Group challenges all news media to be completely accurate in their reporting including the Washington State Port Orchard Independent.
Letter to the Editor,
I want to thank Heidi J. Stout, Staff Writer for the Washington State Port Orchard Independent for taking the time to call me for a phone interview about our September 25, 1998 News Release announcing Citizens For A Better America’s™ nationwide
endorsements for the November 3rd, 1998 elections. And I want to thank her for taking the time to write her article: “McMahan one of only five in nation to earn CBA’s support,” published on October 24, 1998.
I was glad Heidi J. Stout did a fairly good job in the article, but I was disappointed that some of the details were inaccurate and may confuse some readers. These few errors have made an excellent piece just another news report with inaccurate
information.
Most of the errors were small such as I, Robert Colaco am not the president of Citizens For A Better America ® I am the National Chairman. Also her statement that it is “run by volunteers and two staffers,” would lead one to believe we have two paid
staff people when the facts are no one is paid we have two full time volunteers, one of those being myself.
A bigger problem was the reference to our Candidate Questionnaire as an “essay test”, it is much tougher than an essay test. The candidates must answer whether they support or oppose an issue. There is no room to dodge the issue; a straightforward answer
is required. We do allow candidates to comment and it was these comments that Stout listed in her article. A candidate must not only answer every question correctly but also pass an intense personal interview.
Our questions cover a wide range of issues, more than is listed in the article and in that personal interview I read to the candidates what we would say about them in our standardized News Release announcing our endorsement of their candidacy. I ask the
candidates if we could say these things about them, if they respond positively we go forward with the interview. Five candidates have not made it past this step. We have found the most common voter comment to be, “They are all bad no one does what they
say anyway.” This is why we require our candidates to sign under penalty of perjury, so we do not waste our time on candidates who do not plan to keep their commitments anyway. I was glad to see that Stout included that information in a balanced and fair
way.
The most glaring inaccuracy was in Stout’s summary of the kind of candidates we endorse. She left off half the list. While, she got “CBA seeks candidates who are pro-life, pro-Second Amendment, and pro- traditional family,” she missed Pro America first,
pro USA sovereignty, pro constitutional. Many Candidates have not been endorsed because they were not with us on these issues as well. McMahan, like every candidate we endorse had to be with us on all the issues not just one or two.
We really do mean it when we say in our News Release announcing our endorsement that: “It is a rare and special candidate(s) that qualifies for our endorsements. So, we proudly put our seal of approval on the candidates on our ”Good Guys List"™, and we
wholeheartedly encourage the Citizens that can vote for them to do so with great enthusiasm and to do all they can to get these men and women elected to the office they are running for." As Stout indicated I am excited and thrilled that we have endorsed
McMahan.
These inaccuracies may seem small and some might think not worth noting but it is just these kinds of inaccuracies that cause people to lose confidence in the News Media and in the political process. We are not just politicking here, these men and w omen
are well read and knowledgeable about all of the various challenges facing America and they have put themselves on the line to do something about it. All they ask and all we ask for is fair and accurate reporting from the News Media. We were impressed
with Stout’s fairness but encourage her to be more accurate in the future.
Sincerely, Robert Colaco
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