Good Issue, Hypocritical Angle

Interesting how an editorial took to task increases in allowances for legislators from Tinian and Rota. Yet the same nimble mind fails to take critical analysis of the cost of holding off-island sessions in the two senatorial districts. A convenient oversight hoping normal minds won’t catch the apparent inconsistency.

Furthermore, if social conscience exist in the “other” paper, seemingly turning itself into a forum for our detractors, i.e., US Department of Interior, among others, then it’s about time that some serious and mature assessment is made to determine its role in this community. In other words, if you can’t empathize and convey the true sentiments of the people of these islands, it’s time to close shop and engage in another venture.

I find the constant show of immaturity and irrelevancy, shocking. Cheap shots will eventually take their toll especially when sources are often misquoted or rendered fabricated quotes by alleged journalists.

The free press isn’t absolute. It comes with building a social conscience of responsibility and fairness. Otherwise you turn your final product into cheap chatter. Has the newspapering business seen unorthodox innovations lately?

If a news organization consistently violates fairness and responsibility, it would instantly find its credibility shot and filed in the ash heap of its own news morgue.

The cheap chatter of austerity goes to demonstrate the inability to see apparent need to employ the “money begets money” approach. It’s pot shots that demonstrate obvious malice. It’s smack of fits of frustration far removed from maturity or reasoned analysis. It’s a juvenile attitude that draws attention to the obvious lack of personal depth and perception of issues at hand.

If these guys are really journalist of substance, then they would have hailed from mainstream newspapers in their country of origin. Furthermore, it’s time to start asking credentials for critical review of suspect qualifications. Journalism is a discipline and unless a reporter has honed his skills in years past, he’s in for a long bout with unsolicited gobbledygook.

Bylines and the privilege of writing on the OpEd page is earned. It’s not granted like grocery store giveaways.
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If you can’t offer realistic answers to economic substitutes, not only must you learn to wake up, but shut up, too. You have no rights whatsoever to subscribe to economic annihilation where thousands of locals and friends alike would be jobless, the subsequent resulting effect being abject poverty and hopelessness. Perhaps a new industry has descended in the “other” paper where thousands can find meaningful employment and the grand opportunity to earn living wage rates of not less than $12 an hour. Is this the message you have been preaching trashing the dire need to exercise some semblance of social responsibility?
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I grew up in abject poverty in the early sixties (effect of change from the Naval administration to Interior). The hopelessness that dominated the lot of most young pupils then isn’t a bright chapter in our developmental history that should inflicted once more. Change is very difficult and it definitely takes its toll against children who, by circumstance, must fast forward childhood into adulthood to make it to the next day’s meal.

This isn’t the future that I envision for our multi-racial young children who deserve better tomorrow designed and carved out by those, including the media, who claim to be an integral part of leadership in this community. If you can’t crack the shell of immaturity, then you really have no business, well, in this business.
Irresponsible reporting and lack of social conscience aren’t the forte of the Tribune.