jbNet: Quotes and Commentaries

I haven't heard a single word from them about energy efficiency. Our nation's competitive advantage is technology, not oil reserves, so we ought be using that technology to make our society more efficient.

— Rep. Edward J. Markey (D-Massachusetts) in a New York Times story about the Bush administration's blaming energy problems on environmental regulations.

Monday, March 26, 2001

When there's work to be done, I would rather see my church come up with the money and the people to do it. If we rely on the government, it compromises our witness.

— Rev. Robert D. Fain, in a New York Times story, on why he's wary of President Bush's plan to funnel federal money through faith-based organizations to work on social causes. Rev. Fain serves at the Church of the Good Shepherd in Augusta, Ga.

I believe that God is getting ready to redistribute the wealth to our economically hurting communities, and I am just grateful to President Bush.

— Rev. Sam Davis in a New York Times story on why he supports the president's plan to distribute federal money to faith-based organizations. Davis is the pastor of Beulah Grove Baptist Church in Augusta, Ga.

It really is an amazing turn of events to see the story go from "untrue conclusions" to "fully supported by conventional sources." This just adds to the surrealism of the whole affair.

— Larry Birns, in a Ceveland Plain Dealer story about Gannett's legal wrangling with the former editor of the Cincinnati Enquirer over the Chiquita investigation. In his lawsuit, the editor claimed, and Gannett agreed, that the retracted stories were fully supported without stolen voice-mail messages. Birns -- director to the Council on Hemispheric Affairs, a Washington, D.C., group specializing in Latin American issues -- worked with the Enquirer when it prepared the series.

Monday, March 19, 2001

Wall Street was excited about technology start-ups, even though they seldom could produce profits. Wall Street was excited about television, even though the audience share for prime-time programming and local news has been eroding at a faster pace than the decline in newspaper circulation. When it comes to newspapers, which are among the most profitable businesses in the country, Wall Street wants to see growth--or cost-cutting.

— Tim Jones, the Chicago Tribune's media writer in an article about the economics behind the decision to change the page size and redesign the paper.

Saturday, March 17, 2001

You may recall a time when sportscasters delivered scores without punch lines, called home runs without tagging on catch phrases and wrote copy without first consulting a thesaurus and a rhyming dictionary. But after Mr. Olbermann and his former ESPN co-conspirator Dan Patrick did their thing, every sportscaster born after the Big Red Machine -- and a depressing number of older converts as well -- has tried to parrot their SportsCenter shtick, devolving the American sportscast into something resembling an open-mike night for Newhouse grads at the Funny Bone.

— Jason Gay writing in The New York Observer

Tuesday, March 13, 2001

By failing to curb carbon dioxide pollution, President Bush is betraying his pledge to the American people and taking a dive on a crisis with disastrous consequences. When big business banged on the White House door, President Bush made a policy u-turn that will haunt our children.

— Carl Pope, executive director of the Sierra Club, on Bush's decision to reverse a campaign pledge to regulate emissions of four main pollutants and a cause of global warming.

They don't want to do anything that will set the environmentalists off. We've got to talk to the Bush administration and let them know that the political wind blows our way, too.

— John Grasser, a spokesman for the National Mining Association, in a New York Times story on the Bush administration's support for some regulations that industry groups thought might be overturned.

Monday, March 05, 2001

There are few journalistic endeavors more laudable than holding government to the highest standards of performance, rather than simply grading the incumbent administration on its public-relations skills. But if you want more serious reporting, you have to reward it.

— Walter Shapiro, a columnist for USA Today, as part of a roundtable in the Washington Monthly.