Dumbing down, or sensationism?

By MARK S. JAMES

Once again much of Missouri's news media have either failed to understand the meaning of the recent state auditor's report on Missouri's homeland security efforts or are sensationally misleading Missourians.

Last week's headlines dutifully regurgitated claims from the auditor's news release screaming of Missouri's failures in homeland security in the present tense. Most of the egregious shortcomings identified in the report subliminally beg for a housecleaning to occur.

Well, guess what?

That housecleaning has occurred, and it occurred in 2004 when Matt Blunt was elected governor. You see, what the media neglected to headline was the fact that the failures highlighted in the auditor's release are, in fact, past-tense failures that occurred before and were inherited by the Blunt administration.

What the media forgot to report is that immediately upon taking office, Blunt recognized that Missouri's Office of Homeland Security had no teeth and made it a duty of the Department of Public Safety.

By elevating the responsibility to a member of his cabinet, he dedicated the resources of DPS to accomplish the Homeland Security mission. These resources include the Missouri National Guard, Missouri State Highway Patrol, Missouri State Water Patrol, Missouri Division of Fire Safety, State Emergency Management Agency, and Missouri Capitol Police.

Blunt also immediately ordered DPS to conduct its own review of the state's homeland security efforts and created a Homeland Security Advisory Council, which I chair.

I urge Missourians to look beyond the sensational headlines and tantalizing sound bites and actually read the auditor's report. We have assembled a team of homeland security professionals in DPS with decades of state and federal experience.

Perhaps, shockingly, you will see our present-tense response to this past-tense audit of policy decisions and processes of the previous administration start with the phrase, "We agree with this finding."

The real story is that we came to the same conclusions over a year ago, before the audit, and have been working fervently to turn these past failures into present successes.

Mark S. James is the director of the Missouri Department of Public Safety and homeland security adviser to the governor.