Monday,
May 9 2005
THE OTHER SIDE OF THE STORY: I know it's cliché
to say there are two sides to every story, but it's true. One
thing you learn pretty quickly is that when it comes to some sources
in the mainstream media, you can bet you're only getting one side
of the story - the side they want you to get. Perhaps the greatest
strength of the blogosphere is that it allows readers access to
the OTHER side of a story.
For example,
take this business with Tom DeLay, Jack Abramoff and the Commonwealth
of the Northern Mariana Islands (CNMI). The Los Angeles Times,
apparently eager to keep up the pressure on the Republican House
Majority Leader, recently dispatched reporter Walter F. Roche
Jr. to Saipan to do some digging.
The paper
unveiled its masterpiece last Friday: a
2,332 word front-page story reporting (in the worst possible
light, of course) the details of Abramoff's wheeling and dealing
and his links to Tom DeLay. Here is how Roche and co-reporter
Chuck Neubauer framed the story:
The
Northern Mariana Islands, a self-governing U.S. territory subject
to acts of Congress, have proven to be a veritable treasure
chest for Abramoff. His lobbying successes have been closely
linked to his relationship with DeLay.
Since
1995, Abramoff and two law firms where he was a partner collected
more than $7.7 million from the commonwealth government, records
show.
He
lobbied to keep Washington from cracking down on the island's
garment industry where workers are paid $3.05 an hour, well
below the federal minimum wage of $5.15, to work in what critics
say are sweatshop conditions.
The
workers, many brought in from China under less-restrictive immigration
rules than in the U.S. and most of its territories, produce
garments that are still stamped "Made in U.S.A.,"
thanks, in part, to the efforts of Abramoff and DeLay.
DeLay
helped lead the fight beginning in 1997 to keep Congress from
enacting reforms opposed by Abramoff and his clients that would
have required garment manufacturers to pay their workers the
higher federal minimum wage.
Just how
misleading is this? On a scale of 1 to 10 it ranks about an eight.
Here is the other side of the story, which Roche and Neubauer
weren't willing to give you because it didn't fit into their "narrative:"
1) According
to the commonwealth covenant between the North Mariana Islands
and the U.S. adopted more than 20 years ago, the
CNMI is explicitly exempt from United States
law in the following categories: customs, wages, immigration laws,
and taxation. In other words, the federal minimum wage does not
apply, nor has it ever applied in the CNMI.
2) The $3.05
wage paid to foreign workers in CNMI garment factories is nearly
10
times what workers earn in Chinese sweatshops. Furthermore,
CNMI wages are paid in U.S. dollars making it an even more lucrative
and attractive place to work.
3) The "reforms"
DeLay fought against in 1997 could also be accurately characterized
as an effort to strip the CNMI of its exemption from U.S. wage
laws. The bill was introduced by Democrats at the behest of big
labor who complained that CNMI's wage exemption was costing American
textile workers' jobs. The legislation passed the Democrat-controlled
Senate before meeting DeLay's opposition in the House where he
argued, quite rightfully, that forcing the CNMI to adopt a $5.15
per-hour minimum wage would essentially kill the commonwealth's
booming garment industry.
Turns out
there is another piece of back story worth mentioning. At the
same time the Clinton administration was aggressively backing
big labor's effort to strip CNMI's wage exemption, it was softening
its position on allowing Guam those same exemptions by becoming
a commonwealth.
The difference?
The Washington Post reported in February 1997 that Guam's Governor,
Carl Gutierrez, raised and delivered close to $900,000 in donations
to the Clinton-Gore 1996 reelect campaign and the DNC. As Ronald
Bailey noted shortly thereafter, "These handsome campaign
contributions made the citizens of Guam, who cannot vote in U.S.
elections, the biggest donors to the Democratic Party per capita
of any part of the U.S."
It's clear
the reporters from The Los Angeles Times weren't real
interested in letting the facts get in the way of their story
(their side of it anyway). But there is always another side. Reality
often looks much different and much more complex than we're led
to believe by those pushing an agenda.
As The
New York Times (of all places) reported just last month
on the economic difficulties facing the CNMI, " For the women
left behind, the garment jobs once so reviled by the mainland
American media now look increasingly good in the rear view mirror."
- T. Bevan 11:15 am Link
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