ROGERS: ‘Slash-and-burn’ journalism undermines issues

In our current era of "slash and burn" editorial journalism, it seems profits and ratings trump reason. Far too many editorial journalists have forgotten or outright ignore journalistic integrity, gumshoe investigative reporting and the promises media has made its citizens.

Politics is an institutionalized practice of concession and mediation. In a complex society like ours, no one can enter the political arena and expect to win. One can only mitigate degrees of losing, as constituents press legislators, and legislators press each other.

The State of Arizona and its ongoing legal battle surrounding equal education opportunities and English Language Learner education is a perfect example. The citizens of Arizona needed commentary they could trust to help them navigate a difficult, decades-long legal issue, but that isn't what they got.

Editorial journalist Doug MacEachern of The Arizona Republic newspaper started a fire with his Sept. 19 column "Tucson schools create race-based system of discipline."

Since its publication, the column has appeared in the conservative and liberal blogosphere. Even on Facebook, the column garnered a following of readers who claim in public forums the disciplinary issues raised in the Tucson Unified School District's plan are part of a liberal "social engineering" racial agenda. Citing the Transformative Education summer seminar, an annual institute hosted by what MacEachern termed "TUSD's amply funded Mexican/American raza-studies program," MacEachern foists upon his readers the rhetorical strategy of sarcasm and ridicule, a racially charged appeal to pathos. He claims the institute's seminar was fun because there was "so much racial bitterness to obsess over."

MacEachern is a white middle-aged man working for a conservative-leaning newspaper. It's difficult to ignore this facet of his ethos, decorum and use of language when his writing seems to pander to those who choose to exercise First Amendment rights through autonomous online hate speech or the proliferation of racial stereotypes.

MacEachern failed to present TUSD's policy as what it is: an attempt to comply with a federal court ruling and the Equal Education Opportunity Act of 1974, Congress' response to President Richard Nixon's call in 1972 that education be available to every student equally, even the poor and minorities.

In short, apart from sounding off like a guy who'd love to spoon with Glenn Beck and fork around with CNN's Lou Dobbs, he jabs a sharp knife into the heart of journalistic integrity.

MacEachern fails to illuminate the larger issue of equal opportunity education, a battle that has brought Arizona a considerable amount of federal attention, including a slip brief from the U.S. Supreme Court in June 2009.

Legal wrangling began in 1992, with Flores v. Arizona, a suit filed on behalf of students learning in Nogales, Ariz., who claimed they weren't receiving equitable education in accordance with federal law. The case escalated in 2000 when a 9th Circuit Federal Appellate judge ruled that the state had not complied with the Equal Education Opportunities Act of 1974 and had failed to provide adequate resources for ELL students.

In 2005, Arizona was again ruled short of compliance, and millions of federal dollars promised to the state for infrastructural projects were at risk if the state did not prove it had made considerable progress in its effort to satisfy judgment.

That's when all hell broke loose for Arizona, when policy wonks and editorial journalists turned the issue, compliance with federal education law and a federal court judgment, into a slash-and-burn battle about race and immigration.