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UPDATED: Oologah Editor Provides Research for Manhattan Institute Report
By Tyson Wynn | May 7, 2008 | Print This Post
Over the last few years, I have become a friend of John Wylie, publisher and editor of the Oologah Lake Leader (not to be confused with Joe Wiley, president of RSU and FHU and often-recipient of the WynnBlog’s insightful, poignant, and dead-on criticisms). Wylie, of the Leader, produces the finest local paper I have ever seen. It’s the only newspaper to which I subscribe, and I can’t even bring myself to use it to start the charcoal in the summer (for that purpose I buy a Sunday Whirled a couple times a summer). My friendship with Wylie is an odd-couple relationship of sorts, as John is a loyal Democrat and I am a conservative/libertarian. We, though, have some joint interests and values that are much greater than our differences. These have to do especially with open records; freedom of speech, press, and religion; transparency in government; accountability of office-holders; basic fairness, etc.
Oologah is the birthplace of Will Rogers, and we all know he said all he knew is what he read in the papers. Sadly, if our knowledge was limited to what is printed in today’s papers, we’d all be miserably ignorant and uninformed (about everything but celebrity underwear and reality show winners, that is). Wylie’s Leader is the exception. A weekly, the Leader publishes real news of import to the readers it serves. Small but mighty, the Leader is proof that quality journalism peppered with sharp editorializing are needed, desired, and welcomed by 21st Century readers.
Wylie’s expertise in hardball investigative journalism (he is late of the Kansas City Star where his beat included KC’s organized crime world) is not lost on folks outside the boundaries of Rogers County, either. You may recall I reported that Wylie’s exposé, “The $40 Billion Scam,” detailing the rip off that asbestos litigation in America has become was published by Reader’s Digest (January 2007). That story got him the attention of the folks at New York’s Manhattan Institute, who then contacted him to do a follow up for them.
And, I am happy to report that the report has been released today. Wylie Communications, Inc. of Oologah (the principals of which are John and Faith Wylie, both of the Leader) provided the principal research, writing, and graphics for the in-depth, year-long project. In a national conference call announcing the report, Wylie said,
“The more I have dug into the asbestos litigation industry, the more shocked I am by the unconscionable greed and chicanery.”
The 32-page report unveils the asbestos litigation industry, which imposes
“staggering costs, causing $70 billion in direct losses, bankrupting 80 companies…(and threatening) the very integrity of the legal system itself.”
No one is saying that there are not some genuine asbestos-related heath problems out there. It’s obvious there is. The problem is that lawyers have grown wealthy while their clients with legitimate asbestos-related illnesses have received little compensation, and in some cases they have gotten nothing.
While I have previously shared my belief that 99% of lawyers give the rest a bad name (having known a lawyer or two in my day), attorneys can be agents of truth and justice. Other can be real jerks, seeing nothing but dollar signs and constantly valuating a person’s injuries, the expected judgment amount, and their percentage of it, plus expenses. Those who fit the money-grubbing, sleazy stereotype make it hard on the good ones (and I am told there are one or two out there, though they seem to be like the Loch Ness Monster and Bigfoot, more often heard about than actually experienced). And, I’m not opposed to attorneys and other professions receiving payment for their services; however, it is plain from Wylie’s detailed research that many if not most of the lawyers in the asbestos litigation industry (Did you catch that? It’s an industry!) have gotten rich on the backs and - sometimes dead bodies - of their clients.
Reading at times like a Grisham novel (remember The King of Torts?), this report from the Manhattan Institute shows us just what the current state of the American judicial system can spiral into when it refuses to police itself. And, it is an Oklahoman, the editor of a weekly newspaper from a small community in Rogers County, John Wylie who pulls back the curtain on the mass tort system in America in a big way. You should take a long, hard look.
For Further Reading:
- The Manhattan Institute Report, “Asbestos” in HTML
- The Manhattan Institute Report, “Asbestos” in PDF
- LegalNewsline post regarding “Asbestos”
- The previous Reader’s Digest story, “The $40 Billion Scam” in HTML
- The previous Reader’s Digest Story, “The $40 Billion Scam” in PDF
- The Manhattan Institute website
- The Wylie Communications website (with links to the MI and RD works)
- The Oologah Lake Leader
Topics: 1st Amendment, Legal, News, Oklahoma, Open Records, Politics |