Tax Day!

by: Jay Stevens

Thu Apr 15, 2010 at 10:26:13 AM MST

(Image brazenly stolen from the Missoulian's Twitter feed.)

While we wait in breathless anticipation for the Missoulian's live Tweeting of Missoula's Tax Day protests, here are some facts for Tax Day:

A majority of Americans think the amount of taxes they'll pay this year is fair. And by "majority," I mean more than 60 percent of all Americans, including Republicans. Heck, a plurality of Tea Baggers think their tax rate is fair! Which is especially interesting, given what Tea Baggers (wrongly) think about our nation's taxes.

The total cost of the Republican Congressional obstructionism to the American taxpayer: 1.32 billion dollars. Now, that's what I call "waste."

The "Tea Party Express" - that bus touring around the country and whipping up Tea Baggers everywhere - is not the grassroots rally it's made out to be. It's actually a PAC run by Republican operatives.

Fox News, despite Rupert Murdoch's statement that his network "shouldn't be supporting the Tea Party," is actively participating in Tax Day protests. Sean Hannity is even going so far as front-lining a fundraiser for the Cincinnati Tea Party.

Tea Baggers fear socialism, but love Social Security and Medicare.

A recent NYTimes/CBS poll confirms what we knew all along: Tea Baggers are predominantly angry old white dudes. Besides hating poor people and blacks, they're a bit delusional. Check out this question from the poll results: "Regardless of your overall opinion, do you think the views of the people involved in the Tea Party movement generally reflect the views of most Americans, or not?" A whopping 84 percent of Tea Baggers said their movement "reflect the views of most Americans," while only 25 percent of Americans said the same thing. And four percent of Americans have actually attended a Tea Bag rally or have given money to Tea Baggers.

And now for some opinions:

John Cole: "This is just a Republican operation, plain and simple, and you'll watch the tea partiers go to bat for their Republican and Wall Street masters the next couple of months as we try to pass Financial reform.

"For chrissakes- the tea party idea came from Rick Santelli- a broker. Anyone who thought these guys were mad at Wall Street was engaging in magical firebagger thinking, and some of us told you that from the get-go."

FDL's Thers: "Probably the best thing that has thus far happened to the Tea Bag Party Movement would be the Tiger Woods fucking a lot mega-scandal, for the simple reason that without Tiger, the Tea Bag Party Movement would be the most tedious, trainwrecky, make-pretend important thing to have made normal people want to kill themselves over ever since the OJ trial or, I don't know, that Peaches Browning shit. I mean, Christ, what is there to say about a "movement" that spendspretty much all of its energy screaming about how it really and for true isn't jam-packed with crazies?

"Well, you can say that it's boring, is what you can say about it, because most of what they do is snivel about how oppressed they are, and that is a very wearying class of behavior to be annoying us with....

"To keep it simple, there's Fox News America, there's Village America, and then there's Fucked-Over America. As a citizen of that latter region, I'm getting pretty damn Fed Up."  

"Respect goes in both directions"

by: Jay Stevens

Wed Jun 10, 2009 at 11:55:14 AM MST

Western Montanans recently entered the debate over a congressional resolution formally apologizing for the way the U.S. government has treated Native Americans. The Missoulian's Gwen Florio wrote a news story detailing the fact that a key phrase having to do with the federal government's mismanagement of tribal funds held in trust had been dropped from the resolution.

But few of the comments posted online with that story concerned this facet of the discussion. Instead, many provided a stark reminder that racism runs rampant through our community.

Gwen Florio ran a followup on the Missoulian blog, "The Buffalo Post," in which she posted a letter from Patrick Weasel Head. It's worth a read in its entirety, but essentially Weasel Head wonders what the Native American community can do to soften its image, yet ultimately calls to task all of us who tolerate racism in everyday life:

There are sensitive individuals that bridge the cultural gap between indigenous peoples and the community, and I applaud them for their effort and true feelings of diversity and inclusion. They are truly the kind of people I want to interact with and to grow a sense of community for all. Yet, I feel that society expects, and tolerates, this insensitivity toward indigenous peoples and that it is so easy to 'pick on' the Indian community (or individuals) without any reaction from their statements. I think this has to end. Too often I hear that indigenous peoples are seen as the easiest to disparage, to make fun of and to chastise without any level of sensitivity or compassion or better yet, repercussions. That too has to stop.

I challenge all to make a difference, to see what they can do to dispel this insensitivity to the indigenous populations and remember, that respect goes in both directions. Are these few comments as listed in the Missoulian article representative of the community and that rampant racism exists? If not, speak out.

I couldn't agree more.

But it is surprising that the Missoulian sounds surprised by all of this, and is essentially calling for others to decry racism when they see it, because the newspaper, frankly, doesn't have such a great track record when it comes to criticizing those who engage in racist rhetoric.

Take the recent kerfluffle over a racist letter (pdf) sent to former Missoulian reporter, Jodi Rave. The Electric City Perfesser defended the letter, agreeing there was too much coverage of Native Americans in the paper. Instead of supporting Rave, explaining why it felt Native Americans should be included in the news, and decrying Natelson's ignorance on race matters, the Missoulian said...nothing.

And while Jodi Rave wrote about the racist rhetoric in the state OPI campaign, the paper's editorial board said...nothing.

(One wonders how the paper will handle anti-Native-American rhetoric now that Rave left the the Missoulian...)

And given the numerous questionable statements that both Dave Berg and Dave Rye have made - and will no doubt continue to make - instead of questioning whether Taylor Brown - the man who hired them both for his radio network - was fit for public office, the Missoulian said...nothing.

When Corey Stapleton made racially insensitive remarks on the floor of the state legislature, the Missoulian...said nothing. Matt Singer did, and was slammed for it by the Choteau Acantha, which wrote a puff piece about Stapleton and slammed blogs, and the Missoulian...said nothing.

And let's not forget that not too long ago the Missoulian editorial board endorsed racial profiling.

Whether those that pen the editorials want to admit it or not, neglecting racism from prominent public figures implicitly encourages such rhetoric. So, yeah, I think it's a bit hypocritical for the Missoulian to sound shocked or outraged at all of the racist comments engendered by a recent report...but the paper has essentially been complicit with the racism for years. Perhaps instead of a treacly editorial pointing out the ickiness of racism, the paper could instead make a vow to do better at singling out prominent racists and denouncing racist rhetoric when made by public figures...  

The News of Business and the Business of News

by: Matt Singer

Sun Jan 11, 2009 at 16:01:11 PM MST

Missoula Area Chamber of Commerce President and Chief Executive Officer Kim Latrielle said she doesn't want to see the city scale back plans for retail businesses. Rather, she said she wants Missoula to bring a new main attraction to town so the local economy can support all the retail it has planned.

"I believe with my whole heart that we need to figure out a way to get more people to Missoula, to bring new money to Missoula," Latrielle said.

The Chamber represents businesses all over Missoula. Latrielle said retailers report that when football season ends, so does their season to earn good income. An exposition center could fill the gap and is on the table as part of the strategic planning efforts at the fairgrounds.

Beyond that, for the Chamber of Commerce's initial response to concerns that a surplus of retail space may be getting developed being to say it is just fine strikes me as irresponsible. Unnecessary development is the underlying phenomenon behind bubbles. Empty retail storefronts won't be very attractive.

Anyways -- I always wanted to mention some interesting phenomena happening in the media world.

The Seattle Post-Intelligencer may be on its way out. There is similar news out of Denver, where Rocky Mountain News is likely to shutter its doors. But the big story on the media front I've seen lately is Michael Hirschorn's "End Times" anticipating the potential fall, this year, of The New York Times.

It is no groundbreaking statement to say that the Internet has impacted journalism in ways that the businesses have yet to figure out (they're facing much the same situation as record labels without as many advantages from intellectual property law).

One of my roommates anticipates subscribing to the Missoulian soon. Like many of us, he enjoys reading the paper in the morning, especially on Sundays. But after he mentioned his plans to subscribe, we ended up in a conversation about the utterly unnecessary (for us) portions of the newspaper. We don't pick up a Montana newspaper for national or international coverage that we read the day before on the Internet.

I'm not sure where news coverage is going. I know that as Hirschorn says, 1) if the current business models fail we will find new ones because the need for news is too great and 2) citizen journalists simply will not (and can not) replace some kind of professional journalism.  

Don't give the bullies your lunch money

by: Jay Stevens

Thu Feb 28, 2008 at 20:28:00 PM MST

If you call for folks to burn down the houses of those that disagree with you, the newspaper will run a nice profile of you and your issues.

If you comment on that newspaper's related blog post, defending the right to call for the burning down of the houses of those that disagree with you, and then call them arsonists and terrorists, and you're called out for being unreasonable and rude, you can call up the paper, threaten a defamation suit, and the newspaper will remove the post. (Google cached the blog post, but sadly not the comments.)

Seriously, the Missoulian's conduct in this case is shameful. It's bad enough bullies like Dubrasich and his pals shoot their mouths off and try to intimidate regular folks from expressing their opinion on forest management, but for the newspaper to fold under an unfounded accusation of defamation only shows that bully tactics work.

I'd also add that this incident brings into question the newspaper's credibility. How can we trust that they're reporting the news accurately and objectively if they pull content as soon as they're bullied by some hoodlums? How many other stories have been suppressed or massaged for fear of an angry letter from the wrong person?

Missoulian Hits Nail on Head With DC Voting Rights

by: Matt Singer

Tue Jan 29, 2008 at 15:43:17 PM MST

This issue blew my mind the first time when I was in high school and found out about it. Something seems very weird and broken about the fact that the residents of the capital of the world's greatest democracy lack a voice in its deliberative body.

A couple folks from DC Vote are in Montana spreading the word about this issue. I can only wish them the best of luck. More people voting? Hell yeah, I say.

Bob Brown Gets His Facts Wrong

by: Matt Singer

Fri Sep 21, 2007 at 13:07:40 PM MST

But there's some problems with the op-ed that suggest trading a repeal of term limits (conservatives giving up something) for a move away from Montana's current non-partisan redistricting law (liberals give up something).

1. First, I've seen no real indication that this is actually a right-left compromise. The drive for term limits repeal is currently coming from the center-right -- with a number of frustrated Republicans realizing that forced retirement left them with a bit of a leadership vacuum. As for the non-partisan redistricting commission setup, it's non-partisan. So to think that one ideology is tied to it for reasons of power is just straight up bizarre.


2. Second, Bob Brown makes the blanket claim that Democrats "have benefited from the gerrymandering of state legislative districts." This is actually a loaded statement -- it first assumes the presence of gerrymandering. Now, gerrymandering is actually different from simple partisan control of the commission -- Republicans had that in the 1990 commission (and amazingly, they won in a landslide in 1994, the first year the new lines were in effect). The Great Falls Tribune, I believe, analyzed the new lines and found that the 2000 commission redrew the lines in such a way as to increase competition, not necessarily to ensure Democratic victory (ensuring D victory is a tough thing to achieve in a lean Republican state with any strategy other than maximize competitiveness and work to run the table).


3. By all available indications, the legislature is not gerrymandered. Republicans throw around the figure that Republicans won contested races by a margin of 53.5% to 46.5%. What they omit is that Democrats contested more races than Republicans, but only won 44.3% of the contested races (races where they won roughly 2.2% more of the vote). In other words, far from being gerrymandered, Democrats underperformed their share of the vote in these contested races.


4. Contrary to Bob Brown's statement that reform on these issues would "require two-thirds majorities of the Legislature," either proposal could pass without ever being submitted to the Legislature through that proposal known as a Constitutional Initiative. This is a minor point, but a worthwhile one. If Bob Brown wants to see some reforms, maybe he should lead the way by forming a ballot issue committee and doing the hard work of organizing, rather than pointing the finger at the Legislature. Additionally, process reforms of the type Brown is considering are often the toughest initiatives to pass at the ballot box. Trusting to do it through referred amendments is probably an unsound strategy for success.


5. Bob Brown never actually proposes a replacement for the redistricting commission. He clearly implies that term limits ought to be repealed, which is simple enough. But the alternative of "redistricting commission" isn't simply "no commission" because someone has to draw those lines. Now, drawing those lines could be handled a bunch of ways. It could be a random judicial panel. It could be a legislative bill that follows the normal (and highly politicized) legislative process. It could simply be a four-member panel of two Dems and two Republicans (presuming our two party system maintains its stability. But all Bob Brown offers in terms of solutions is, "the Democrats [would have to vote] to restore balance to the redistricting process [so that the people] should be able to cast their votes in districts that are not contrived by an apportionment commission." Well, who should contrive the districts, Bob? We can't simply eliminate the old system. We need an alternative.

I think Bob Brown has a long history of noble service in Montana. As much as it may surprise people, I was quite happy to hear he was appointed a position at the Center for the Rocky Mountain West, which I thought was a great fit for a thoughtful senior statesman like Senator Brown. But this piece is disappointing.

But It Was in The Press Release!

by: Matt Singer

Tue May 29, 2007 at 10:36:07 AM MST

Basically, Koehler's argument was that the paper and Stimson oversimplified the explanation for the plant's closing. The paper's argument was that they accepted the word of Stimson and that unless Koehler had non-circumstantial evidence that they were lying, that he was barking up the wrong tree.

But the circumstantial evidence is pretty overwhelming. Supply of wood may be a problem for the wood products industry, but like any producer, the market for their materials -- which is horribly slumping -- is clearly an issue as well.

Now, if the argument is simply that they can't get wood cheaply enough, it's awful hard to describe it as either a problem of the price of the input or the going rate of the output. When a person drowns, is it because the water is too high or your legs are too short?

Full disclosure: I got the emailed back-and-forth from Koehler at the time it was going, but didn't publish it (I'm not even sure, based on my fuzzy memory right now, whether the version I got had all the emails currently posted at New West or even whether it was sent to me to be published). As is clear, I've made sure Matthew knows that diaries are encouraged at Left in the West. He's added his own voice to the community -- I hope it stays here. Finally, I saw this story yesterday and meant to highlight it, thanks go to the reader who emailed it to me this morning and reminded me how worthwhile of a read it is.

Woodruff: The Great Progressive?

by: Matthew Koehler

Fri May 04, 2007 at 10:17:55 AM MST

Like I have said, my computer is full of documented examples of where Woodruff (and most recently the Missoulian's environmental reporter) just flat out ignored important information while repeatedly blasting our organization in lead editorials or writing unflattering articles about us and our work. Some examples of information that was systematically ignored by the Missoulian are posted in the comments section here: (http://www.newwest.n...).

So, imagine my surprise when we learned last week that Steve Woodruff has been hired to be Deputy Director of a new progressive think-tank called Western Progress (http://www.westernpr...).  I don't think I'm going out on a limb to say that few people in the Montana progressive community would even remotely consider the Missoulian's editorial positions during Woodruff's tenure to represent progressive thoughts and ideals, not just on public land issues, but on a host of important issues facing our communities, state and region.

This week's Missoula Independent has a good look at issue here: (http://www.missoulan...).

In the article, Woodruff acknowledges that the Missoulian's editorials are "right of center on many issues."  On one hand he seems to distance himself from these editorials by saying he was simply the "voice of the Missoulian."  Yet, at the same time he refers to the 6,000 editorials he's written since 1988 as "my editorials."  So which is it? And what does this say about Woodruff's progressive credentials or the ethics of a "progressive" pumping out "right of center" editorials for the past 18 years?

In addition to the documented examples contained in the links above, I'll leave you with another classic run in with the Misleadian's editorial page editor.

It was April 2001 and I stopped by the Missoulian attempting to arrange an editorial board meeting to discuss the Free Trade of the Americas (FTAA).  This was a few weeks prior to secret, closed-door meetings in Quebec City, Canada by trade ministers from 34 nations from North, Central and South America and the Caribbean to expand NAFTA to the entire Western Hemisphere, affecting 755 million people. 

I told Steve that we'd like him to sit down and talk with U.S. Steelworkers and representatives of worker and community organizations from Mexico, Chile and Argentina that would be in Missoula for an FTAA Teach-In we were hosting.  Woodruff wasn't even willing to sit and listen to their perspectives about the FTAA and "free trade."  He told me flat out, in that special condesending way Woodruff is famous for, "Nothing your steel workers or other's tell us is going to change the fact that this paper is a staunch supporter of 'free trade."  I snapped back, "Even if that 'free trade' is on the backs of 13 year old girls working twelve hour days in factories in Central and South America?" and just walked out.

Woodruff clearly wasn't open to even listening to other perspectives from real people in this country and the Americas who were seeing, first hand, the inequalities of unbridled 'free trade."

That certainly didn't strike me as progressive.

Why's the Missoulian Misleading the Public? And Why it Matters to You

by: Matthew Koehler

Tue Apr 24, 2007 at 10:32:59 AM MST

The other day I was walking in downtown Missoula, Montana - enjoying the spring weather in the valley and fresh snow in the mountains - when a new ad campaign on the newspaper boxes of our daily paper, the Missoulian, caught my eye.  The ad features a businessman silhouetted against a sunrise with the words: "Start your day informed: Missoulian."  I got a good chuckle out of that.  However, a better reflection of our experience with the local daily would be "Start your day misinformed: Misleadian."

You might be asking, "I don't live in western Montana, why should I care about the Missoulian misleadian the public?" Well, if you care about public lands - and more specifically, our nation's 192 million acres of national forests - pay attention. 

It can easily be argued that Missoula, and the immediately surrounding area, has been the birthplace of important Forest Service polices since the agency was founded nearly 100 years ago. Immediately following the summer of 1910, when wildfires raged throughout Idaho and western Montana, the Forest Service adopted a policy to suppress every fire, a misguided policy that we're still living with today in most of our fire-dependent forests.

The National Forest Management Act, the keystone law dictating management of our federal forests, was passed by Congress as a direct result of the Bitterroot Clearcutting Controversy in the 1960s and 1970s.  And more recently, national forest policies such as the Roadlesss Rule, National Fire Plan and Healthy Forest Initiative originated from our region.  Throw in the fact that the current and past chief of the Forest Service, Gail Kimball and Dale Bosworth, respectively, came right out of Missoula and it's not hard to see the influence our town has had on public forests around the country.

Well, I've been working on forest and public land issues here in the Northern Rockies for the past 10 years and over that time I've had my share of opportunities to work with media outlets - large and small - all around the country, and even internationally. Without a doubt, the Missoulian has done a remarkable job - particularly over the past few years - of setting itself apart from the rest of the media world when it comes to consistently misleading and biased news coverage and editorializing on forest and public lands issues. 

This is seen in not only what the Missoulian chooses to cover in the paper, but also by what the Missoulian chooses not to put in the paper.

I can guarantee you that if our organization was to file a lawsuit against the Forest Service today for failure to follow the law or apply the best science when managing our public lands that the next day's paper would have a superficial news article about the lawsuit on the front page, above the fold.  This would likely be followed by an official editorial from the paper blasting us for being "obstructionists" and for filing "frivolous lawsuits."  How do I know this would happen? Because it's happened time and again over the years.

Yet, just last week it was reported by the Associated Press (http://seattletimes....) that the Bush Administration and timber industry appealed a federal court ruling that struck down the Bush Administration's gutting of the "Roadless Rule" in their attempt to allow logging and oil and gas drilling in some of the remaining roadless wildlands on our public lands. The article reported that the three-page notice of appeal signed by the U.S. Justice Department "gave no grounds or reasoning behind the appeal."

Did this AP article make it in the Missoulian? Nope.  Did the Missoulian write an editorial blasting the Bush Administration and timber industry for being "obstructionists" by filing a "frivolous lawsuit" that threatens 58 million acres of pristine, public wildlands, including over 6 million acres here in Montana? Nope. 

I guess the Missoulian never noticed the news flash (http://www.csmonitor...) that the Bush Administration is having a hard time following the law when it comes to logging, roadbuilding and oil and gas development on public lands, or anything to do with the environment for that matter.  Does this really come as a surprise to anyone?

While the term "frivolous lawsuit" is nonchalantly tossed around by the newspaper, elected officials, industry lobbyists and in a consistent flow of letters to the editor the public should know that the term "frivolous lawsuit" is a legal term and any attorney filing a "frivolous lawsuit" could be disbarred and seriously reprimanded. It's the equivalent of malpractice in the context of doctors and hospitals.  Yet, when was the last time you saw the Missoulian write an editorial accusing a local doctor's office of malpractice, much less making such an accusation without even contacting the doctor's office directly?  Of course that would never happen, yet our organization receives such treatment on a regular basis.

And if our lawsuits are "frivolous" in nature, then why does our organization win close to 80% of our lawsuits? Must be all those "Liberal Judges," right?  Hardly! We've had success in front of judges appointed by Bush, Reagan, Carter and Clinton and judges of all different shapes and sizes and interpretations of the law.  Clearly, to have such a successful track record, our lawsuits have merit.  It sure would be nice for the Missoulian to do an in-depth feature on why the Forest Service, especially under the Bush Administration, is having such a difficult time following the law.

But I won't be holding my breath.  I've resigned myself to the fact that the Missoulian might never take an in-depth, un-biased look at the issue. Perhaps this is due to the fact that, more than any other city in America, Missoula is a Forest Service company town. And apparently the Missoulian is comfortable regurgitating the government and timber industry's propaganda in much the same way that most of the state's papers did 100 years ago when Montana was ruled by the Copper Kings and Anaconda Copper Company.  For a clever look at this issue, check out this letter, Newspaper blames the messengers, which recently ran in the paper (http://www.missoulia...).

The Missoulian's misleading coverage and biased editorializing on forest and public lands issues has come to a head recently specifically in regards to an article and editorial which contained false information that our organization is getting rich filing lawsuits to make sure the government follows the law.

About a month ago I was called by Perry Backus, the Missoulian's environmental reporter, who said he was doing a story about how the Forest Service has problems finding money to complete restoration work.  I spoke with the reporter about the fact that Congress never provides the Forest Service with the money needed to do even a small portion of the needed restoration work and how our organization for years has urged Congress to increase funding for restoration on public lands.  I explained how the new funding mechanism of "stewardship contracting" also has problems because it only funds restoration work through timber sales and given that there is literally tens of billions of dollars of needed restoration work there's no way we can fund all that restoration work through more logging.

During the interview I also told the reporter about the problems the Bitterroot National Forest has had funding promised restoration work following the wildfires of 2000.  The problem resulted because the agency decided to take nearly $26 million in restoration funds set aside to complete this work and instead used those funds to cover costs associated with the 2002 wildfire season. To date, $7.1 million in restoration funds is still missing and the restoration work has still not been completed.  Right after the interview, I emailed the reporter with documented figures obtained from the Forest Service via the Freedom of Information Act to verify my statements (http://www.wildwesti...).

You can imagine my surprise when, on March 11, I opened up my front door and picked up the Missoulian and right on the front page was an article titled, Forest Service struggles to finish restoration (http://www.missoulia...).

Nothing in the article talked about how the Forest Service on the Bitterroot is still missing $7.1 million in restoration funding that the agency itself took from the forest. Apparently the paper felt that this fact has nothing to do with the Forest Service struggling to finish restoration work. 

Instead, the basic premise of the article was that the Forest Service struggles to complete restoration work solely because when the government is found guilty of violating the law they sometimes pay attorney's fees through the Equal Access to Justice Act (EAJA).  In the case of the Lolo Post Burn logging project, which the article zeroed in on, the government paid approximately $175,000 in legal fees to private law firms. It should be pointed out that nearly $40,000 in attorney fees were incurred directly because the timber industry appealed this case to the U.S. Supreme Court.  Fortunately, the Supreme Court - that bastion of "liberal judges" - refused to hear the case.

Nothing within EAJA mandates the Forest Service to take these attorney fees directly out of money set aside for restoration. If the agency did that in the Lolo Post Burn case (something which still isn't clear) it was 100% the agency's decision and nothing they were forced to do through EAJA.

It should also be pointed out that the reporter never once asked me any question about EAJA or attorney fees related to the Lolo Post Burn case.  Doesn't that seem strange? I mean, you have the executive director of the organization on the phone and you don't even ask him a question related to legal fees?  Yet that's basically the whole premise of the article.  For the same article the reporter interviewed a logging industry lobbyist who made completely false allegations that our organization gets to keep these fees to "keep their lights on" and "pay their mortgages."

Two days after the article ran, I wrote the Missoulian reporter an email and said, "I wish you would have asked me a specific question about fees related to our Post-Burn lawsuit, especially because the article includes Julia Altemus' mistaken notion that WildWest gets money from lawsuit winnings and because Supervisor Austin's implications that attorney's EAJA fees must come out of the Forest Service's restoration budget."  The email went on to state, "I also think it would be a good idea for you and others at the Missoulian to sit down with us to talk specifically about the legal and scientific issues that affect Forest Service projects as well."

I got no response, is pretty typical.  But the Missoulian wasn't done misleading. Next up would be a biased and misleading Missoulian editorial. And sure enough, like clockwork, on March 19 the Missoulian erroneously wrote, "the Equal Access to Justice Act has become a self-funding mechanism for environmental groups fundamentally opposed to prevailing national forest management direction."

That's simply not true. 100% of the legal fees that we have rightfully requested to be reimbursed through the Equal Access to Justice Act go to private laws firms, not into our organization's coffers as a "self-funding mechanism" as the Missoulian claimed. 

Did Steve Woodruff, the Missoulian's editorial page editor, bother to call to fact-check and get our side of the story? No. Did the Missoulian's environmental reporter who wrote the March 11th story bother to share my email on the subject with his colleague? Apparently not, or if it was shared it was ignored.  Has the Missoulian published a retraction or correction? No.

You could simply chalk this up to sloppy journalism, but only if these same type of shenanigans didn't happen so often.  Figuring that following an article and editorial, which contained false accusations about our organization, the Missoulian would at least afford our organization a column length piece on the opinion page I set to work writing.

On March 27 I submitted an 857-word piece ¬- well within the word limit that the Missoulian allows for such opinion pieces (http://www.wildwesti...). Twenty-one minutes later came the response from Steve Woodruff, "I can't accommodate you with a column-length piece?let me put you back to work condensing your thoughts to 300 words."

Say what? Apparently the Missoulian can "accommodate" itself to printing articles and editorials with completely false information accusing our organization of getting $110,000 in winnings from a lawsuit, but can't "accommodate" itself to printing a column-length piece in response.

But wait! It even gets more ridiculous because on April 8 the Missoulian did, in fact, run a column-length piece on EAJA, lawsuits and the Lolo Post Burn case.  However, it wasn't explaining our side of the story.  Rather, it was over 1,000 words of misrepresentations and mistruths from former Forest Service employee Mike Hillis of the Ecosystem Research Group (ERG).  ERG is the company that, behind closed doors and after the public comment period was already over, worked with the timber industry and self-selected conservation groups to re-write the Beaverhead-Deerlodge forest plan (http://www.democracy...=). Word on the street is that since the Forest Service has refused to accept this behind-closed-doors (and tardy) re-write that the timber industry and others are looking for congress to legislate the forest plan into law.

The next day the attorney who represented our organization on the Lolo Post Burn case, wrote the Missoulian asking, "Is it the Missoulian's policy to spread misinformation and prevent others from correcting it, other than by the occasional marginalized letter to the editor?  I have to confess, I've never encountered a newspaper before this one that was so intent on providing a forum for governmental lies and timber industry propaganda while at the same time refusing to provide equal space to those who would have the temerity to dispel the mistruths."

Our attorney then provided the Missoulian with a point by point response to the misrepresentations and mistruths in Hillis' piece and challenged the paper to print it as a column length piece (http://www.wildwesti...).

The paper ignored the request, except for this condescending comment from Woodruff:  "Tom: Thanks for finding time to offer feedback. - Steve."  All of this information was also provided to the Missoulian's publisher and editor, but we haven't heard back from anyone at the paper.

All we are asking for is a fair shake from the Missoulian and for the paper to present all the facts to the public in an unbiased way and certainly, when the paper prints information it knows to be false, that they correct the mistake rather than continuing to print false information.  It is my belief that when it comes to reporting and editorializing on forest and public land issues that the Missoulian is failing in this responsibility to the public and our community.  The account provided above is just one such example.  If our daily paper cannot take this responsibility seriously, perhaps they should at least consider a name change to the Misleadian.

Matthew Koehler is executive director of the WildWest Institute. You can learn more at http://www.wildwesti...

How Did I Miss It? Woodruff's Sunday Op-Ed in the Missoulian

by: Matt Singer

Tue Mar 06, 2007 at 10:59:00 AM MST

My guess is that the Republicans would have gotten more of what they wanted had they gone in quietly and played it smart.

Instead, they're trying to nuke the process. Either this session or next year, this is likely to blow up in their face.

I don't always agree with Woodruff, but that's all the more reason for the GOP to be nervous. If he's saying their barking up the wrong tree, they're probably getting into trouble with Montana voters who are quite different from me.