Posted by Vince Wadhwani on Sep 13, 2006

Journalism is a profession. The Press has been sometimes referred to as the 4th branch of government due to the amazing influence they have over the political process. Recently, the press used this power on two occasions. First, by ignoring Marie Johns' campaign completely instead choosing to name only Fenty, Cropp, and 'other candidates'. (Do they think Americans can't process more than 2 choices? Can we?)

Then yesterday, Marketplace conducted an 'interview' with Joseph Vranich about a new Amtrak CEO being hired. Coincidentally Mr. Vranich has a new book out calling for the dismantling of Amtrak. Again, coincidentally he is pushing his own private rail initiative.

Perhaps most disappointing is that even though the perspective of this person was well known through his writings, Marketplace did not even both to invite somebody who might have a different viewpoint. The result was not lies, but simply a slanting of the truth by means of glaring omissions. Things that could easily have been cleared up had a neutral expert been present.

I wrote this letter to Marketplace to express my feelings. I invite you all to read it here:

I am writing to express my disappointment with the segment you aired on Amtrak yesterday. While I am by no means an expert on our domestic rail service, I do know that by comparison to our European neighbors, $35 billion over 35 years is not a lot of money. There is no rail service anywhere in the world that does not rely on government subsidies and the figure given, while meant to make Americans groan with thoughts of wasted money, in actuality does little more than cover the salaries and interest payments Amtrak is forced to make each year. With no money to invest except for the most urgent maintenance, is it any surprise our rail system is in such bad shape?

Do airlines pay for their own airports? Do car owners pay for their own roads? Amtrak does not get use of the rails for free. (In fact, if I recall the tax on fuel for those trains goes to the highway fund.) Because of these subsidies, airlines and car manufacturers generate enough revenue to heavily lobby Congress and local politicians each year, managing to stymy rail development nationwide. The lure of gaining campaign contributions from these big corporate entities is too great for our Congress to resist, so they opt to cripple Amtrak and keep passengers in cars and planes instead of trains.

The result of this negligence has been urban sprawl, as airports and roads push our citizens further out from the city center, and pollution as we get in SUV's instead of high speed trains.

You do all of us a disservice by only presenting one side of the story. Your thinly veiled PR story for Joseph Vranich's book is nothing short of shameful. Next time you should bring in an Amtrak executive or do some research ahead of time and fill in the gaps that your guest so conveniently excluded.

Regards,
Vince W.

Encouragingly, I quickly got a response. It seems rather formulaic but I'm hopeful somebody actually read my letter:

We very much appreciate your feedback on our segment on Amtrak.
We would like you to know that we notice our listener's letters and keep them in mind.
As one of the staff members involved in the production of this segment I will keep your comments in mind when covering the subject of Amtrak in the future.
Thanks for taking the time to share your valuable thoughts.

Sincerely,
Miguel Macias
Marketplace

Update: Some quick googling found that SNCF (French National Railways) has an annual state subsidy of about US $10 billion dollars. In essence they would blow through Amtrak's 35 year history of appropriations in under 4.