Sunday Morning Emerald City News Roundup

A few Standard-Examiner hits and misses on a slow news day

By Curmudgeon

Another slow news day, so maybe there'll be space to look at a few of the SE's Sunday Morning hits and misses.

1. Hit: The long and photo-rich stand-alone section on Hill AFB, past and present. Nice job. The SE free on-line site has a long intro article by Mr. Trentelman, but you'll have to spring for the print edition to read the many many other articles in the Hill AFB section. It's worth it.

2. Miss [a little one]: On p. 10 of the Hill section ["The Sky's The Limit"] there's a photo of a six engine B-36. The caption reads: "A B-36 Peacemaker sits at Hill AFB." Well, there is a word they use in the Air Force to describe what the B-36 is doing in that picture [look at the shadow on the ground beneath it.] It's a technical term, but I'm sure the SE could have found a retired flier to help them out. The term is called "flying." It's in the air, guys. Landing but still airborne. "Sits?"

3. Hit: front page article headlined: "Admiral: It's Fantastic Here --- Mountains Lure Veterans to Retire in Utah Sans Tax Breaks." Well worth a read, and it highlights something I've wondered about for years [and mentioned a time or two here]: why the devil isn't Ogden promoted as a prime -- and I do mean prime --- retirement area? There are people who dream of spending their retirement sweltering in places where the season barely changes and for whom shuffleboard is their idea of getting exercise. There is a place for such people. It's called Florida. But for those who like their seasons to come in fours, who are looking for reasonable housing costs, small city environment, big city amenities close by and scenery and outdoor activities year round that just cannot be beat? There's a place for such people. It's called Ogden, Utah. I'm all for promoting Ogden as an outdoor adventure base camp for visitors. But we're missing a beat not promoting it as well as a retirement mecca, I think. As the admiral in the story says, there are those mountains....

4. Miss: the SE ran today a letter to the editor by one George F. Fleming of Farr West. Here is how it begins:

"My friends, we live in the greatest nation in the world. I hope you'll join with me as we try to change it. --- Barack Hussein Obama."

Mr. Fleming then goes off on a rambling attack on President Obama for having said that. Problem is, President Obama did not say that. The alleged quote was made up by a reporter satirizing both Obama and McCain as they campaigned, praising the US and calling for change in the speeches both gave. The quote then was picked up by right wing bloggers and talk show hosts, and attributed exclusively to President Obama. Snopes has the story here.

Recently, Mr. Trentelman has written on why blogs are not news sources as papers are, and one his reasons was that all sorts of false information gets onto blogs without anyone bothering to fact check. My my my. And here the SE prints a phony presidential quote without the slightest indication that it's not true. Evidently, no one on the editorial page staff bother to see if President Obama had in fact said what the letter quoted him as saying. [Doesn't anyone in the SE editorial offices know how to google something?] Nor did they ask Mr. Fleming to provide a source for the quote he insists is from President Obama --- before the paper printed it. Seems like some of the slipshod practices Mr. Trentelman finds in blogs have worked their way into the SE's offices as well. Not good.