Star aids, abets U.S. Chamber of Commerce and global warming deniers

by David Safier
You may have read the op ed in Thursday's Star, Don't tax us over shaky science. It's boilerplate "global warming may or may not be man made so we shouldn't make such a big deal out of it" stuff.

I have no problem with the Star running the op ed. But I wanted to find out if the author, Jon F. Buck, was carrying anyone's water, so I read the "bio" under his name:

"What the hell does that mean?" I asked myself. A national nonprofit organization? That can range from The Red Cross to Aryan Nations United (OK, I made that last org up). And "participated in several projects to improve the community's economic and cultural development"? I think I should have some idea what those projects are before I'm told they improved anything.

The next time I write an op ed, I think I'll say, "David Safier works for a religious nonprofit where he heals the sick and raises the dead." I'm sure the Star will be fine with that.

Yesterday I called Ann Brown, the Star's opinion page editor. Today, Martin Rosales in the editorial department returned my call. It turns out, they know who Buck works for. It's the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

Let me repeat that. Buck works for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. A nonprofit supported by the nation's largest for-profit corporations. You think maybe the Chamber is interested in killing the cap and trade legislation? That gives Buck's piece a bit of context, doesn't it?

Rosales kind of apologized. He said the Star probably erred in not naming the nonprofit Buck works for. Apparently, I wasn't the only one who called in to complain.

Here's the reason he gave for leaving out the information. Buck asked them to leave it out. No, I'm not kidding. Buck said, he was worried that, if the U.S. Chamber of Commerce was mentioned, people might think this was their opinion, not his.

And the Star editorial board, which I guess just fell off the local turnip truck, swallowed Buck's explanation whole and said, "OK."

And besides, Rosales continued, we've run lots of op eds about the dangers of global warming, so we wanted to run this one for balance. Fine, I replied, run the op ed. But let your readers know what group the author is affiliated with, like you usually do, so we can use that to help put the piece in perspective.

I asked Rosales if the Star might publish something correcting the error. He said, no, we don't really consider it an error. We probably should have supplied the information, but no, there's no need for a correction or apology.