Editorial: When the truth hurts

Friday, May 21, 2004 | 5:42 a.m.

WEEKEND EDITION

May 22 - 23, 2004

Two weeks ago a story in the Las Vegas Sun looked at what impact new state taxes -- enacted to pay for essential government services stretched to the breaking point by explosive population growth -- were having on Nevada's economy. Despite dire predictions made a year ago by conservative legislators and the Las Vegas Review-Journal that new taxes would hurt our economy, the Sun reported that the economy actually is booming today. Last Sunday, in response, a Review-Journal editorial claimed the Sun's story was "advocacy journalism."

The Review-Journal does know something about advocacy journalism, since that paper routinely slants its news coverage without admitting it, but the reality is that the Sun's story was a straightforward, fact-based presentation that examined leading economic indicators that provide signs of the economy's health. The story found that employment, business start-ups and home construction are all on the upswing. Consumers aren't feeling the pinch, either, as evidenced by growing sales tax collections. (If there is an ominous sign for the economy, it has nothing to do with taxes -- it's an increase in inflation exacerbated by skyrocketing gasoline prices.)

So an embarrassed Review-Journal tried to shoot the messenger instead of honestly addressing the points made in the Sun's story. Of course, discrediting something is tough when the facts aren't on your side. For those readers able to get past the Review-Journal's personal attacks against the Sun that dominated most of the editorial, they would have found buried at the bottom of the commentary a grudging acknowledgement that, yes, "things are going well" for the economy. We couldn't have said it better ourselves, which makes the Review-Journal's shrill attempt at a rebuttal all the more lame.