One-sided "reporting" on wine sales and what you can do about it

Reuters published the wholesaler point of view almost verbatim at:

http://today.reuters.com/news/artic...C1-ArticlePage2

This was picked up by many news services (I originally saw it on msnbc.com).


The URL to send comments is at:

http://today.reuters.com/HelpAndInfo/ContactUs.aspx

Just click on "Contact a Reuters editor."

If enough people complain perhaps in the future they will hesitate before publishing "news" provided by someone with a huge financial stake in what they are saying.

Jay,

Can you please repost, the link is dead...

Thx.

Remo

[Robin Garr]

Can you please repost, the link is dead...

Try this link

[Robin Garr]

I just sent Reuters this brief flame:

What ever happened to skeptical, probing business reporting? Your Aug. 22 article, "Point-click-drink: It's that easy for teens,"
(long link here)
blindly and uncritically presents an industry advocacy group's report as if it were news, without any apparent effort to hear voices on the other side of a complex economic issue. At the risk of being blunt, this old reporter can't help but wonder where the editors were when this PR piece hit the news desk.

Robin Garr
Publisher
WineLoversPage.com

Jay, take a look at this great article from the Wall Street Journal:

http://www.wineloverspage.com/forum/vil ... php?t=2950

Pound them on the facts and the credibility of the Journal.

I'll send a letter in the morning.

Regards. Bob

I sent then a nastygram, too. Power in numbers?

Here is my rant:

----------------
In regards to your Aug. 22 article, "Point-click-drink: It's that easy for teens," you missed one fact , "adult signature" on liquor shipments.

I own a Wine Store and have a Wine Contract with UPS, in addition, when my wine shipment reaches its destination, the UPS driver captures the signaure of an adult over 21 years of age. Are you implying that UPS blindly gets a signature of a minor. Are you implying that the extra money I pay for "adult signature" is a waste.

As a Wine Shop Owner, I build long term relationships with my customers, in store as well as on the internet. I pay higher credit card transactions because of a higher risk of credit card fraud. Now, (thanks to your article), I have an addition fear of sending liquor to minors... Thank you, I feel better now. I can sleep better at night knowing that I am encouraging under-age drinking on the internet as I put my four year old daughter to bed at night...

------------------

Here's what I sent to Reuters.

"Re, your so-called news article: Point, Click, Drink, et al.

Perhaps you should have served the public by looking into the method and results of the study reported to you in that press release issued by the wholesalers' association.

Had you done some fact checking, instead of press release copying, you would have seen the blatant flaws in the study, plus the stretch in the meaning of the data that the wholesalers so freely give out to unsuspecting, so-called news services.

I see this kind of slack nonsense in news services every day, which makes it no wonder that in America the media are seen in a negative light. But since I am in the wine business, and I write about the facts of the wine business and wine in general, this so-called report of yours raised my ire, as you might have noticed by now, if you are looking deeper, as news people are supposed to look."

What's worse, I log into Yahoo this morning and they have this story right on the main page, copied over from Reuters.

Link to the story

I'm rarely cynical, but come on guys ... does anyone think that this might be more than biased or naive reporting? Is there a chance that the wholesalers have their hands on the media too?

Jay,
Excellent point. Have missed your posts, hope all is well.
Walt

How bogus! Ask any teen (my daughter) to list the ways in which they chose to obtain alcohol and ordering wine on the internet will likely not even be on the list. Underaged drinkers can score beer, or hard liquor within half an hour. Why would they wait five days to two weeks for an expensive beverage that they don't even care for to be delivered?

Jay,
Excellent point. Have missed your posts, hope all is well.
Walt

Yes, everything is fine other than having a minimum of time. I can access ebob from work and I check in at Therapy every so often but life it too hectic these days...

If I had more time this is the board I'd spend it on.

Sam, the problem is that we all know this, but thousands if not millions of people will read those headlines and freak out, adding more fuel to the cause of neoprohibitionist sentiment. Every sane person acknowledges that there are risks associated with alcohol abuse. However, this issue is far too complex to be dealt with on the basis of sensational reporting and headline grabbing.

Someone ought to do a comparative study looking at how much underage drinking actually occurred historically in the wine-producing countries of Europe to see whether there is any merit to the (IMHO paranoid) notion that all of a sudden, minors are going to flock to winery websites to order cases of wine.

Now that a major news source to the world has published a biased or at worst erroneous report about a subject you all know well, imagine how inaccurately 90% of the rest of the "news" is represented.

Very well said. And scary, too!

Who was it who said that all news is manufactured? They were right.

Here's what kills me. Over the years of being on this board, I long since came to the determination that I may be the only "conservative" on the whole damn forum. I frankly consider most of you communists. To be honest, I think George W. Bush is at least left-leaning politically and I am not sure if I would vote for him again if he would run because he's way too liberal for me. (Sorry to disappoint you all.) That being said, I'm not trying to start a political discussion, but think of this issue from my standpoint. The single most important political issue to me is unrestricted capitalism. I'm one of the people from the University of Chicago that believe severything Milton Friedman and Gray becker say. Take it as you will. It INFURIATES me that supposedly right-wing politicians are also in the pockets of these WSWA creeps because in theory the simplification is that republicans believe that freedom from economic restrictions whether it be taxes or something else stimulates the economy. Right? Whether you believe it or not is another thing, but in theory taht's what they stand for. So how could a Republican politician vote for measures that unnecessarily restrict commerce! Utterly boggles my mind. The answer is of course that the WSWA creeps basically donate the maximum legal to ALL politicans whether they be red, blue or green and the politicans respond by voting for their crooked, un-American agenda. And they wonder why we're all disillusioned no matter what side of the political spectrum we're on.

Sam, the problem is that we all know this, but thousands if not millions of people will read those headlines and freak out, adding more fuel to the cause of neoprohibitionist sentiment.

Now that a major news source to the world has published a biased or at worst erroneous report about a subject you all know well, imagine how inaccurately 90% of the rest of the "news" is represented. While I'm sensitive to the issue here, everyday life and death issues are also put forth with equal bias daily on CNN, Fox and I assume, Reuters.

No doubt about it Randy. If you take a serious look at media throughout our history you will find that most of it has been biased, beginning with Revolutionary pamphlets on both sides of the issue and on to Greely and Hearst and right on to today.

It doesn't mean we should let it happen. It means we should let them know that we know what they are doing. There is a lot of power in words that are directed at the right people.

I'm rarely cynical, but come on guys ... does anyone think that this might be more than biased or naive reporting? Is there a chance that the wholesalers have their hands on the media too?

Never attribute to cleverness what can be explained by stupidity, incompetence, or laziness.

You can explode most conspiracy theories that way. I suspect that this is just an editor at Reuters deciding to save some effort by reprinting a press release without doing any research into the issue.

-Paul W.

The answer is of course that the WSWA creeps basically donate the maximum legal to ALL politicans whether they be red, blue or green and the politicans respond by voting for their crooked, un-American agenda. And they wonder why we're all disillusioned no matter what side of the political spectrum we're on.

I have always found it amusing and ironic that the label "red states" has been applied to the conservative/Republican strongholds. It gives a whole new twist to the old slogan "better dead than red". Sen. McCarthy must be rolling over in his grave at patriotic conservatism being associated with "red".

-Paul W.

There's actually a blog I read at RedState.com if you can believe it.