Editorial Fairness Not Needed At MJS

TO THE EDITORS, THE MILWAUKEE JOURNAL SENTINEL:

One of your employees (Who shall go nameless) recently informed me that editors are free to write what they will--Apparently without regard to fairness and balance, such freedom to provide biased statements being the "editorial privilege".

Your comments of January 5th (As to the NFL's tree planting, climate change and evolution) may provide a classic example of the exercise of that journalistic philosophy. Why? Your slander against the many sound scientists who, as good scientists should, raise questions as to the proposed impact of human activities on climate and the matter of evolution (I will not call them "theories" as they are NOT subject to experimental testing) is evidence of that exercise in bias and half-truths which appears to be your standard for editors.

As to "carbon foot prints", you might have noted the huge ones left by the thousands who flew to the resort island of Bali for an "environmental congress"---And, apparently did not stop to plant trees, but only generated more hot air in our world's atmosphere.

Since the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel has, on its better days, called for greater openness by government and even such private organizations as the Catholic Church, perhaps you should be more open as to: The scientific qualifications, if any, of your editors; Their membership or contributions to political and cause-based organizations; And, their personal investments in companies as might have a relationship to the editorials they write.


Respectfully submitted,
James Pawlak


Milwaukee Journal Sentinel---Jan. 5, 2008
It won't counteract all the hot air being emitted from the Super Bowl, but the National Football League is making a grand effort to go green. The Arizona Republic reports that the league is planting thousands of trees to replace those lost in Arizona wildfires. This is really an effort to compensate for the greenhouse gas emissions from the upcoming game in Glendale, Ariz. (We hope, by the way, that this game features a specific team whose color scheme involves green). The NFL's 3,000-vehicle ground transportation fleet will emit some 350 tons of such gases. The reforestation will more than compensate for that but, sigh, doesn't much mitigate the jet travel it takes to get teams there and the emissions from all those fans' cars, the newspaper reports. Powering the University of Phoenix Stadium and the adjacent NFL theme park with clean energy sources from New Mexico and California probably won't make a big dent, either. We're guessing that climate-change deniers - and others who know man-made global warming is real but who pretend it isn't because they might be inconvenienced by having to give up something will pooh-pooh this as just more Goreism run amok. Our reaction: It's a valuable effort that sets a good example. We don't fancy having to grow gills. Oh wait, growing gills would involve evolution, which, of course, also doesn't exist