Orson Scott Card's Open Letter to Journalists

Orson Scott Card recently published an open letter to journalists in the Rhino Times, a Greensboro , NC publication (click here to read the full letter). In the letter, Card claims that journalists in the mainstream media have been irresponsible in their reporting of the housing/credit crisis. He contends that their personal and organizational (left-wing) political views have clouded their ability to report objectively on this crisis and that they have failed the American public. Card believes the blame for this crisis falls squarely on the Democratic party and their zeal for expanding Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae's role in sub prime mortgages as well as their failure to pass Republican sponsored legislation to regulate the industry. According to Card, this information is not being reported properly to the public. "I have no doubt that if these facts had pointed to the Republican Party or to John McCain as the guilty parties, you would be treating it as a vast scandal. "Housing-gate," no doubt. Or "Fannie-gate." Instead, it was Senator Christopher Dodd and Congressman Barney Frank, both Democrats, who denied that there were any problems, who refused Bush administration requests to set up a regulatory agency to watch over Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and who were still pushing for these agencies to go even further in promoting sub-prime mortgage loans almost up to the minute they failed"

Although the letter is creating a lot of buzz on the internet and blogosphere, it isn't some wild new revelation; it's been the battle cry of nearly all right-wing members of the media before him. Rush Limbaugh (if you can call him a member of the media) complains on a daily basis about the liberal bias of all media outlets (except Fox News of course); and the Democratic slant of the New York Times is accepted and often joked about by politicians on either side of the spectrum.

In simplifying this extremely large and complicated issue down to the failure of one political party to pass legislation, Card is esstentially doing just what he is complaining about. From a journalistic standpoint, for Orson Scott Card to claim that he knows who is to blame for this mess is just as irresponsible. I don't know much about his background but I'm sure he doesn't hold a PhD in economics or finance. Sure, the issues he discusses most certainly worthy of some of the blame but this crisis is WAY too large to to pin on once specific group or event. I think it is irresponible for anyone to claim at this point that they know axactly why this is happening because the truth is, we may not know the reality of our current situation or how we got here for quite some time.

Let me be clear, I am not in disagreement with Card, his points ARE valid. But this issue is neither Republican or Democrat; the scope is so much greater than that. I have yet to hear the media come out strongly against the millions of irresponsible Americans (from both parties I'm sure) who decided they were going to buy a home they couldn't afford with a mortgage that didn't make sense to them. After all, if we have to place the blame on someone, aren't they to blame? The American public was making the bad decisions in the first place, Fannie and Freddie just financed those bad decisions.

Certainly the media has it's failures but complaining about it isn't going to make it better. We're in the midst of revolutionary changes in the way people get their information. The popularity of Orson Scott Card's letter is proof of that. Every person has a voice now to the point that they want to use it and every person has access to the "truth" to the point that they want to serch for it. Complaining about the problem doesn't solve it, putting the truth as you know it out there for the world to find does.