children of lower income working parents.

Analysis:

This story is a display of how news outlets can do damage to the community. It is reported that a man breaks into the homes of elderly woman and touches them wearing no clothes. Now the story says he touches their toes, which would not qualify as Criminal Sexual Conduct (CSC), but clearly there are crimes being committed, both Breaking & Entering and Indecent Exposure. What is disturbing about how this story was reported is that both news readers laughed during the story and used questionable voice inflections throughout the story.

Story:

WZZM 13 Newsreader #1 – In Florida, Police are looking for a looking for an unusual suspect in New Smyrna Beach tonight. Now get this, for the last four years a naked serial tickler has been targeting elderly women over the summer. Authorities say he breaks in their homes, and tickles their toes while they are asleep. All the while, he is in the nude. No one has been able to give a good description of the man other than he’s always running away wearing nothing but a ponytail. Now that is some fetish.

Newsreader #2 – I know that the police that are on foot patrol…

Newsreader #1 – (laughing)

Newsreader #2- …are hoping to nail him.

Newsreader #1 – They’re watching. Oh goodness.

Total Time: 35 seconds

Analysis:

This article is strictly about the number of times that the various candidates have voted in elections since 1998. The article frames this topic as a young versus old issue, noting that the younger candidates generally had not voted as often as the older candidates. The article provides the ages of several of the candidates as well as the number of elections they had voted in. Also included in the article were quotes from the candidates about either there own or their opponents voting record. The only other information included in the article is some census information about the percentage of 18 to 29 year olds that vote.

While a voting record does provide one indicator of how involved a particular person has been in following local politics, it does not tell the whole story. There are plenty of other ways that someone can be involved in the community and in local politics that does not involve voting. So for instance, actions such as writing or visiting elected representatives, giving money to political causes, or being part of an advocacy group are all ways that some of these candidates have been involved with politics that don’t entail voting. Aside from that, the more important thing to point out is that this article does not tell the reader anything about where the candidate stands on issues. So while a reader might be impressed that a candidate has consistently voted in every election, this information is not much use to the reader if the candidate has consistently voted for things the reader might not agree with. We have yet to see in the Grand Rapids press an in-depth look at what the GR city commission candidates stand for, and what their platforms are.

Story:

Voting becomes issue for commission candidates
Friday, July 22, 2005
By STEVEN HARMON
THE GRAND RAPIDS PRESS

GRAND RAPIDS — For some Grand Rapids City Commission candidates, voting is a way of life. For others, particularly the young, it’s an afterthought. At least, it had been.

Two of the 11 candidates own perfect voting records since 1998, when the city clerk’s office began keeping tallies in the Qualified Voters File.

First Ward Commissioner James Jendrasiak and one of his challengers, Mary Milanowski, have voted in all 24 elections since 1998.

The worst voting records belong to the candidates younger than 35: Evvia Marshall, Rosalynn Bliss, Dan Tietema, and John Clark, all voted in less than half of the elections. Clark said this week he’s dropping out of the race, but it’s too late to remove his name from the ballot.

Voting records typically become an issue in races, and Shaula Johnston, who is vying to replace outgoing 2nd Ward Commissioner Lynn Rabaut, has made it so against Bliss, who has voted in six of 23 elections.

“Why is it that (Bliss) sat on the sidelines?” asked Johnston, who voted in 20 of the last 23 elections. “If she’s so concerned about my city, why doesn’t she ever vote in my city?”

Bliss, 29, said a combination of things kept her from the polls.

“I was working full time, going to school full time,” she said. “You’re creating your space in the world, developing roots. As you feel more connected, you feel you need to get involved. With age, it’s true, we learn how important voting is.”

Art Kroon, 64, also a 2nd Ward candidate who has voted in 18 of 23 elections, said, “you vote because you care about your government and the city, and if you don’t, it’s because you don’t care. I don’t know how you can be an effective voice for others if you’ve been silent at the polls.”

Marshall, 25, who is challenging 3rd Ward Commissioner Jim White, voted in five of the past 20 elections since she registered in 1999. White has voted in 22 of 23 elections since 1998.

Younger voters don’t feel connected to the political process, Marshall said.

“If you’re not represented, it’s hard for a younger person to be motivated to vote,” she said. “That’s why I’m running, to get younger people more involved.”

A national survey among 18- to 29-year-olds showed nearly 60 percent agreed with the statement that “having more young people in office would make government and politics better.”

In last year’s presidential election, turnout among voters ages 18 to 29 rose to 51.6 percent, from 42.3 percent in 2000. But participation among young voters has been on the decline — by 13 percent — since 18-year olds were given the right to vote in 1972, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

Dan Tietema, 35, also challenging White, has voted in 10 of the past 23 elections, and passed over all local elections until he cast a ballot in a Kent Intermediate School District special election in February, 2004.

“My interest in politics really started at the national scene and the state,” he said. “My commitment to the city didn’t get started until recently.”

White, 65, says he votes to stay in touch with the issues. “If you put forth the effort to vote, it encourages you to get information,” he said.

Dave Shaffer, 26, challenging Jendrasiak in the 1st Ward, has voted five times since he first registered in October, 2000 — a span of 15 elections. Since he moved to Grand Rapids in May of 2004, he has voted in three of four races.

“It’s become important since my wife and I became established here,” Shaffer said.

Jendrasiak, 51, lamented the lack of participation among young voters, although he declined to criticize opponents.

“As soon as we get that right to vote, we should be exercising it and becoming involved in the process,” he said.

Milanowski, 64, said she used to tell her children on Election Day, when they first began to vote, “bring back that little ‘I Voted’ sticker if you want dinner tonight.”

Analysis:

This story was essentially a promotional piece for the US Military. Only a Military Recruiter and recent enlistee’s voices were heard. Viewers are not told that these new monetary incentives will be paid for by tax dollars, just the amounts are mentioned. The recruiter tells viewers that the reasons that people are signing up are because of “Patriotism” and “9/11”, but neither the recruiter nor the reporter verify if this indeed is based on fact. Considering that the new enlistee in the story is Latina and that other video b-roll used shows a young African American male talking to a recruiter, maybe race or poverty might be a factor in people signing up. With an issue as serious as joining the military it is extremely important for reporters to provide multiple perspectives on this issue.

Story:

WXMI 17 News reader – With an ongoing war in the Middle East military recruiters nationwide are having trouble meeting their goals. Congress is spending more than $460 million in recruitment and retention bonuses, which has some local recruiters dangling some big bucks.

Reporter – Well the war may be a deterrent in some places according to recruiters not here. Army National Guard Recruiters are offering $10,000 bonuses for new recruits, $15,000 if you have prior service. Of course, there is no way to tell if you will be deployed, a deal breaker for some. But here in West Michigan recruiters say it’s still fertile ground for fresh troops.

Reporter – A scene that happens thousands of times a day all across the country. Sgt. Valez and Jannelle Moncada discussing her orders to ship out.

Female who recently enlisted – Because it’s exciting. I need excitement.

Reporter – Jannelle signed up for 6 years part time, a small victory for a military struggling to fulfill the recruitment quotas. With National Guard and Reserve deployments to Iraq becoming common.

Recruiter – Mom and Dad have concerns, they have concerns, but we tell them you can’t go anywhere until you finish high school. You got to finish basic training, you got to finish job training, but there is a chance that you will be deployed. They need to understand that when they join that there is a chance that they could be deployed.

Reporter – So it is up to recruiters to do some hard selling, college money, training, and thousands of dollars in bonuses. Jannelle understands that shipping out to war is part of the job.

Female who recently enlisted – That is a risk I have to take. I mean it has been in our heads and that is why we have been contemplated whether to do it.

Reporter – Nationwide recruiters might be struggling, but here in West Michigan the Guard has already met their numbers for the year and recruiters say it’s all not about bonuses and college money.

Recruiter – Patriotism, they want to serve. I have been recruiting for almost 13 years now. I did 8 and a half years Army Recruiting and I have seen a lot of stuff. Since 9/11 came on there is a lot of people that want to serve their country.

Reporter – Exciting is what Jannelle is looking for even though some of her friends think she’s crazy.

Female who recently enlisted – Maybe, but oh well. It sounds like fun.

Reporter – Jannelle will be assigned to the 1073rd Maintenance Company in Greenville. Last October 200 of them were sent to Iraq. Heads off to basic training, Fort Jackson, South Carolina.

Total Time: 2 minutes and 13 seconds