VIEWPOINT Right side, wrong reasons The Michigan Daily - Tuesday, May 31, 2005 - 5 Flushing good journalism KARL STAMPFL.:};, _:: 4A, BY EMILY BEAM Americans are clueless about econom- ics. I can't say I'm surprised, but a study, performed by Harris Interactive and reported by The New York Times last April, did come up with some fairly star- tling results. Less than half of high school students could define a budget deficit. A frightening number of adults didn't under- stand that they would risk losing money to inflation if they kept their savings at home. As an economics major, I understand that people will roll their eyes if I accidentally throw in a reference to rational behavior or pareto optimums. But there's a big dif- ference between drawing Edgeworth box plots and knowing enough to avoid the post-Depression fear that the banks will lose all your money when the stock market comes crashing down. The study couldn't have been timelier, however, in light of the Social Security debate that is still raging. While President Bush thankfully finished up his 2005 Mega Social Security World Tour earlier this month, we know this issue isn't going away any time soon. Overall, Americans don't like Bush's plan for Social Security privatization. I would suspect that after being bombarded for five months with apocalyptic predic- tions for their financial futures from both parties, we would probably be sick of the whole issue more than anything else. Despite more immediate matters like those painful gas prices, public opinion polls are finding that Americans do still care, and they do not support privatization as Bush presents it. While it's fantastic that Americans appear to be waking up to the problems of privatization, I'm scared by the reasons for their opposition. I'm realizing that I'm perhaps foolishly assuming that the pub- lic is concerned about the $1 trillion dol- lar transition cost. They probably haven't considered the impact of overestimating the future strength of the stock market, or that Bush hasn't yet directly addressed the problem of solvency. The issue itself isn't black-and-white; the "ownership society"- promoting Republicans are right when they talk about the need to revamp Social Security, though this "crisis" still pales in the face of the mess Medicare is causing. Reform is necessary, but alternative plans have been weak and unpromising - the Democrats suggested raising payroll tax rates, and even President Bush suggested raising the limit on taxable income. Cur- rently, Social Security taxes are not with- held from any income earned after the first $90000. Raising the limit could gen- erate a hefty amount of revenue - but no one mentions that, because of employer matching requirements, it could also hurt a lot of small businesses that employ a handful of highly paid workers. It's not just taxing the rich; it'd be taxing the not- necessarily-so-rich business owners that pay their wages. I can get all wrapped up in the pros and cons of privatization; I can even draw my pretentious little graphs, filled with joy that for once, I stand in the majority. And then I turn on C-Span, and a caller rants about how he worked so hard for 50-odd years and now the government wants to take that all away from him. Yes, sir. You've got it. The crazy Republican con- spiracy is after you, finding new ways to screw every single American - espe- cially you. They will come in the night and rob you of all you've ever earned, and then they will laugh and make some ridiculous comment about how they've saved the New Deal. Maybe I'm overly naive, but I like to think that the Republicans aren't trying to ruin Social Security as a part of their plan for ultimate world domination. It is, how- ever, too bad that their ideas are wrong and that most Americans have no idea why. Will we become informed someday? That same Harris Interactive poll did find a slight increase in economic knowledge since 1999, but we've got a long way to go. Maybe we just need another Terri Schiavo to alert people to the need for financial awareness, just as she indirectly did for living wills. It's a lot harder, though, to find martyrs to highlight the real issues behind the touted "ownership society" than the "culture of life." Until then, I've got my fingers crossed that congressmen will listen to their constituents, but just not pay attention too closely. Beam is an LS junior and the Dailt's associate editorialpage editor. ample call to a radio talk show follow- ing the news that a Newsweek report alleging U.S. sol- diers had flushed a Quran down a toi- let had caused anti- American riots in the Middle East resulting in the deaths of 15 people: Do those people at that magazine have journalistt degrees? Does reporter Michael Isikoff even have a high school degree? Why didn't they' know that the story would cause riots and directly cause those people to die? I mean, howstupid could they be? Agree with him? Let's review. Number of days a senior Defense Department official possessed the entire story, with the right to veto any disputed fact or anything that could have put peo- ple into danger: 11. Number of changes he made to the story: 1 (it had nothing to do with the Quran allegations; Newsweek corrected the error). Number of days the magazine was on newsstands before it occurred to anyone in the United States that the story could have a violent impact once translated into Arabic: 11. Any other questions? Whv did Newsweek trust an anon - ttous source who turned out to be spout- ing false allegations? The source - a high-ranking Penta- gon official whose identity is still pro- tected - had been reliable in the past. Anonymous sources are an acceptable journalism practice. t So wh are they acceptable? One word: Watergate. An unnamed source, famously known as Deep Throat, helped Washington Post reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein uncover the scandal that prompted President Rich- ard Nixon to resign. Anonymous sources shed light on stories that would not have been unearthed otherwise. But isn't reporting on the story anti- American - whether its true or not - because it turnsforeigners against the United States? Some people think it is. Others remem- ber the purpose of a free press, the back- bone of any democratic society, which acts as a watchdog, uncovers wrongs and makes sure that they don't happen again for the good of all mankind. So Newsweek didn't make a mistake? They did. A very regrettable mistake that may have contributed to the deaths of 15. But at least they admitted it, unlike the government, which also erred by not denying the rumors or predicting the sto- ry's fall-out. Newsweek apologized and retracted the story. The government some- how managed to escape without a scratch. A public backlash against Newsweek was deserved, but Americans jumped all over this scandal until it sounded like maga- zine staffers were the ones who actually did the killing. The whole scandal is a perfect example of America's distrustof thepress. Part of the problem is the press, but most of the blame rests with the public, which often regards the saying "Don't believe everything you read" with an unnatural seriousness. Not everyone is Jayson Blair or Stephen Glass. The vast majority of what you read in cred- ible newspapers is factual and responsible. One of the reasons journalists are gen- erally distrusted is their rigid self-polic- ing. You'd never see Microsoft making a mistake and then publishing an 18,000- word explanation explaining it, as stellar papers like The New York Times are apt to do. That's appropriate; name another industry with journalism's strict code of ethics. What isn't appropriate is when the Times makes a mistake and the Portland Oregonian spills gallons of ink complain- ing about it. The press has harped on Newsweek's gaffe to the point of obscur- ing the real story behind this whole mess: what really went on at Guantanamo Bay. If the army of press focused its attention on discovering the truth behind the inci- dent instead of using millions of words aimed at slyly implying that they're bet- ter than Newsweek, this kind of thing wouldn't happen as often. The cruel irony here is that the minute journalists start tearing down a competi- tor's integrity, it takes all of journalism's reputation down a notch. And the public notices. Polls show Americans simply don't trust journalism - mostly because journalists are like umpires; you don't notice them until they get a call wrong. Undeserved criticism often lim- its aggressive journalism by rendering reporters scared to take risks critical to obtaining important stories. Americans have a choice - trust journalists more or miss out on the watch-dog benefits the fourth estate offers. Stampfl is a Dailyfall/winter administra- tion beat reporter. He can be reached at kstampfl@tumich.edt. Sometimes, it's not just a summer job ALEXANDRA JONES N ij Ns E M JOEL WIGTON s f \t .. 9 9 OIN THE DAILY'S EDITORIAL BOARD. E-MAIL FRESA RD @MICHIGANDAILY.COM. M y head is swim- ming. My hands are chapped dry, asphalt-rough at the tips, from washing dishes and wiping counters and tables with bleach- soaked rags. I've been son my feet for seven hours straight, eight if you count the half-hour I spent walking from apartment to bus stop, wait- ing for my ride, and trudging up a hill and across a six-lane road to work - and time spent standing around before the #2 Inbound comes round to pick me up. God forbid the AATA install a few benches at their stops. Five lanes of cars rush past me; the sonic impact of each one zooming by reminds me of how my daily hassle (work) is bookended so appropriately with two little mini-hassles: getting there and getting home. I turn away from the road to avoid the smell of exhaust. All I can fathom doing when I get home is crashing, in bed, on the couch, floor, wherever, as long as I don't have to stiand, walk, smile, transact, serve, clean. Maybe I'll be able to muster up the intel- lectual wherewithal i to do some knitting, but sm pretty much used up for the rest of the day. I've been working a lot more sine sunner "beak' (yeah. whatever> began. but I don tremember how I man- aged to do homework, put in hours on extracurriculars or relax at all after working a full day. That's how my summer has been so far. says not sucked dry by my primary job are spent behind the counter at a less stressful gig at a locally owned shop- Those that I have truly free are spent reacquainting myself with my boyfriend, who, after six days sans Alex, sometimes forgets that he lives with another person. My summer jobs have nothing to do with any of the 10 or so vocations I'm consid- ering. I'm not working to save tp cash for a specific goal, like the cars I'm so bitterly jealous over or a plane ticket to Scotland to visit my best friend. I'm not working to put myself through school. (Paying out-of-state tuition on $6.50 an hour? Hee!) Remember "Calvin & Hobbes," the one newspaper comic strip in the last 20 years that didn't totally suck? A recur- ring theme was Calvin's dad telling the roguish Calvin to do unpleasant tasks, like cleaning his room, under the pre- text that suffering through the nastiness would "build character." I think a lot of people - parents, students, the patrons of the various establishments at which us po' students and other wage slaves are employed - don't realize that most of us aren't doing this for "life experience" - that we're working to live. We calculate our hours in our heads, curse federal and state taxes for excising a sizeable chunk of our barely-three-digit paychecks and plan our finances around the nebulous relationship between payday and the first of the month. People don't realize that the change they might absently drop into my tip jar becomes my grocery money - or that, when they pick the pennies out of the handful of coins I just gave them as though they're removing a reviled top- ping from a slice of pizza, it's like they're saying, "Eh, this is such a small amount of money that it's not worth keeping. However, I'm sure the chick behind the counter can really put this 0.0004-per- cent tip to good use." OK, I'm a little touchy about my need to scrimp - but you can bet I still find space in my very limited budget to add a good half dollar at least to the tip jar at my local coffee joint. I tip servers at sit-down restaurants at least 20 percent. If I've got the change, I'll empty my pockets to those I meet on the street who look like they could use it more than I can. And - just to prove to you that I'm not just begging for more cash - if I don't have extra money or change, I'll at least smile, look my server in the eye while I order, thank them profusely when it's done, and give them a little extra the next time I'm there. You'd want the same thing if you were on my side of the counter. .Jones is a Dailyfall/sinter associate arts editor. She can he reached at alnajo u msich.edu.