In just about any professional position, credibility is absolutely essential. This is particularly true for news reporting. It's the foundation upon which trust is built. Once you catch a publication deliberately slanting the facts to suit its own purposes, it's nearly impossible to believe anything you read in that publication again.

We've seen it happen a lot in our daily newspapers and news magazines. Remember when Time magazine altered the cover photo of O.J. Simpson to make him appear more sinister? That won them the nickname "Slime" -- a name that's stuck to this day.

Some supermarket tabloids do this all the time. Of course, they've been caught making things up and stretching the truths so much that even the word "tabloid" (which actually refers to the common size of the pages) has a negative connotation.

For doctors of chiropractic, this is a particularly grave problem since we have a limited number of information news sources to turn to. We need to be able to believe what we read, and to have confidence that the editors and reporters did their best to provide fair and accurate and complete information.

Unfortunately, in the case of Dynamic Chiropractic, readers no longer have that confidence. The naked bias of the paper, which claims to be unaligned with any particular national organization, is so obvious that denial is ludicrous. Just as laughable is D.C.'s continued use of the slogan, "Unity in Diversity," since unity seems to be the last thing Mr. Don Petersen, the publisher, really wants.

Most recently, Mr. Petersen has decided to go on a rampage of articles about malpractice premiums. The only apparent goal of these articles is to convince doctors how terrible and expensive the Chiropractic Benefit Services program is. So, he writes an article full of documentation and facts and figures and supposes everyone will automatically assume that it must be truthful.

But we know all too well how "facts and figures" can be manipulated to mean anything a person or organization wants them to mean. They can, after all, "prove" that chiropractic causes strokes, or that either Gore or Bush won the last election.

To know the real truth, you have to know what ISN'T included in the articles in question.

For instance, in Mr. Petersen's latest attack on CBS, he goes into great detail giving evidence to show that CBS is the most expensive malpractice program around. He even contacted CBS to get our figures for typical rates. Even though he demanded them with hardly any warning, we made sure we sent him the information he needed.

Here's the information we provided (verbatim):

"In California, premium rates for a $1mil/$3 mil claims-made policy ranges from $350 to $2,000 per year. In L.A. County (which has, due to its high incidence of litigation, the highest rates in California), the rates for a $1mil/$3mil claims-made policy range from $520-$2,600 per year. Prices vary based on discounts and practice risk category.

"I'd like to also point out that the CBS program coverage is the broadest available in the profession, and includes a full 'consent-to-settle' provision as well as professional board defense (up to $30,000), sexual misconduct defense (unlimited, with no payback clause), assault coverage, first aid coverage, and free locum tenens."

You didn't, of course, get a chance to read this information in the article in Dynamic Chiropractic since it didn't advance Mr. Petersen's theory that CBS was the most expensive. Naturally, he just left it out and chose instead to use a $1 million/$3 million Occurrence Policy for a D.C. in Los Angeles. I wonder how long he had to search to find a case in which CBS wasn't less expensive than the competition?

Almost as an afterthought toward the end of the piece, he noted, "All quoted rates exclude any discounts or credits that may apply." He knows very well that with the discounts many doctors qualify for, the rates are significantly lower, yet he failed to go into any more detail.

It's also interesting that he pulled out a quote from March 2001, in which CBS President Timothy Feuling, advised: "Do not choose a company whose underwriter is rated less than 'A' by A.M. Best, the industry's foremost insurance rating service." This was well before the September 11 terrorist attack that impacted -- and changed -- the insurance industry significantly.

Although the article never mentioned it, AM Best recently double-downgraded Princeton Insurance Company to a B+ rating, American Healthcare Indemnity was recently downgraded to a B+ rating and Firemans Fund -- which underwrites National Chiropractic Council,

owned by Mr. Peterson's attorney Michael Schroeder -- is under review by AM

Best right now for a possible downgrade. PICA owns OUM and is also A- rated, just like CBS. Peterson's silence about all this is deafening.

The new advice -- given by almost all insurance experts -- is to be aware of ratings, but pick an underwriter of absolute stability and reliability, and compare the coverage offered by each policy.

Not surprisingly, Mr. Petersen didn't mention differences in coverage, since he wouldn't be able to find a single program that even comes close to the protection afforded by CBS. He just conveniently left that part out.

He did get one thing right, however. CBS has changed underwriters several times during its 12 years of service to chiropractors. We're not ashamed of that. In fact, we're proud that we constantly monitor the insurance industry and make pro-active changes before problems arise, in order to avoid a company going broke while they are supposed to be protecting our policy holders.

I can produce a stack of testimonial letters from doctors who are extremely happy with the service they receive from CBS, and the rates. I would be happy to provide their names to Mr. Petersen if I thought for a moment he'd actually use any of the information. But chances are, it would go into his trash can along with all the other material that might disprove his version of reality.

I also find it amusing that Mr. Petersen tries to "estimate" how much revenue CBS makes from its program. Possibly he'd like to take a shot at how much we spend on chiropractic research, public relations, and advocacy programs.

Is he aware of how much CBS donates to organizations like the CCP, which has almost single-handedly given the profession a viable alternative to the Mercy Guidelines? Does he have any idea how much CBS money goes to funding an ongoing research study to determine the link between subluxations and the immune system? Or to fighting board abuse against doctors who refuse to conduct medical examinations on patients? Or does he find it better to just, once again, omit that side of the story?

As for rates, you simply cannot trust the information provided in Dynamic Chiropractic. It is deliberately misleading and merely another in a long series of attempts by Donald Petersen to hurt me, the World Chiropractic Alliance and everything we stand for.

If you want to know what it will cost you to get malpractice coverage from CBS, you can do your own "investigative journalism" by picking up the phone and calling (800) 883-0412 or e-mailing Timothy Feuling, at feuling@cbsmalpractice.com. Or by filling out the short "Quick Quote" form online at http://www.cbsmalpractice.com/quickquote.htm. You'll find out exactly what your premiums would be and you can make your own comparisons.

For what it's worth, Mr. Petersen's attacks on CBS aren't isolated instances of his lack of professional credibility. His actions as a member of the National Chiropractic Leadership Forum (NCLF) show that his disregard for the principle of "unity" in chiropractic has become pathological.

The NCLF was founded as a last-ditch attempt at bringing some semblance of peace and unity to our profession. It was thought that if the heads of the various organizations could come together and agree to some basic "rules of conduct," we could all work towards the common good. Representatives of the American Chiropractic Association, Association of Chiropractic Colleges, Congress of Chiropractic State Associations, Council on Chiropractic Guidelines and Practice Parameters, Federation of Chiropractic Licensing Boards, Foundation for Chiropractic Education and Research, International Chiropractors Association, National Board of Chiropractic Examiners, and World Chiropractic Alliance were all invited to participate.

That's a stellar group of leaders.

Yet, for some unknown and never explained reason, Mr. Petersen was invited as well, even though he doesn't represent any organization.

I suppose the reasoning was that it would be best to include him since Dynamic Chiropractic has always been a major factor in the intra-professional conflicts we've endured and has, in fact, caused more than its share of those conflicts.

One of the most significant terms of the professional "peace agreement" we ALL pledged to follow was that we would stop attacking each other in public. Instead, we promised to bring conflicts or problems up for discussion and resolution during an NCLF meeting. We even had a procedure whereby we could call for an "emergency" conference to resolve immediate problems.

Predictably, although Mr. Petersen agreed to these "rules of conduct," he didn't feel obligated to follow them. In the past few months, his publication has chosen to print several "hit pieces" targeting not only CBS but the WCA (at least one of them written by the ACA, so it should share some of the blame).

More telling is the fact that I contacted the NCLF to see if we could work this out before it escalated to an all-out war.

NCLF President Dr. Mario Spoto was good enough to arrange a conference call so he could help mediate.

We had a bit of trouble accommodating Mr. Petersen's schedule, but at last we were able to set up a call. He never bothered calling in.

It won't be a surprise if, before long, he announces he's quitting the NCLF. Apparently he sees himself above all this "unity" stuff, and doesn't mind snubbing it and the profession it seeks to protect.