BY TERRY ROSS, News and Information Center Director

Early this week I participated in a national radio show called “To the Point” which deals with news issues. The particular issue we discussed was the border fence being built by the Department of Homeland Security, and more specifically the decision by DHS to ignore environmental requirements.

I wrote an editorial for The Sun on this earlier, although my participation in the radio show was limited mostly to answering a few questions from the host, Warren Olney, about the environmental impact of the fence.

Other people on the show were a spokeswoman from DHS, a border mayor from Texas and a specialist from the U.S. Department of Fish and Wildlife. During the course of the discussion about the environmental impact, the issue of the effectiveness of the fence was raised.

I was surprised that the DHS person admittedly that the fence was very limited in its effectiveness, simply delaying illegal crossers for a few minutes. The was confirmed the next night in a TV news show featuring a San Diego Border Patrol spokesman who said essentially the same thing - that the fence alone was not deterring crossers.

I have long believed that the fence wouldn’t work, at least not to the extent that promoters want or promise. Illegal crossers are finding ways over them, around them and under them. Determined people can defeat fences, something that is obvious to any observer of history.

The real critical factor is boots on the ground - more border agents - and improved surveillance to help them be where they need to be when people try to cross. Even then, the flow will only be lessened, not stopped. Desperate people will find a way.

We have been sold a bill of goods about the 700 mile border fence. Taxpayers will spend billions and billions of dollars to build and maintain this fence that does little but make opponents of illegal immigration “feel good.” What a waste.

BY TERRY ROSS, News and Information Center Director

It’s hard to understand how a politician in this era of 24-hour news can believe they can lie about a public event, but that is what Hillary Clinton did the other day - although her campaign handlers simply say she “misspoke.”

During a recent speech she commented on a 1996 visit to Bosnia as the First Lady. “I remember landing under sniper fire,” she said. “There was supposed to be some kind of a greeting ceremony at the airport, but instead we just ran with our heads down to get into the vehicles to get to our base.”

It was a very dramatic description that re-enforced her campaign contention that she has the experience necessary to be the nation’s leader and commander in chief. Unfortunately, it did not happen.

In reality, as demonstrated by TV network file footage of the event seen in this YouTube link , she was greeted peacefully by a delegation that included young children. No one was dodging bullets or running for cover. It was a normal arrival event for the First Lady who strolled over to a waiting vehicle.

What stuns me is that she knew news crews had covered the event. Did she think they would not verify what she said or remember the event - especially in the midst of a political campaign?

It is getting harder and harder for politicians to shade the truth - and that’s a good thing.

BY TERRY ROSS, News and Information Center Director

News people often get caught up in trying to chase down and report the “important” stories of the day. After all, that is what sells the newspaper, right?

Well, certainly that is one factor in attracting people to the newspaper, but it is always a humbling experience when you do something like leaving out the horoscopes or publishing the wrong answer to a puzzle.

It is then that readers let you know what is really vital to them.

We mixed up a comics page this past weekend, throwing puzzle workers into a tizzy. They put a lot of work into their puzzles and then found the answers the next day didn’t match. What to do? Well, calling The Sun to tell them about it came to mind for a lot of them.

Some said this is the most important part of the paper to them. Newspaper have published crosswords for many decades for exactly that reason. Fans find them addictive and keep buying the paper for more of them.

We were properly chastised and are publishing the correct answers.

Of course, as one caller told me, they don’t really “need” the answers, but they like to confirm their good work.

BY TERRY ROSS, Director, News and Information Center, The Sun

The old saying is you can’t get blood out of a turnip. But maybe you can get it out of a parent by opening the door for 16-year-olds to donate blood.

That is part of the thinking offered by Ken Krueger, a spokesman for Arizona’s American Red Cross Blood Services unit, in discussing the support of the agency for a proposed state law to allow teens as young as 16 to donate blood with parental consent.

One goal of the bill is to help meet the state’s chronic shortage of donated blood. The state needs 79,000 units of blood a year, but only gets 66,000 units donated. The 13,000 unit shortage has to be imported from out of state, according to Krueger.

He thinks more than teens might donate if the law passes.

“If my 16-year-old daughter came to me and said she wanted to donate blood, I might also feel compelled to do the same thing,” Krueger told the Cronkite News Service.

Right he is.

BY TERRY ROSS, Director, News and Information Center, The Sun

Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano is a well-practiced speaker, so she doesn’t tend to make many public mistakes. But she did recently, and it was a doozy.

Napolitano was an early and ardent supporter of Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama. She has been going around the nation stumping for him and was doing just that the other day in El Paso, Texas.

She was talking to a group at the University of Texas in El Paso and did something that left her audience in stunned silence - she endorsed Sen. John McCain instead of Barack Obama.

According to Capitol Media Services in Phoenix, the El Paso paper quoted the governor as saying, “If you want change in Washington, D.C., and if you want to hear a new voice and new vision in D.C., you are picking John McCain.”

She realized her error and corrected it, but it made for a light moment at what was probably a pretty dry political event.