Since I ripped on the Wisconsin State Journal twice this week, it’s the Cap Times’ turn. Now, don’t get me wrong, when there isn’t much to write about, the reporters still have a job to do. So I don’t blame them when they stretch a bit. However, when they are stretching, they should probably make a little extra effort to make it crystal clear to the reader. Case in point: drive throughs.
This story can basically be boiled down to this: Last week (yes, they are writing about it a week later) a guy made a comment at a meeting.
Think about it, if every time someone made a comment at a meeting they wrote a story, the news would be quite different. Why this comment, verses 1,000s of other comments made at a meeting made the news, I don’t know.
Why do I care. Well, here’s what happens with this type of thing:
1. Story written about off-hand comment.
2. AM radio shock jocks run with it.
3. Right-wing AP staff get it out on the wire.
4. People freak out and roll their eyes and whine about how Madison isn’t connected to reality. (Dane 101 compiled some of these comments.)
5. Bloggers feel the need to comment.
6. Nut jobs email council members with platitudes about how we are crazy and anti-business.
Meanwhile, what really happened. Nothing. There is no proposal. There is no official City action. No alder proposed anything. Nothing happened except that a guy made a comment at a meeting. And it is probably Progressive Dane’s fault.
The last time they did this is when they wrote a story about banning plastic bags and bottles. Once again, no proposal. No official City action. No alder proposed anything. But we did get the same whack job anti-business emails and comments.
I remember getting a call from Bill Nowak asking if we were thinking about banning plastic bags. No, I hadn’t heard anything about it. But that didn’t stop him from writing about it. That was March 2007, and still no proposal. Tho you should note that is the first sentence in the drive through story. Even funnier, is this AP story from last January that says a month ago a city committee voted to put an item on their agenda and might do something, but not for a year.
I’d ask how this became a story, but my guess is that this is a combination of a City of Madison Police Department Public Information Officer with too much time on his hands that had a chance to feel superior to the Town of Madison and a Cap Times with nothing to write about.
I know the council hasn’t been very active lately, but gee whiz. We can do enough nutty things on our own, it’d be kind of nice if we didn’t get things attributed to us that we haven’t done. And something with a little more substance than a-guy-had-a-thought-a week-ago or reporter-wonders-if-city-might-do-something. Maybe its not the paper’s fault, but readers, especially those who like to email and contact and yell at alders, be careful out there. Read things a little more closely and don’t believe everything that you hear on AM radio.
