In The Media We Don't Trust

Yet another example of the sensationalistic media not letting the facts get in the way of a good story:

A headline on many news websites yesterday said something about "New Dollar Coins Are God-less" or "'In God We Trust' Missing From New Dollar Coins." You are supposed to be horrified, thinking one of two things: The Michael Newdow atheist types of the world and the judicial cowboys of the 9th Circuit could have succeeded in declaring one of America's long-standing monetary traditions unconstitutional, or, subversive forces deep inside the U.S. Mint made a grave "mistake" in "accidentally" casting dies of these new coins without the motto. Either way, it's a horrible travesty that chips away at our American societal roots.

Well, the real facts are much less sexy -- it was a production error that affected a tiny percentage of the coins minted. The error prevented any of the edge lettering from being engraved. In addition to "In God We Trust," that edge lettering includes the "E Pluribus Unum" motto, the date, and the mint mark. But obviously, a missing mint mark doesn't sell nearly as many papers as does the allusion to an atheistic revolution.