OIA’s Report: A Propped-up document!

As a journalist of nearly 30 years, I’ve learned to respect the work of other colleagues in this profession for as long as they thoroughly research their materials and the final product is done with some sense of fairness and responsibility.

That the media hasn’t been all that thorough in its portrayal of the NMI and other communities throughout the country, makes its credibility suspect among the reading American public.

All too often, the focus is on ratings (for television networks). In hard copies, it’s sensationalism all geared towards more newspaper sales. In the process, half-cocked articles are printed without due regard to the basic tenets of journalism: verification of information.

And we vividly recall an alleged journalist from the San Francisco Chronicle who looked at himself in his hotel room here and fabricated quotes from people he never even interviewed. This new form of journalism pushes the credibility of the media down the abyss of distrust of the fourth estate.

Recently, I came across an article written by Mr. John Yaukey of Gannett News Service which asserts that the current controversy is “well-documented” in terms of immigration and labor abuses in the islands. While the rest of the story seems fair, the phrase “well-documented” is far short of a truthful explanation.

The controversy, Mr. Yaukey, has a long history of constant meet at the firing line (before panels of the US Congress) dating back to 1993. If you’ve been following events as they develop on this issue, it was before the Murkowski Energy Committee where former OIA helmsman Allen Stayman’s report was shot down by the Department of Justice because the evidence he’s scrounged up can’t be “verified”.

In other words, Mr. Stayman hired private investigators who silently descend on these isles collecting dirty laundry, including accusations of religious persecution. He allegedly employed human rights activists who were here at one point to prop-up his case justifying a federal takeover. If you read his report and take it at face value, it’s a very logical presentation sparkling with quotable materials for greedy reporters who eventually fail their at writing a fair account of the inside story.

For instance, if you had researched your material you would have found out that the evidence contained in Stayman report is all “propped-up”. You also would have discovered that Interior’s inspector general was requested to probe certain activities of OIA. You see, too often the views of the former OIA helmsman is quoted at length not that he’s an authority over CNMI issues, but perhaps because he’s head of a lead federal agency on insular affairs. I hardly see any sense of fairness by cross checking if his assertions are factual via interviews with local leadership or the governance.

Obviously, this approach hardly grants the fourth estate credibility and not when from the outset there’s a preconceived mind set to top everything with our own perceived inadequacies all over the article. In more ways than one, it is the national media who also played a key role in the constant bashing so fanned by OIA all over the country. Well, I need beg the issue. Take a closer look at the Don Young probe or why Mr. Stayman has retained his own legal eagle. It speaks well of all that has gone wrong in the apparent agenda to force the CNMI into helplessness.

It’s an economic issue that places the interest of the US Textile Labor Unions over our livelihood and I’m sure you too would find the truth very Un-American. This isn’t what our country stands for and please join me in my quiet recitation (however an abused US Citizen) of “America the Beautiful”. In other words, despite all the bully pulpit and viciousness of a ruinous agenda, our country is still the most beautiful of them all. “Let freedom ring…from sea to shining sea!”