Freedom of the press is critical to the foundations of our democracy, however accuracy of the press is also equally important! For when the press reports erroneous information or moves from reporting the news to acting as a "public relations" agent for a person, group, organization, etc then the press fails to keep its promise to the people it purports to serve.
Recently the California Nurses Association (a nursing union) has garnered some press for their antics and outspoken "activism". This is all well and good since we do live in a free society, however it is imperative that when the press covers actions of the C.N.A. that they do so with accuracy. It is my opinion that this was not the case in a recent San Francisco Chronicle article, "The Rabble-Rouser" published on May 6, 2007 and written by Kathleen Sharp. After reading the article, I felt compelled to respond, since I felt it was more a free public relations article then news article; and that there were numerous inaccuracies and mischaracterizations that needed to be addressed. You will find my response to the article as well as the article archived here.
Why, you may ask, have I posted this letter as well as copies of the letter and article to the NRNPA website? Since it would seem that the San Francisco Chronicle editorial staff has chosen not to run my letter nor answer three separate phone calls, I persevered and tried a fourth time and on May 7th I spoke with Ms. Greene. At her request I e-mailed a copy of my letter directly to her, she was kind enough to acknowledge the receipt of my email and informed me to whom she had forwarded copies of my email. Meanwhile I waited and surmised the SF Chronicle would not print my letter since I strongly believe that they had an unadvertised "support" for unions and the C.N.A., in particular. So I am not completely surprised that they have yet to run my response, though I had hoped they would have presented another viewpoint.
And this is why I have decided to run it. I encourage you to read both my letter and the article to which it is in response to and to formulate your own opinion and if you feel so incline share it with me at clavreul@nrnpa.org.
May 10, 2007
Letters to the Editor
San Francisco Chronicle
901 Mission Street
San Francisco, CA 94103
Re: The Rabble-rouser
Dear Editor:
I read the above article, or should I say PR piece, with interest and concern. Your reporter made several errors in the article; according to the C.N.A.'s own website they have approx. 75,000 members not the 80,000 your reporter cited and Ms. DeMoro is no modern day Florence Nightingale - in fact she is no RN and her actions are an insult to the memory of Florence Nightingale!
Finally, RNs across this country (both in unions and not) have not exactly jumped on the C.N.A.'s bandwagon. Nurses represented by other nursing unions have decried DeMoro and the C.N.A.'s tactics since they often play fast and loose with the facts in order to push their agenda; they have received at least one written warning from the Calif. Board of Registered Nursing for violating the Continuing Education program - all which often runs counter to the oaths we as nurses take when we become licensed. And finally before you paint them as though they represent a large portion of RNs in this country please remember that we are almost 3 million RNs compared to 75,000 RNs in the C.N.A.
For the record I am one of the 290,000 California RNs that has chosen not to let the C.N.A represent nor speak for me and who despises the deceptive tactics that their organization employs.
Sincerely,
Geneviève M. Clavreul, RN, Ph.D.
The link to the article is here: http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/05/06/CMGJIP6QD41.DTL
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