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So here in Hamilton, like in many districts in the state, we’re having our school board election and budget vote. We have a somewhat unique problem in that our town was put in the red by the previous mayoral administration, and folks are nervous about our taxes going up. The school board managed to come up with a budget that reduces our rate by 2.5% while maintaining our same level of service and including our desperately needed building repairs and other capital expenditures.
But this post really isn’t about a debate about whether the budget should be voted in or not. This is about negative spin about the budget from a local tabloid newspaper – The Trentonian.
See, – they wrote an article that appeared in Saturday’s paper in which the first three paragraphs are this:
The cost of running all 23 schools here this coming fiscal year amounts to slightly more than 10 percent of what NASA spent to build the Space Shuttle Endeavour.
The local school district’s 2008-09 spending plan, as adopted by the school board, totals $170.8 million.
NASA’s Web site lists the cost of the Endeavour at about $1.7 billion.
Now – you tell me how any person in my town reading that is going to react. It’s a horrible way to spin the budget from a local paper that clearly has an agenda.
So I was talking to a co-worker who also lives in Hamilton about this article (as he brought it to my attention) and he said something akin to “the press has a responsibility to write the truth right? That’s all they are doing is writing the truth.”
Which made my blood boil. The press – especially a paper like the Trentonian – has about as much responsibility to the truth as OJ SImpson. Their responsibility is to their advertisers and making a buck – and this kind of reporting is irresponsible and wrong. And like Bush Jr – it plays on people’s fears to gain a reaction and keep them coming back for more
Why is it wrong? Because the person who reads the Trentonian is the same kind of person who will allow the newspaper’s opinion to become their own. They won’t go and seek out another article, or go to the school district website and look at the budget. In fact, they may not read the whole article, they may just skim the first few paragraphs and turn right back to the sports page. Then they’ll go and vote the school budget down because to them – from what they just read in the paper – it seems huge.
But if they took the time to investigate the budget – they’d find out the truth – it’s almost the same amount as last year, and barely 5% bigger than the year before that.
It’s irresponsible reporting of the greatest magnitude, and I’m disgusted.
–*Rob
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