A memo from the editor of USA Today to his staff is posted on the Poynter web site.
In the memo, Ken Paulson tells the staff that the paper should strive for uniqueness.

That unique content comes, to some extent, from scoops; the kind of exclusive news content that our industry has always chased. But it also means taking a fresh look at old subjects and approaching stories with a fresh eye.

In the past, I had joined the snobs who dismissed USA Today as the McNewspaper. I’m still a little frustrated that some of the paper’s stories leave me hungry for more. But no one can dismiss USA Today any longer. In fact, many times USAT trumps its highly respected competitors.

Which leads me to a couple of stories that I found compelling earlier this month. Indeed, the writers and editors took “a fresh look at old subjects and approach[ed the] stories with a fresh eye.” I had meant to comment on them before, but it’s never too late because this series of stories are a “must read” for anyone who cares about the “big issues” facing us in this election season.

One of the biggest issues is the deficit. Both candidates have blinders on about it. USAT puts the issues in stark and accessible terms.

A USA TODAY analysis found that the nation’s hidden debt — Americans’ obligation today as taxpayers — is more than five times the $9.5 trillion they owe on mortgages, car loans, credit cards and other personal debt.

This hidden debt equals $473,456 per household, dwarfing the $84,454 each household owes in personal debt.

But it’s really not our debt.

“The baby boomers and the Greatest Generation are delivering an economic disaster to their children,” says Laurence Kotlikoff, a Boston University economist and co-author of The Coming Generational Storm, a book about the national debt. “We should be ashamed of ourselves.”

Here’s what it would take to “pay the obligations of federal, state and local government:”

*All federal taxes would have to double immediately and permanently. A household earning $100,000 a year would see its federal taxes double from an average of about $20,000 to $40,000 a year. All state taxes would have to increase 20% immediately and permanently.

*Or, benefits for Social Security, Medicare and government pensions would have to be slashed in half immediately and permanently. Social Security checks would be cut from an average of $1,500 per month for couples to $750. Military pensions would drop from an average of $1,782 per month to $891. Medicare spending would fall from $7,500 to $3,750 annually per senior. The Medicare prescription-drug benefit enacted last year would be canceled.

*Or, a combination of tax hikes and benefit cuts — such as a 50% increase in taxes and a 25% reduction in benefits — would avoid the extremes but still require painful changes that are outside the scope of today’s political debate. Savings also could come in the form of price controls on prescription drugs, raising retirement ages and limiting benefits to the affluent.

One issue that has intrigued me is the history of social security. In his message to the Congress in 1934, FDR said “[W]e are compelled to employ the active interest of the Nation as a whole through government in order to encourage a greater security for each individual who composes it . . .”

That sounds to me that, as the USAT article states, “Social Security was created in 1935 to help the elderly avoid poverty during the Great Depression.” “Avoid poverty” are the key words for me. But is that true? Was it sold as help for the indigent or was it an entitlement?

Maybe no one ever thought about it because “[w]hen the government set 65 as the retirement age in the 1930s, most people didn’t live that long. But life expectancy for women has increased from 66 to 80 since 1940 and for men from 61 to 75.”

Should Social Security and Medicare be means tested? The next day’s USAT article briefly (maybe USAT falls victim to its brevity here) explores the alternatives.

All in all, the articles and sidebars are worth reading. No, they’re required reading, making USAT no more a McNewspaper but often an accessible, thorough and compelling read.

My post earlier today cites an article in The Washington Post about Pa. workers getting laid off. Several of them apparently tell The Post that “they do not know a single former Techneglas employee who is planning to vote for Bush.”

Well that may be true for a lot of Quaker staters.

Nothing can destroy a family more than to learn that their jobs and pensions are gone. Enron was the most egregious example recently. The Enron leadership lied about the soundness of the employee’s investment. But more Americans are learning that they can lose their pensions in other ways.

The Washington Post has had a couple of stories recently that should be read by anyone who thinks their company’s promise to pay their pensions is worth the paper it’s written on. Fifty-two year old Steve Derebey thought he would soon retire on a $66,000 a year pension.

But last month, in a Chicago bankruptcy court, United Airlines almost certainly changed the rest of the Derebeys’ life, warning that it will likely dump its pension plan onto the federal government. Under the rules of the federal Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp. (PBGC), Derebey would be left with $22,000 a year, a third of his expected benefit. Now, he and his wife are hastily planning a second career, a long one, they say, maybe running their own public relations shop in Seattle.

There are other examples in this story that are heartbreaking. Read the story closely, because not only was Derebey’s pension severely cut, but you may wind up paying for it.

Then today, The Post tells of the Pennsylvania workers who just lost their job because the plant in their town closed its doors but came away with a viable business – in Taiwan.

Techneglas Inc., which made glass for television sets, shut down in August and filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. With that announcement, nearly 700 people here who had devoted decades to a factory that consumed their holidays and weekends and babies’ growing years were knocked off their footing in the nation’s middle class. They made good wages — as much as $21 an hour — that are not easy to replace, and the fate of their pensions and health care coverage is in doubt.

… In announcing that it was closing, Techneglas, a unit of Nippon Electric Glass Co. of Japan, said it will open a plant in Taiwan and expand production in South Korea and Japan. It blamed overseas competition and declining demand for closings that threw out of work its 670 employees in northeastern Pennsylvania, plus 382 in Columbus, Ohio.

… Techneglas has said it does not have the money to pay employees the pensions they are due….

Again, we – and our children – will likely get the bill and workers will get a fraction of what they were promised.

The Washington Post has a story on how Florida Republicans are trying to keep Demoicrats from voting. The same is happening nationwide. Nevada GOP supporters are actually throwing away registrations of those they believe are Democrats.

Employees of a private voter registration company allege that hundreds, perhaps thousands of voters who may think they are registered will be rudely surprised on election day. The company claims hundreds of registration forms were thrown in the trash.

Anyone who has recently registered or re-registered to vote outside a mall or grocery store or even government building may be affected.

The I-Team has obtained information about an alleged widespread pattern of potential registration fraud aimed at democrats. Thee focus of the story is a private registration company called Voters Outreach of America, AKA America Votes.

The out-of-state firm has been in Las Vegas for the past few months, registering voters. It employed up to 300 part-time workers and collected hundreds of registrations per day, but former employees of the company say that Voters Outreach of America only wanted Republican registrations.

Just not for Americans. Click here and scroll down to “Campaign Security Screening Crowds for Doubters.”

According to The Washington Post, 94 Palestinians and five Israelis have been killed since the Israel entered the Gaza Strip in the past two weeks. This doesn’t include the people killed in the bombing of an Egyptian resort hotel yesterday.

How many people died in that blast is unclear. The print edition of The Post puts the death toll at 35. But the story on the paper’s web site, updated at 8:00 this morning, claims “at least 20” dead.

The print story was front page all across the top page of the paper with a photo, prime newspaper real estate. Other stories about the conflict may have missed the reader’s attention over the past two week:

Israeli Attacks Kill 11 Palestinian Fighters

10 More Palestinians Killed in Gaza Blitz

19 Palestinians Killed in Gaza

7 Palestinians Killed in Spate Of Violence

Why did some of you miss these stories? Because they were, respectively, on pages A26, A14, A22 and A20.

These four stories alone add up to 47 Palestinians killed while 20 people, most presumed to be Israelis, were killed yesterday and five others over the past two weeks. And as noted, The Post puts the two week death toll at 94 Palestinians killed. Yet, The Post today follows its familiar pattern of giving prominent play to attacks that kill Israelis while burying stories about Palestinians killed in the conflict. That hardly seems balanced coverage.

When I wrote earlier this year about this issue, I concluded, “Let’s see where the next suicide attack story is placed.” Now we know.

The Washington Post continues its “For the Record” series as well as its habit of misleading headlines in an effort to appear balanced.

Today’s article about the charges John Edwards made in the debate against Dick Cheney is headlined “Halliburton Charges Jumbled by Edwards And Denied by Cheney.” The lede and second graph:

In the debate with Vice President Cheney on Tuesday, Sen. John Edwards referred to allegations of wrongdoing by Halliburton Corp. several times and raised questions about the Bush administration’s handling of government contracting in Iraq.

But in doing so, Edwards occasionally jumbled or oversimplified the complex details of the company’s role as a contractor and of its ties to Cheney, who served as Halliburton’s chief executive from 1995 to 2000.

But then the 559-word article charges only that

the Democrat conflated two contracts, the second of which is a troop support arrangement awarded to Halliburton before the war, after a competition. That contract helped make Halliburton the top government contractor in Iraq. The Pentagon has considered — but has not acted on — several suggestions from auditors to withhold 15 percent of future payments because of questions about the company’s billing.

The rest of the article essentially confirms Edwards’ charges are accurate.

In fact, next to this article is another about Cheney giving the wrong web address for Fact Check, a non-partisan web site that reviews the accuracy of political charges.

Cheney “wrongly implied that we had rebutted allegations Edwards was making about what Cheney had done as chief executive officer of Halliburton,” the Annenberg site wrote in a posting yesterday. “In fact, we did post an article pointing out that Cheney hasn’t profited personally while in office from Halliburton’s Iraq contracts, as falsely implied by a Kerry TV ad. But Edwards was talking about Cheney’s responsibility for earlier Halliburton troubles. And in fact, Edwards was mostly right.”

Why then do we have a headline that focuses on one “jumbled” charge?

A better, though not perfect, approach is Jim VandeHei’s in his front page story about Bush’s speech yesterday.

The story is flawed in two ways: The headline, “Bush: Kerry Would ‘Weaken’ U.S.” is simply Bush’s talking point. It’s the message Bush wants to send, and thanks to The Post, it is duly delivered in 32-point type. The second problem is that the truth is not discussed until deep in the story. But when it is, it’s precise.

While Kerry voted against the 1991 Gulf War and many defense bills, he has supported numerous increases in defense spending and voted for multilateral action in Kosovo, Bosnia and Somalia, as well as for the 2002 Iraq war resolution.

Bush reached back to comments from the early 1970s to portray Kerry as someone who would bow to international pressure and require a “global test” before protecting the nation. In doing so, he misrepresented Kerry’s stated position: the Democratic nominee has repeatedly said he would consult with but never allow other nations to veto U.S. actions.

…Many of Bush’s charges were misleading, including that Kerry would raise taxes on all Americans; Kerry has said he would raise taxes for those making more than $200,000 a year but reduce them for most everyone else, including corporations. Bush also said that Kerry is planning a move toward “Clinton care,” a reference to President Bill Clinton’s failed attempt to create a health care system with more government funding; Kerry would dramatically expand the federal health care system, but the system would rely mainly on private companies to provide coverage and care. Bush warned of consumers facing limited choices and “rationed care,” neither of which Kerry advocates.

Finally, Bush said Kerry would increase spending by $2 trillion or more. “That’s a lot of money — even for a senator from Massachusetts,” Bush said, to thunderous applause and laughter, repeating Cheney’s exact words from the night before. What he did not mention is that budget experts say the president has proposed even more additional spending, perhaps $3 trillion.

Maybe a better headline would have been “Bush Jumbles Charges Against Kerry.” The lede could then reflect that instead of Bush’s talking points.

I’m on the road for a couple of days and won’t b able to post much. Back Weds.

AP is reporting that Kerry’s debate performance might have moved the needle.

Businesswoman Marilyn Morrison of San Marcos, Calif., leans toward Bush, but after the 57-year-old Republican watched the debate, she turned to her Democratic husband and said, “If Kerry won, I could live with it.”

Morrison, who voted for Bush in 2000, says she never would have said that before watching the presidential debate, which focused on foreign policy.

Persuadable voters tended to credit Kerry with doing a better job in the debate. CBS News interviewed a nationally representative sample of 200 persuadable — or uncommitted — voters on Thursday night. Those voters said Kerry did a better job in the debate by 43 percent to 28 percent, with the remainder saying it was a tie.

More than half, 53 percent, said they had a more favorable view of Kerry after the debate….

Now here’s the kicker: “…22 percent said their view of Bush improved.”

Wonder what they must have thought of the guy beforehand? Fortunately, the debate rules didn’t allow the candidates to walk around much less chew gum.