Hawaii Governor Linda Lingle made the following remarks during a December 21, 2009 press conference to discuss the supplemental budget she has submitted to the 2010 Legislature. It refers to an AP story that appeared in the NY Times and many other newspapers.

It will be interesting to see how her comparisons to budget priorities in other states will stand up to scrutiny.

Before I talk about the budget specifically, something happened over the weekend that I feel compelled to talk about with you. And it concerned me so much, its very unusual for me to talk about the media in any specific way, and those of you who have covered me for 8 years know that I don’t call you out, I don’t complain about stories, my background is in journalism, I studied journalism, in fact I’m a print journalist by background, and for me as a print journalist in school, the epitome of print journalism, those we sought to be like, were those in the wire services, because they were supposed to be the most objective, they were supposed to the least biased of anyone in journalism because they were writing for a national audience, international audience, they had no local ties, they could be very, very objective.

And over the weekend, that image of the wire service was shattered when the Associated Press ran a story that has now run all over the world. and I’m going to read you a paragraph from the story and then talk about this in more detail.

It says:

Hawaii’s money troubles are creating a society more befitting a tropical backwater than a state celebrating its 50th anniversary and preparing to welcome President Obama home for Christmas this week.

One of the things you’re taught in journalism school is that words have consequences and what you learn later in life is that even falsehoods have consequences, and its certainly false that Hawaii is a tropical backwater.

The damage this does to the people of Hawaii is immense. The Associated Press owes an apology to the people of Hawaiik, they are impacting their livelihood by putting out this kind of false information because people’s livelihood is relying on the visitor industry and now this very false picture of hawai has been spread around the world. It also affects our economy in a negative way because it gives our own people a false impression of how we’re dealing with the issues facing our state. And let me read you another piece from this article that is just patently false and I’ll point out with evidence that in fact it is patently false.

This article says and I’m quoting directly from the article, it says, it had been talking about the cuts that had been made in different departments around the country and diff services, and it says:

But Hawaii stands apart in how its government response has been to reduce what are generally considered to be core functions: education, public health, elections and services for the disadvantaged.

So he says unlike any other, we stand apart in how we ripped these services from people. And here are some examples, and these are very easy to find, all you have to do is go online and go to one specific site, this is the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities put out of washington, DC, its a nonprofit organization, and I don’t know how its tied to any political party, and it gives these examples. Now again, this article is saying we’re different, we’re ripping apart everything unlike every other state in America. But let me read you what other states are doing.

In California, tuition at the Universities have been increased by 32 percent and enrollments cut by 12,000. In Michigan, financial aid was cut by 61%. In Washington State, University of Washington had their funding reduced 26% and Washington State almost 30%. HEre’s a list of programs for the elderly and disabled cut in 24 states, k-12 cut in 27 states, colleges and universities cut in 36 states. Ohio has eliminated virtually all state funding for mental health treatment for individuals who are not eligible for medicaid, in Rhode Island low income elderly must pay higher rates for adult day care. Tennessee has reduced community based services for people with intellectual disabilities and cut nursing services for some adults with serious disabilities.

Virginia has decreased reimbursements for special hospitals serving people with needs relating to mental health, mental retardation or substance abuse, The state has also reduced pass through grants for various aging programs and funding for local mental health providers. Other states have capped or reduced funding for programs of people who have disabilities or are elderly, including California, Kansas, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Michigan, Missouri, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Utah and Washington.

So its clear in fact that the kind of cuts that are occuring across the nation are severe, they are impacting people, they are the kind of cuts we did our best to avoid, our departments have been creative, they’ve been innovative, they’ve found ways for the private sector to pick up the slack, and yet this article comes out and just patently lies about the approaches that we’re taking, paints a false picture for visitors who may come to our state, and tells our own people that somehow we are doing things worse than any other state, when in fact it’s simply not true.

So again, for the Associated Press, we deserve, this kind of criticism in public, and you owe to the people of Hawaii an apology, these are just patently false statements, and again, I think the entire media would agree it’s very unusual for me to call you on anything because I respect what you do, I understand the difficult job you have, I know you’re trying your best to present a fair and clear picture to people, but this was no attempt at any level to be fair, to be objective, or even to be truthful.