Why do you cover the mayor’s outrageous statements and NOT the actual news – the fact that two committees have unanimously voted down his crazy bench ordinance?
Ok – I know what the reporters will say. Too many assignments, too little time, not enough reporters to cover everything.
So, I guess my question is for the assignment folks and editors.
For the rest of us, what kind of news are we getting? It’s already dumbed down because of space issues (some reported are wizards at fitting things in!) but if reporters are only assigned to cover the mayor and the crazy things he says, where is the balance?
We all know the mayor thinks the homeless are sex crazed drifter addicts who shoot up and drink constantly who shouldn’t be allowed to sleep more than 4.5 hours a week. We also know he believes that they all could be in shelter and have been offered housing! (Where the hell is the fact checking on that!)
Why didn’t they cover the Equal Opportunities Commission? Why did only the Badger Herald cover the Joint City-County Homeless Issues Committee? Both Committees unanimously voted down the ordinance. The mayor didn’t even get the vote of Downtown Madison Inc lobbyist and business cheerleader Susan Schmitz or downtown police Captain Carl Gloede – who both supported the removal of the Philosopher’s Stones.
THAT. IS. NEWS!
DON’T YOU THINK THAT IS NEWS?!
Oh, but they’ll be there Monday when the City-County Liaison Committee hears a proposal, again, to kick people out from the City-County Building (where the mayor told everyone to move to). And word is people on the committee are worn down and will finally agree with the mayor. That will get covered, portraying homeless people, again, as “trouble”, instead of covering the neighborhood meeting last night where all the downtown services and city and county staff basically said we don’t have the services to meet the needs. We need more funding. Where is that story?
While the reporters were all at the removal of the philosopher’s stone, no one was covering this
It seems unbalanced the way homeless persons are being covered – all the problems with homeless people, but nothing about the problems of being homeless – the lack of shelter, transportation, and many other things. The difficulty of meeting daily needs. Where are people supposed o sleep if not at the CCB? Where are those stories? Where is the balance in our media? Where is the other side of the story, because the public only gets the crazy mayor version of things.
