OK, I figured I'd start with the most straightforward headline I could write and work out from there. Especially now that the smoke and steam has stopped pouring from my ears.

On Wednesday, I was up in Connecticut doing interviews for another project I am working on, and I picked up a copy of USA Today. "Russia curtails American adoptions" blared a front-page headline. What followed was a day of misery for many adoptive parents that could have been avoided by more informed reporting and a better choice of subject and verb in that headline.

Let's start with the title. The headline on the USA Today story, as well as that of the New York Times version and the Associated Press story implies that Russia took direct, deliberate action against adoption. It did not. What happened was that the last two accreditations held by American agencies expired; they had been valid only for a year. We knew they were going to expire. Accreditations have been expiring all over the place for the last year, both those of American agencies and those of agencies from other countries that handle adoptions in Russia.

We had all hoped that Russian government officials would have finished reviewing all the paperwork and issued the new accreditations by the end of March. They didn't. Am I frustrated? You bet. But I have found myself wondering, more than once over the last year, whether four agencies of the U.S. government could have collaborated on a project of similar magnitude and gotten it done on time.

But none of this answers for me why somebody worked so hard to turn this into bad news on Wednesday. None of these reporters follow adoption on a day-to-day basis. How did they all learn that the accreditations expired, and all on the same day? Wendy and Maria, what happened to fairness and balance? Lynette, you had the balance but was the doomsday opening sentence really necessary?

As frustrated as I am about this reporting, I am not going to jump on the bandwagon that wants to bash all reporters. It is nonsense to contend that they all have an agenda against adoption. Their views are all over the map, just like those of adoptive parents and adoptees on adoption. I have worked in journalism for 20 years, and I have been privileged to know many dedicated professionals who worked tirelessly to get a story right, sometimes at peril of their lives. I only wish that more of them were covering adoption for the major media right now.

I'm going to leave you with a quote from a statement issued today by the World Association for Children and Parents, a Seattle-based agency that has been active in Russia for many years.

Of course the delayed accreditations are of concern for the many children who wait for families in Russia. However, according to WACAP sources there is no reason to believe that international adoptions are being outlawed in Russia or will stop permanently. Today, staff attending the JCICS (Joint Council on International Children’s Services) national conference discussed the situation with Tom DiFilipo, JCICS president and CEO. In response to the recent media attention, he stated, "We continue to advocate for resolution of accreditation issues for agencies. This is a bureaucratic delay, not a closure."

It is likely that many of the delays are due, in part, to the increased scrutiny by officials and authorities involved in the agency-approval process who feel the gravity of issuing a non-expiring accreditation certificate to any agency. The wheels of bureaucracy may turn slowly, but WACAP and other agencies look forward to our reaccreditation from Russian authorities.