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Maui%20County
Balance Shmalance
Is

by By Anthony Pignataro

April 14, 2005

One of the hallmarks of modern, mainstream journalism is the newspaper editorial. American dailies like the

Washington Post

,

Chicago Tribune

and even our own

Maui News

 tell us that their news is objective—so thoroughly fact-based that all opinion must be reserved for a special section called “Opinion.”



 This wouldn’t be such a bad system—if the newspapers actually expressed real opinions in their “Opinion” sections. The reality is that the big dailies usually waste space in their editorials summing the various points of view on a given issue, then ending by appealing for calm or calling for “balance.”



 At first glance,

The Maui News

’ April 7, 2005 editorial “Evolution Needs Balance” seems to be exactly that kind of milquetoast blather. Never mentioning a specific issue—it could easily refer to the current fight over requiring a full environmental review of the proposed Superferry linking Maui to Oahu—the piece begins with a nostalgic recalling of the days when Maui was “much smaller” and complaints “tended to be muttered rather than shouted.”



But then the editorial tone shifts, seemingly attacking the concept of suing the government to stop something seen as unjust or the idea of opposition itself. It’s hard to tell, since the author masks real opinion behind subtlety and abstract verbiage.



“It seems that hardly a week goes by that some group of individuals, organized or otherwise, is objecting to some project, program or new business enterprise,” read the editorial. “When government officials seem unresponsive, critics of proposals go to court and whatever is being opposed grinds to a halt.”



The editorial ends with the classic call for balance, though by now the author is using such loaded language that a pro-development bias is obvious.



 “Someone needs to keep an eye on the doings of tunnel-vision bureaucrats and those focused on profits only, but there needs to be a rational balance between the anything-goes elements in the islands and the citizens against virtually everything if Maui is going to evolve in any rational way,” notes the

News

 in the classic mainstream but-on-this-hand fashion.



Phrases like “citizens against virtually everything” and “whatever is being opposed grinds to a halt” really show how off-balance the editorial truly is. The

News

 could simply have been upfront and written that “people should just accept what the government tells them and shut up,” but how many of its readers sipping their morning coffee would have nodded in agreement?



Deriding environmentalists and conservationists as mere obstructionists “against” proposals and “evolution” is an old one. In John McPhee’s 1971 book

Encounters with the Archdruid

, he recounts an appearance the fiery, radical conservationist David Brower made before an audience.



“I hate all dams, large and small,” McPhee quotes Brower as saying.



“Why are you conservationists always against things?” a critic from the audience asked.



Instead of defending his opposition, Brower flipped the debate on its head.



“If you are against something, you are for something,” Brower said. “If you are against a dam, you are for a river.”



In Brower’s world, and that of most conservationists, it’s the homebuilder, the runway-paver and the harbor-dredger who stands “against” nature. For them, progress is not the natural state of affairs, but an unrelenting opposition to everything they hold dear and important.



Perhaps someday

The Maui News

will understand that.

MTW