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Box 220, 728Main St., Red Bluff, CA 96080 Facebook: Leave comments at FACEBOOK.COM/ RBDAILYNEWS Twitter: Follow and send tweets to @REDBLUFFNEWS Back in early May, I predicted that the mainstream media's "objectivity" rituals would kick in as autumn neared, "balanc- ing" the two major candidates according to the timeworn rules of "on of the one hand, on the other hand," thus leaving the im- pression that Hillary Clinton (seasoned and experienced, whatever her flaws) and Don- ald Trump (manifestly unfit, by dint of his temperament and ignorance) can somehow be equated. Ipredictedthecoverage would devolve into he said/she said, with insufficient atten- tion paid to the truth or value of what was said. My predic- tion was not exactly daring; I've been around long enough to know how the traditional media game is played. And sure enough, the false-balance game was played to the hilt late last week, and the effect was sickening. Last Wednesday, Trump (whose entire campaign is grounded in white grievance against minorities) claimed that Clinton (who has been working on minority issues since the 1970s) is a racist. On Thursday, Clinton delivered a fact-packed indictment that accurately tied Trump to the racist "alt-right" movement and listed some of his most disgraceful racist episodes —— like his habit of retweet- ing white supremacists, in- cluding a user who goes by the name "white genocide." In re- sponse, Trump (who thrived in his dad's real estate empire, where applications from Afri- can Americans were branded with the letter C, for "col- ored") simply repeated his Wednesday attack, again call- ing Clinton a racist. In order to treat his drive- by name-calling and her sub- stantive indictment as equal, you have to be cognitively brain dead. Either that, or you have to be tethered to the te- nets of "objective" false equiv- alency. Here's how four media outlets played those episodes: The headline in The Wash- ington Post: Clinton, Trump exchange racially charged ac- cusations The headline in The Phil- adelphia Inquirer: Trading tough jabs on race and alt- right The headline on the Politico site: Trump and Clinton throw more blows in bigotry fight The headline on the Bloom- berg News site: Trump, Clin- ton trade blistering attacks on race, prejudice This is "objective" journal- ism at its most reductively ba- nal, seeking to "balance" the unbalanceable. As I've argued before (and I'm hardly alone on this), the traditional jour- nalism tenets are inadequate to meet the challenges of this perilously historic moment. It's not sufficient to say that a dangerously racist demagogue "traded jabs" with a qualified opponent, absent of fact-check- ing context. There are blessedly rare times in the life of this nation when journalists have found it necessary to step beyond their "objective" roles and tell the unvarnished truth. Edward R. Murrow did it in 1954 when he slapped down Trump pre- decessor Joseph McCarthy. Walter Cronkite did it in 1968 when he returned from Viet- nam and told viewers exactly what he'd learned, that the war was a lost farce. We are living such a moment today. I agree with Paul Moses, a professor of journalism at Brooklyn College, who recently wrote that "something is lost" when journalists feel compelled to abandon their Olympian dis- passion. However, there are times when "conscience calls for it," as Moses explained fur- ther: "As the son of a father who grew up Jewish in Nazi Ger- many, I can well understand the danger of muffling or muz- zling criticism of a would-be leader who builds a movement based on antipathy toward im- migrants and a minority reli- gious group, joined to an ex- aggerated nationalism and vi- olence-tinged rhetoric .... [O] bjectivity in journalism doesn't mean allowing the wool to be pulled over your eyes. It means a commitment to the truth, rooted in determined report- ing and a fair-minded consider- ation of the facts." This is no time for lazy box- ing match banalities. We pull the wool over our eyes when we practice false equivalence. Con- science calls us to do better. DickPolmanisthenational political columnist at NewsWorks/WHYY in Philadelphia (newsworks. org/polman) and a "Writer in Residence" at the University of Pennsylvania. Email him at dickpolman7@gmail.com. Editorial False media equivalency benefiting Trump Cartoonist's take As Labor Day was yesterday, it bears asking how immigra- tion and business start-ups fac- tor into America's economic free- dom. The most basic of economic freedoms to ever affect any indi- vidual is the free- dom to offer one's skills, talents and qualifications on the open market, in exchange for a wage or salary sufficient to one's needs. Inadequate income may be remedied by exercising the freedom to make oneself more valuable with training, schooling or longer hours. "Labor," except for the un- der-appreciated "labor of love," is the foundation of America's economy. It may be using one's hands and feet at another's di- rection, or the mental applica- tion of knowledge and exper- tise. It may also consist of the entrepreneurial acumen to con- ceive of a product or service, re- search its viability, gather fi- nancial resources, compete against other vendors, enlist family help, and hire employ- ees. Government generally hin- ders most of that. The resulting "business owner" may not even reap a sal- ary exceeding that of his em- ployees for a while, but he cer- tainly works and hopes that that will change for the better. Even professionals with advanced de- grees must either find an em- ployer willing to pay a commen- surate salary or parlay their ex- pertise into a marketable service as a self-employed professional, perhaps by partnering with skilled associates to broaden the range of services. Headlines tell the tale; im- pacts on America's economic freedom require analysis and explanation. "Immigration cuts salaries of Americans $2,470 a year" (Paul Bedard, 3/8, Wash- ington Examiner); "More busi- nesses are closing than start- ing." (J.D. Harrison, 9/17/2014); "A Lost Generation of Ameri- can Entrepreneurs" (Michael S. Malone, 6/01, Forbes). "The nation's unending appe- tite for new and low-wage im- migrant workers, now about 1 million a year, is slashing the incomes of native-born Ameri- cans by $2,470 while boosting corporate profits. The U.S. is lit- erally importing poverty," said the new report from the group Negative Population Growth Inc. The president of ISR Re- search, Ed Rubenstein, bol- stered that by explaining that American workers have had to accept lower wages just to com- pete with cheap imported labor. It must be accepted that legal immigration, guest workers and "green card" holders (legal per- manent residents) are neither inherently malignant nor end- lessly beneficial to America's— and our citizens'—economy. Not so for illegal aliens, who are al- ways detrimental to commu- nities, neighborhoods, crime, public services, and the "rule of law." Incomes and economic freedom for job-seeking citizens also take big hits. Lower income consumers benefit from low prices result- ing from foreign labor and ille- gal workers. How much better if they found good-paying jobs that allowed them to look for bargains among slightly higher priced goods? For corporations to value bottom line profitabil- ity is a commendable aspect of their economic freedom. How- ever, they ill serve this nation by lobbying for excessive im- ported labor while Americans languish in joblessness. It must be noted that millions of graduates from public schools have been poorly educated and ill prepared for the reasonable needs of employers: job seek- ers that can read, write, calcu- late and follow instructions. Can you really blame employers for going to labor sources abroad that place a higher premium on knowledge and responsibility than is found in many American school systems? Insufficiently qualified do- mestic labor, high taxes and regulations hurt the compet- itiveness of American busi- nesses; they'll move to friendly states or offshore if it lets them survive. Many businesses and colleges must provide remedial schooling or training to bring either workers or students up to minimum standards for basic job demands or class work. An ideal scenario (unlikely because it would be ideal) is an economy growing at twice our current rate or greater, in which students leave school with mental skills and work habits ready for employment at readily available jobs with growing companies in the man- ufacturing, technical, natural resource or skilled and profes- sional services sectors. If careful analysis by com- panies and economic experts determines that qualified im- migrants would not only ben- efit that business sector, but also allow for greater eco- nomic growth and native em- ployment—foreign workers can be imported for as long as the shortage remains. America's economy is far from ideal, but the importation of labor, even illegal immigrants, unneces- sarily continues. That has pro- duced the now-quantifiable re- duction of wages, opportunities and, yes, economic freedom. Bedard: "[Ed Rubenstein] found that while in past de- cades adding immigrant work- ers helped to increase wages and GDP, the flood that fol- lowed the 1986 immigration re- form reversed that trend. The reason, he said, is that too much of the workforce is now immigrant labor, rising from 10 percent in 1996 to nearly 17 per- cent today." "Using a noted Harvard economist's wage formula, Ru- benstein said that U.S. wages of native-borns in 2014 were reduced by an average of 5.8 percent…a loss of $2,470 per full-time native worker"— money, and the freedom it brings, not available to na- tive workers. "Immigrants are usually poorer...and on wel- fare programs that amount to $9,100 per immigrant... "Immigration's biggest win- ners are the wealthy, it's big- gest losers are found dispro- portionately among the nation' poor and middle-class…plac- ing greater economic strain on those citizens who can afford it least. Congress must revisit this policy, to reduce this injustice." Next week: Fewer startups, more failures—declining Ameri- can entrepreneurism. Don Polson has called Red Bluff home since 1988. He can be reached by e-mail at donplsn@ yahoo.com. The way I see it Labor — more migrants, lower wages In order to treat his drive- by name- calling and her substantive indictment as equal, you have to be cognitively brain dead. Either that, or you have to be tethered to the tenets of "objective" false equivalency. Sounding off A look at what readers are saying in comments on our website and on social media. This is wonderful news. Been anxiously waiting for a dog park in Red Bluff. Pat Inns: On a construction update for the Sher Wintle Memorial Dog Park I would like to thank Scott and Debbie for making breakfasts for the boys. Ivy Warnecke: On the weekly breakfasts for the Red Bluff Spartans football team Don Polson StateandNational Assemblyman James Galla- gher, 2060 Talbert Drive, Ste. 110, Chico 95928, 530 895-4217, http://ad03.asmrc.org/ Senator Jim Nielsen, 2634 Forest Ave., Ste. 110, Chico 95928, 530 879-7424, senator. nielsen@senate.ca.gov Governor Jerry Brown, State Capital Building, Sacramento 95814, 916 445-2841, fax 916 558- 3160, governor@governor.ca.gov U.S. Representative Doug La- Malfa, 507 Cannon House Of- fice Building, Washington D.C. 20515, 202 225-3076 U.S. Senator Dianne Fein- stein, One Post St., Ste. 2450, San Francisco 94104, 415 393- 0707, fax 415 393-0710 U.S. Senator Barbara Boxer, 1700 Montgomery St., San Fran- cisco 94111, 510 286-8537, fax 202 224-0454 Your officials OPINION » redbluffdailynews.com Tuesday, September 6, 2016 » MORE AT FACEBOOK.COM/RBDAILYNEWS AND TWITTER.COM/REDBLUFFNEWS A6