Unaswered questions

I have a lot of them, so I thought I'd start a list.

On the City of Toledo/Village of Ottawa Hills fire department merger:

* How can Ottawa Hills save money AND Toledo save money when transferring the responsibilities of staff and operations from one to other? Common sense says that both cannot be true as the costs are not actually being reduced. It may be true that Ottawa Hills will save money if they shut down one of their stations, but if they can pay Toledo less than it costs them to run the department, Toledo cannot assume those costs and save money since we already know that the amount of reimbursement is less than the full expense.

* Ottawa Hills will pay a set fee for 20 years. But in that 20 years, the costs of salaries for the individuals will rise (this is government employment after all). Also, there will be increased maintenance costs for equipment and facilities as they age and, eventually, a need for replacements. Other factors, such as inflation, will also raise the costs. Why would Toledo accept a set fee for 20 years in an amount less than what it's currently costing, knowing that the costs will increase in that time? What provisions are we making for evaluation of the costs?

* The union has said it will file a grievance as the authorized strength of the Toledo Fire Department is currently at 103 and this merger take the staffing above that number. What are the costs of fighting this grievance and what are the potential costs to the city if we lose?

On the shooting in Arizona:

* I understand why so much attention is - rightly - focused on Representative Gabrielle Giffords. We also know that a federal judge and a 9-year-old girl were killed. But why aren't the names of the others who were killed mentioned more prominently - at least, as prominently as the ridiculous claim by idiots that Sarah Palin, tea parties and conservatives are to blame? In case you've missed it, here are their names:

John Kroll (63) - a Federal Court Judge

Gabe Zimmerman (30) - one of Congresswoman Giffords' aides

Christina Taylor-Green (9) - an elementary school student and granddaughter of Major League Baseball executive Dallas Green

Dorwin Stoddard (76) - a pastor at Mount Avenue Church of Christ. Stoddard's wife Mavy was wounded in the leg, but is expected to recover.

Phyllis Scheck (79)

Dorthy Murray (76)

On the decision by Toledo City Council to begin discussions with Lucas County for garbage service:

* If the city is willing to allow Lucas County to take over the task, why didn't we just privatize the service years ago? Why did we purchase all new equipment (automated trucks and garbage cans for everyone) if we're just going to turn over the department to someone else?

* In the past, the reason for not privatizing was the union contract with the Teamsters which requires Toledo to keep all the workers and, if we don't, to still pay their PERS contributions (which include the city portion AND the employee portion). If the city's contractual obligations prevented us from making any changes to the department in the past, won't it still prevent changes today? And, if not, what makes the difference in terms of the union contract? (Having read the contract, I don't see any - but then, I use common sense.)

* Lucas County thinks that other jurisdictions may want to join their new service which will result in greater participation and, thus, lower costs. But what other jurisdiction in Lucas County would want to turn their current service over to the county? All of them already have a process by which they handle their garbage and the people in those jurisdictions seem rather happy with their options. Basing a decision on the 'hope' that other jurisdictions will help give us a quantity of scale seems, well...foolish.

* What members of council and which mayor were stupid enough to agree to a union contract that requires the city to continue to pay into the PERS system for any employee of the garbage department whose job is transferred???? That's insanity and certainly NOT in the best interests of the citizens of Toledo.

Today's news stories are equivalent of push polls

A combination of events over the weekend prompted me to again take a look at the state of our current media.

It's no surprise that declining credibility, increased biases and a lack of reporting facts have led to a loss of customers for newspapers and many of the TV news broadcasts. The availability of facts on the Internet and the increased usage of Internet sources for news gatherers has brought those three areas into clear focus for many people.

As a result, the main stream news (a generic term not meant to include everyone) has not gone back to basic reporting, but rather has increased their spin content as if more of the same will somehow produce a different outcome.

The attack on Rep. Gabrielle Giffords and the manufactured racism charge and outrage over a statement from WSPD talk show host Brian Wilson are just the most recent examples.

With the shootings in Arizona, we didn't even have an accurate account of the victims and their conditions before talking heads, politicians and leftists started blaming Sarah Palin and the tea party groups. As of the writing of this post, a Google search on "left blames Palin and tea party Arizona shooting" yields 329,000 entries. Even our own representative, Marcy Kaptur, blamed rhetoric and 'anger' for causing people to lose their minds and, presumably, do crazy things like go on a shooting spree (comment played on WSPD on 1-10-11).

We know today that the shooter was more left than right in his limited political views, but was, more importantly, a sick man who should stand alone in his accountability for his own actions.

In the case of Brian Wilson, the talk show host made a reference to today's education process being like teaching animals learning a trick - just because they can do what they are taught doesn't mean they've been educated, he opined.

But because Wilson used a monkey as the animal example, he must have been expressing a racist view - at least, that's the spin.

In both of these cases, it wasn't just the reporting - or lack thereof - of the facts; it was the way the media decided to go about gathering responses to the incidents.

In the Rep. Giffords case, talking heads immediately starting asking people if the 'hate-filled rhetoric' of the right was to blame for the shooter's actions. The focus wasn't on who the shooter was and any type of investigation into the man and his motives. No - the spin was immediately that his attack must have been prompted by the words and political positions of Sarah Palin and various tea party groups.

Interestingly, while prominently noting that Palin had Rep. Giffords as a target in the last election, they failed to mention that DailyKos and the Democratic National Committee also used similar imagery for the district. The main question being asked of people is not 'what made this guy do such a horrendous thing' but 'how much influence does angry, hate-filled rhetoric from the right have in the case.' The assumption is that whatever people on the political right have said must have caused this man to shoot a Democrat. And politicians, not wanting a good crisis to go to waste, are eagerly responding - or driving the message even further.

With Wilson's comments, the local paper took 14 seconds of a 5-minute discussion and asked people to respond to the out-of-context comment. They didn't want to ask about the premise of Wilson's statement - that our schools are teaching to the test rather than teaching students how to think. No - they wanted people to see racism in the reference to monkeys, implying through their choice of African Americans to interview, that Wilson must have been referring to only to black students in the school system. In further updates, interviewees take 'offense' at students being called monkeys. Of course, the reaction from school board members and others involved in the school system has nothing whatsoever to do with the fact that Wilson's station is calling for a complete and total overhaul, even perhaps a dissolution, of the system.

In both these cases, this spin from the media is the equivalent of a push poll - asking a loaded question in order to generate a pre-determined response. From Wikipedia:

A push poll is a political campaign technique in which an individual or organization attempts to influence or alter the view of respondents under the guise of conducting a poll. In a push poll, large numbers of respondents are contacted, and little or no effort is made to collect and analyze response data. Instead, the push poll is a form of telemarketing-based propaganda and rumor mongering, masquerading as a poll.

The American Association For Public Opinion Research identifies such polling as a violation of their code of ethics and says this:

Political advocacy calls made under the guise of a survey abuse the public’s trust. They gain the attention of respondents under false pretenses by taking advantage of the good will people have toward legitimate research.

When disguised as research, these calls create negative images of legitimate surveys, especially when they distort issues or candidate characteristics in order to influence opinion.

They go beyond the ethical boundaries of political polling by bombarding voters with distorted or even false statements in an effort to manufacture negative attitudes.

The hostility created in this way affects legitimate surveys by reducing the public’s willingness to cooperate with future survey requests.

So how is a push poll any different from what the media is currently doing on a regular basis with their questioning and efforts to manufacture outrage?

The 'reporters' take an editorial or opinion position - often a political one - find an instance or event and then go around asking people to comment on their conclusions, using, in the resulting story, the quotes they obtain that fit their pre-determined position.

That's not journalism, but it is the equivalent of a push poll...which the media all decry - unless it's their own.

But it's worse - because it's presented as news, which they then claim is an unbiased presentation of facts, and it is, for many, the only source of the information they will see.

And then, depending on the source of the 'news,' the clearly agenda-driven story will be repeated by other media outlets or used as a basis for their own coverage of the instance. If it's sensational enough, it will be repeated by others around water coolers or on the Internet and become the impetus for even more outrage and 'demands' for action.

Perhaps we should modify the AAPOR code to apply to journalism:

Advocacy questions and stories made under the guise of unbiased news abuse the public’s trust. They gain the attention of readers under false pretenses by taking advantage of the good will people have toward legitimate reporting.

When disguised as news, these questions and the reporting of the answers create negative images of legitimate news, especially when they distort issues or candidate characteristics in order to influence opinion.

They go beyond the ethical boundaries of legitimate news by bombarding readers with distorted or even false statements in an effort to manufacture negative attitudes.

The hostility created in this way affects legitimate news reports and media in general by reducing the public’s willingness to believe what they read.

But if we did so, then what would the media do?

Their only alternative would be to report actual facts without trying to 'interpret' them for us or lead us to think/believe a certain way.

I won't hold my breath.