It's impressive really just how low the Review-Journal has sunk. We'll get to the smiling senator at left in a bit.

But first, today's front page has a no-brainer story atop the front page about the embattled "doctor" at the heart of the hepatitis crisis filing for bankruptcy to avoid potential civil suits.

It's certainly news. But the layout puts only two stories atop the fold and the other is a wire piece headlined to impugn Obama's efforts at health care reform.

The biggest Nevada story of the day is buried inside the B section and written by the Washington, D.C. correspondent with an assist from reporter Keith Rogers here. http://www.lvrj.com/news/nuclear-waste-blue-ribbon-panel-to-start-work-86253967.html

It's pretty solid. But inside the B section? We certainly wouldn't want readers to know Barack Obama and Harry Reid have finally killed the dump.

**

On to Dick Durbin, the senior senator from Illinois. http://www.lvrj.com/opinion/durbin-says-he_s-a-fine-choice-for-deficit-panel-86320922.html

Durbin is the lede writer in today's letters to the editor. He's complaining about one of the myriad Harry Reid sucks editorials the paper has run over the past year -- this one "Reid fumbles" from Feb. 25.

It's amazing really that a high-ranking U.S. Senator has to take time out to fix the RJ editorial's errors.

We've become so accustomed to the insanity on this page, it's hard for us to pick out the real mistakes amid the sea of slander. Since so many of you have given up reading the editorial page, we'll print Durbin's letter here for you

You state, "Sen. Dick Durbin, the No. 2 man in the Senate, is a partisan hack who has never worked a day in the private sector as an adult." That's simply wrong; in fact, before I came to Congress, I managed and owned, not one, but two small businesses.

I was the co-owner and manager of a restaurant in my hometown of Springfield, Ill., for years and later owned and managed a small law firm. Like millions of other small business owners, I know what it means to manage cash flow, make payroll, deal with budgets and suppliers and all the rest. That's hardly someone who's never worked a day in the private sector.

Your larger point, that three U.S. senators are unfit to serve on the new deficit commission because they have the temerity to be public servants who have repeatedly earned the trust of their constituents, is also specious. Had you picked up the phone, we could have explained my role in the last significant bipartisan budget agreement in 1997, where we crafted a package of tax changes, entitlement cuts and budget controls that helped generate the first balanced federal budget in nearly 30 years.

Sen. Harry Reid picked individuals with the experience, commitment and desire to put this country back on the track of fiscal responsibility. It seems the Review-Journal just wanted to pick another fight.

You say Nevadans and all Americans deserve better. So do your readers.

Dick Durbin

Washington, D.C.

The writer, a Democrat, represent Illinois in the U.S. Senate."

We couldn't agree more with his last line.

We'll start our post today with a look at the RJ's Correction Trifecta.

First Ben Spillman's lack of common sense.

We know reporters have trouble with math, but would somebody at the RJ please try to use common sense.

Finally, today the Review-Journal gets around to the angle the Sun and RGJ had March 1.

http://www.lvrj.com/news/legislators-vow-tax-overhaul-85938757.html

And, the lede isn't even factually accurate. "They'll be back, Nevada's lawmakers. And next time, taxes will be on the table."

We already know about one third of them won't be back, and who knows what the election year will do to the rest.

Laura Myers' report isn't just a bore to read, it's old, re-hashed and late. Perhaps the "paper of record" mentality still trickles down to scribes, but all the rest of the world sees is a paper that's routinely beaten, regularly late and inaccurate and quickly becoming must-not read material.

Consider today's two corrections from special session reporting.

"A story in Monday's Review-Journal on the special session of the Nevada Legislature misstated the size of the state's budget shortfall, which is $887 million."

If you actually try to find Monday's RJ online, you can't. It's completely interspersed with Tuesday's. (Maybe the RJ thinks the size of the story list is impressive that way).

At any rate, chalk the error up to the troubled triumvirate that covered the session so badly. By name: Ed Vogel, Laura Myers and Benjamin Spillman.

"The deadline for candidates to file for election to Clark County offices was incorrect in the Political Eye column in Monday's Review-Journal. It is March 12."

We don't know who gets the blame here, either. http://www.lvrj.com/news/gibbons--yucca-proponent-rub-elbows-85800282.html

The byline on the column is Adrienne Packer's. Yet the contact info at the bottom is county reporter Scott Wyland's. The same column includes both the wrong date (March 15) and the correct one.

And the RJ has apparently ceased correcting itself for archival purposes. Neither of the offending stories have been updated online as of 10:20 a.m. Tuesday.

I guess if they can't get basic stuff correct, it's hard to imagine them actually being able to produce a political report that looks ahead and doesn't just chase the Reno Gazette Journal or Sun.

Today the Sun has moved on, having already written the tax piece Monday. The Sun today looks at the impact to Clark County government and schools.

We'll get to the second installment of Laura Myers' "beat Harry Reid" reporting in a moment.

But first, we've got to assail her President's Day piece which seems to forget that she's an actual reporter. http://www.lvrj.com/news/chachas-quits-ny-job-to-run-in-primary-84371767.html

Reporters are taught to avoid words that can sway a reader into a certain side. For example, reporters can discuss deep cuts in local budgets, but they can't discuss horrible cuts. If they use that word, it has to be in quotes from someone who says the cuts are horrible.

But that doesn't stop Myers from forgetting Journalism 101 in her piece about John Chacas. (The front-page story comes a day after Myers' profile of GOP candidate Danny Tarkanian and is a mystery in itself. Chacas has been a declared candidate for a long timeand quit his job a full month ago).

The story is only worthy of the RJ's front page because the paper so wants to oust Harry Reid that it can't control its biased urges anymore. That's not Myers' fault.

What is her fault is the lack of self-editing. And the way it reads is a pamphlet for Chacas.

Consider this graph: "Instead, he counts himself among Americans fed up with the Washington way of doing business: spending, spending, spending the nation into deep debt while political battles between Republicans and Democrats rage without resolving the country's economic crisis."

"Spending, spending, spending?"

Wow. That's very, very, very telling Ms. Myers.

That's fine if it's got quotes on it to indicate that's really how Chacas feels. But those are Myers' words.

There's no place for that in a news story. There's never a role for that in a political piece. And since the paper ran it on the front page, we know they've given up any pretense of fairness.

**

On Sunday, Myers did another profile of a GOP candidate running against Reid.

The piece about Tarkanian was front page. It wasn't labeled as one in a series of profiles. Simply presented it's little more than a campaign flyer.

This follows on the heels of Myers' puff piece on Sue Lowden two weeks ago. And with today's front-page gloss-over of John Chacas, Myers has proved herself incapable of fairness.

March came in as a lamb as the Review-Journal sheepishly poked at the end of the special session.

After weekend reporting that was not only completely false, but also a bore to read, the RJ limped home with a recap of sorts that proved as confusing as anything else its triumvirate reported over the past week.

Las Vegas resident Paul Speirs wrote this letter to the editor of the Review-Journal on Jan. 15. He's never been contacted by the paper and his letter has never run.

We thought it might be brazen to actually tell you who has the best special session coverage.

So, we put up a poll to ask what you think. http://www.lvjournalreview.com/component/poll/18-who-has-best-special-session-coverage "Other" has it, for now, showing a continued lack of faith in traditional media.

Our faith was restored a bit this morning when we saw the Review-Journal bravely correct the little editorial mistake we brought to their attention.

"An editorial in Thursday's Review-Journal incorrectly reported that Sen. Kent Conrad, D-N.D., will retire at the end of the year rather than seek re-election. Sen. Byron Dorgan, D-N.D., is retiring, not Conrad."
Of course, the RJ will never tone down the Harry hatred that accompanied the flawed editorial.

A review of the daily special session coverage shows why Nevadans are having a hard time getting a straight look at things.

The RJ focuses almost exclusively on the relatively minor $32 million lawmakers wanted gaming to pony up to fund the state regulators of the industry. http://www.lvrj.com/news/gibbons-visits-legislature--meets-with-raggio-85462532.html

There's also a minor error in the story that will never be corrected. The triumvirate of Vogel, Myers and Spillman refer to the gross receipts tax of 6.75 percent. Technically, gaming does pay on its gross win. But it's never referred to as a gross receipts tax. That  name was hijacked in 2003 and has never recovered.

Interestingly, instead of referencing the gross gaming tax of 6.75 percent, the RJ has insinuated we have a gross receipts tax. When people hear that term they think business tax. And at 6.75 percent what a tax it would be.

We can't even get the top 15 industries in the state (mining excluded here) to pay a gross receipts tax of .25 percent.

The triple-bylined piece basically gives two paragraphs to something Anjeanette Damon gave 18 graphs in the RGJ. http://www.rgj.com/article/20100225/NEWS/100225054

The Las Vegas Sun does a weird hybrid. David McGrath Schwartz leads with the gaming piece on a story with a headline about the Assembly Republican plan. Clearly he found the GOP plan the most interesting political look of Day 3, but the late-breaking gaming bit which he knew (thanks to the RJ's electronic news flash service) was going to be central to the RJ's Friday coverage, got thrown atop his otherwise interesting story. http://www.lasvegassun.com/news/2010/feb/25/state-gop-unveils-budget-plan-admits-most-it-copie/

The best read of the day, was Patrick Coolican's look at the gube candidates. http://www.lasvegassun.com/news/2010/feb/26/budget-crunch-campaign-snare/

We found it highly interesting that the other completely political story today was a look at Jim Gibbons' new poll numbers. The thread of the story is Gibbons wins when he does the no tax thing.

Is the RJ trying to send the governor a message? If not, why would this be the only component of the RJ poll that was published today? http://www.lvrj.com/news/poll--gibbons-still-faces-challenging-campaign-85462337.html

Wow. It's hard to stay awake long enough to read through the RJ's legislative coverage.

Wish I were learning something.

The RGJ is once again presenting a comprehensive look at the pace, policy and politics of the session. http://www.rgj.com/article/20100225/NEWS/2250348/1321/news/Legislators-vow-to-pick-up-the-pace

Anjeanette Damon also provides her readers salient updates. Her look at the politics of the potential executive-legislative branch showdown http://www.rgj.com/article/201002242023/NEWS/2240442 was up Wednesday when it came to a boil.

Michael Mishak expands on that political angle in today's Las Vegas Sun. http://www.lasvegassun.com/news/2010/feb/25/gibbons-deadline-has-angered-both-democrats-and-re/

The Sun also has an expanded look at the Assembly's education proposal. http://www.lasvegassun.com/news/2010/feb/25/assembly-working-blunt-education-public-services-c/

The RJ triple bylines a piece that sort of glances over -- sort of -- what the others reported online Wednesday. http://www.lvrj.com/news/legislators-clash-with-gibbons-in-special-session-85309082.html

But it's not like you can get a solid account just from the RJ. Or that it's readable without a pot of coffee.

Jane Ann Morrison has written her first column from Carson City. And it ain't about the politics of the session. It's about what she could have seen on TV in Las Vegas. http://www.lvrj.com/news/getting-caught-in-a-lie-calls-all-statements-into-question-85326062.html Or about what we all have known for years -- Jim Gibbons lies.

**

On the mistake front, the Review-Journal ran a correction Wednesday on a sports story. They certainly wouldn't want to piss off the NASCAR faithful.

"The make of the car that NASCAR's Ryan Newman drives was incorrectly reported in Tuesday's paper. Newman drives a Chevrolet."

Jeff Wolf opened a real can of whoop-ass between Detroit and Japan by calling Newman's car a Toyota.

Today, their editorial confused North Dakota's senators, in a piece designed to dump onto the Dump Reid campaign of the publisher. We'll see if they correct it. Stay tuned tomorrow.

Today there's also a correction on an Associated Press report. If you're one of our new readers, we don't add AP corrections to the RJ's tally.