"Transparency", it is the buzz word of the times for every politician and CEO. Our elected officials publicly object to outrageous CEO salaries, "golden parachutes" for corporate executives, and demand accounting transparency from every organization (both public and private). It is interesting why the taxpayer expenses generated by their business travel should not be subject to the same public scrutiny. It is even more interesting how our newspapers don't seem to want us to have any relavant facts either.
Last year, public opinion and political leaders forced Fortune 500 CEO's, and executives to sell private jets, stop chartering private flights, and reduce their standard of travel to first class public transportation. Companies accepting taxpayer money from the government had to demonstrate that they were spending our money appropriately. When Governor Perry took a recent trip to Israel, the Austin American Statesman quickly pointed out the lack of transparency there is for the travel costs generated by our public officials. The article, "Perry frequent traveler in 2009", begs the question, are we getting the full story here?
The truth is that we aren't getting any story at all. What has happened to investigative reporting in this country? Newspapers around the country want to know why their subscription rates are dropping exponentially. It is because they publish nothing worth reading. There are thousands of relavant issues to report in this country, but the newspapers, and news sources we count on to keep us informed, offer no usable information.
The article referenced above states, "Perry's travels — a meeting with film executives in Los Angeles, a gathering with GOP leaders in Aspen, Colo., a visit to troops in Iraq and Afghanistan — were outlined in interviews with his aides and in documents examined by The Associated Press. But a detailed financial accounting of each trip is not easily accessible, and is in some cases off limits."
After reading this, my only questions are:
1. Has it become proper english to begin a sentence with the word "But"? (9 out of 10 2nd graders say.... absolutely not)
2. What was left out of this statement, and conveniently replaced with the symbol "-"?
3. What would prevent the newspaper from showing us the documents they reviewed?
4. What details were obtained, and what information was off limits to the reporters? It certainly appears that all relavant information is off limits to readers.
The first step toward "transparency" is for us all to renew our expectations for the News, and recreate a market demand for the relavant facts, and the whole truth.
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