| Last week in this space, I published my tenth annual list of the most overhyped and underreported stories of the year. It was a necessarily incomplete list, due both to space limitations and to the human brain's endless capacity for blocking out bad news. In this case, that means both news that was depressing and news that was an embarrassment (or should have been) to the poor journalists required to cover it. And, so, I invited readers to send in your own suggestions of stories I should have included but didn't. The response was both overwhelming and quite astute. And, so, in no particular order, here are some of your letters. Thanks for writing! Hi, Geov, Thanks for your piece on hype and underreporting. I have a couple of things to add in the latter category: The crackdown on immigrants -- for example, National Guard troops on the US/Mexico border, the increase in round-ups and deportations and increase in imprisonment. Near Austin, for example, there is a detention center that is keeping families in jail cells, if you can imagine. GI resistance, especially the case of Ehren Watada. I gather he has gotten some good coverage by the mainstream press in the Seattle area, but coverage is not great elsewhere in the country. So many of us say the invasion of Iraq was illegal, but he is the one "putting the war on trial" through his personal risk. And, as you know, there are other soldiers really risking a lot to speak out. It's good to read your writings -- take care up there. -- Susan Van Haitsma, Austin TX Good afternoon Mr. Parrish, As a Department of Defense worker my nomination for the most underreported story for 2006, also probably 2004 and 2005, is the National Security Personnel System. This is the new personnel system that is being foisted on us DoD workers to replace the Civil Service rules. We have been told that they need the new system to allow them the flexibility to meet the demands of a rapidly changing defense environment but when you look at the details it becomes obvious that what they want to do is crush the unions and disempower the workers. According to the plan, management will decide if you can have a union, who can join the union, what the union can negotiate and, here's the kicker, they will not be bound by any agreement they make with a union. Disciplinary matters will be decided by a labor board made up of members appointed by the Secretary of Defense and there is only one punishment in disciplinary matters, dismissal. If you should be dismissed, you can appeal your dismissal to the Secretary of Defense, period. When the Department of Homeland Security was created they tried to set up a similar system and now the administration is talking about a virtually identical system for the rest of the government. They say that they needed these reforms to move the federal work force into the twenty-first century. What these rules would actually do is push us back into the nineteenth. -- Name withheld by request Geov, Always enjoy your end of the year overhyped and under reported stories. I didn't know about the impact of the permafrost melting -- the methane gas release. A vicious cycle, indeed. I thought the "bird flu pandemic" was overhyped. And any story on shark attacks, Paris Hilton, and plunging buses. Plunging buses, aging baby boomers, the crippled Three Mile Island nuclear power plant, and the heavily fortified Green Zone seem to be reusable phrases recycled by the lazy MSM. And, a late contender for overhyped: The Rosie O'Donnell/Donald Trump feud pushes aside the news that the Marine Corps has charged a squad leader in Haditha massacre. -- -Pete Bureau, Spotsylvania VA Every time I hear the phrase "heavily fortified Green Zone," I think of Thunderbird wine... Another overhyped story: Anything to do with Brad Pitt. -- Miriam Weiss, Astoria NY A good list -- and I noticed how hard it was to bring it to a close -- but you missed four significant items 1. The totally irrelevant 109th Congress, which should/could have been the people's ultimate bulwark (media and the courts having failed us) against the "Administrative coup" that has de-Constitutionized the country, simply by their failure to take a stand for the balance of power. In failing its responsibility, Congress blew out any remaining hope that the 215-year old Constitution could deal with today's world: a major story. 2. What scarily has already begun to look like an irrelevant 110th Congress, by its removal of EVEN THE THREAT of impeachment "from the table." This was an advance notice that politics is now accepted as more important than principle, as well as being an outright encouragement for the Bush administration to continue their criminal and predacious activity. It has revoked or dimmed the value of the election, for many. 3. The growing loss of jobs to overseas hiring, which is a frontal attack on employee well-being, both as to income and job security. There appears to be no end in sight, to this process. It works hand in hand with the destruction of the union movement and the loss of retirement security, in hollowing out the job security that was so strong, for so many decades since the Depression, in this country. 4. The growing problem of homelessness, which -in only 25 years- has come to be an accepted element in American life, and a factor that further forces workers to accept whatever conditions their employers choose to lay on them. -- Irv Thomas The most underreported story is that of American poverty -- the masses that have fallen below "working class America." The underemployed, those in virtual indentured servitude (be it via workfare labor, prison labor, etc.), as well as those who are unable to work due to illness, circumstances, etc. And heaven forbid, we should discuss the impact of shredding the social safety net via welfare repeal, how this has profited corporations, the rises in hunger and homelessness...and the fact that over the past ten years, life expectancy for America's poor has been on a free-fall, sinking well below that of more modern nations. -- D.H. Fabian I did mention class (including poverty, homelessness, and hunger) as an underreported story, but this is much more specific. Thanks. And Irv, your list is great. Geov, Given the transformation of both Russia's political system toward authoritarianism and the United States trend toward trading freedoms for a false sense of security, the rapid transformation of the world toward authoritarianism could qualify as one of the biggest under-reported stories of 2006. -- Kevin Cloyd, Silver Lake IN Along those lines, one I almost included and thought someone else would mention –- but nobody did –- was the Bush White House's complicity in helping than P.A.N., Mexico's conservative ruling party, to steal a close presidential race in Mexico that would have otherwise sealed the domination of left-leaning governments throughout Latin America. There were plenty more letters -– but you, dear readers, get the idea. It's all a testimony to how badly U.S. corporate media is failing us -- but also to how many other, better options now exist. Keep reading sites like this one, seek out multiple and alterative viewpoints, and educate yourself and the people you know! That's the first step to reclaiming our democracy in 2007. Happy New Year!  See more in the Geov Parrish archives. | 
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