Democratic Process Influenced By Failure of Journalism

This is a continuation of this post. I could have included all this info in the same post, but the more posts you make, the more hits you get on your blog. And the more hits you get on your blog, the more likely you are to win the lottery. Why do you think people write such drivel on blogs?

(Note to bloggers: just kidding. Just trying to entertain the masses.)

(Note 2.0 to bloggers: don't write drivel.)

So, everyone likes to make fun of the media, and for good reason---many media outlets are terrible. In Annapolis, we have the misfortune of having only one major newspaper, The Capital, which is particularly infamous for inaccuracy. This blog named itself to point out the shortcomings of the newspaper. The bumper sticker "End Capital Punishment, Cancel Your Subscription" serves the same purpose. On the rare occasions in my life when I have spoken with people important enough to have their names/stories told in The Capital, I've heard horror stories of quotes that began as "Mrs. Politics is a great girlfriend" and ended as "Mayor Moyer kicked me in the rear end".

The Capital totally missed this story. The Post and The Sun missed it too, but they have an excuse because they actually have other real stories to write about. The Capital should have uncovered this long ago. I would have uncovered it myself, buy my legal team advises me that the farther away I stay from the court system, the better.

Imagine how different the campaign would have been if Zina's legal history was reported a year ago when she entered the race. Sam Shropshire, a sitting alderman, is facing highly publicized legal troubles....and he received 9 votes. NINE. VOTES. Before this campaign, Zina Pierre had no name recognition in this town. If somebody that nobody knows was labeled as having such problems, would their campaign have even gotten off the ground? Probably not. Instead of (essentially) a 3-person race, would it have been Josh vs Trudy? Who knows what the outcome would have been?

As it is, the media missed the story, Zina was elected, and now has withdrawn. The Democrat central committee gets to pick the replacement. Cohen certainly has to be a front runner. Will McFall lobby for the nomination? I would. One can't help but think that if the media did its job, she might not have had this burden.

Today's Non-News

Cuts to the news department at The Capital are clearly taking their toll, as here is today's front page:

The lead story above the fold is that "rain hampers commutes". Previous weather headlines are just as awful. In comparison, the top headline for The Sun relates business to the upcoming super bowl, and the next story is about a hot politcal issue: Nancy Grasmick. Oh well, at least we now know how the commute that we were in this morning went, and the cause of the slowdown.

We Must Live In A Boring World

I arrived home last night, whipped off my coat, slung my shoes into the closet, sneezed, and tore open The Capital in the hopes of reading something useful. Boy was I stupid! Here is what I saw as the main headline in the Arundel Report:

No consensus on weekend weather
But all agree that wintry precipitation is on the way

That was the headline. I'm not kidding.

This is not the first time The Capital told us something worthless about weather. About 6 weeks ago, we learned that rain causes accidents, and that we should drive carefully when it is raining.

Yesterday's article went on to clarify just how much is NOT known about the weather this weekend:

"There is a high level of uncertainty," said Meteorologist Andy Woodcock at the
National Weather Service in Sterling, Va. "We are seeing several different
possibilities that could take place. There is definitely going to be
precipitation from Saturday into Sunday. The question is what form it will be
in."

Who cares? Newspapers should worry about things they DO know, things that DID happen, and how many licks it takes to get to the center of a tootsie pop (I need to know). If you printed every issue on which there is no consensus, you'd have War and Peace delivered to 30.000 homes every afternoon.

Besides, it's not like they are trying to predict the end of the world--it's weather. Here is what you put in the paper for this weekend's weather:

COLD. WET. UGLY.

People will get the point.

Let's Remember What Actually Happened With Yesterday's Shooting

Today's Capital predictably ran a story about yesterday's drug raid gone bad, and I have a problem with their front page photo:

The front page photo shows friends of the deceased agonizing over their loss. While understandable, it should not be the focus of the coverage.

Let's not forget why this happened. All indications are that the police acted properly--they served a warrant on a dangerous suspect that was engaging in CRIMINAL ACTIVITIES, and therefore harming society, i.e. us. Ergo, the first way this could have been prevented was for this person to not sell drugs. Secondly, when the officers entered the house, he started shooting at them. Call me a cold S.O.B., but if you shoot at an officer that is doing nothing wrong, you get what's coming to you.

What if the officer had been killed? Luckily he was not, but we send the police to risk their lives dealing with jackasses who decide that the laws don't apply to them.

What the family has to go through is awful. But a more appropriate picture would have been of the officers, weary from duty, supporting each other and caring to their injured comrade. That would tell the proper story.

Rational Behavior Of Aldermen

A fundamental assumption of economics is that all human beings act rationally. I wholeheartedly believe this to be true. Each person acts in a way that maximizes his utility (happiness) based on the information he has at the time.

(Similarly, a person never does anything that he doesn't want to do. For example, on Monday you may say to yourself "I don't want to go to work today", but you will still go. The reason: going to work is not an isolated event. Sure, you don't want to go to work, but you also don't want to face the consequences of not going. And since you don't want to get fired more than you don't want to go to work, there you will be. More generally, a person's actions at any given moment in time represent the best possible use of that person's time. That person could not possibly be doing anything better than what he is doing, because if he could, he would.)

Annapolis Aldermen, having made one of the final cuts for classification as human beings, behave rationally as described above. Yesterday's Capital editorialized about the decisions that our aldermen make regarding their employment.

Enough with the preamble. Let's do this.

Our Say:Aldermanic turnover is disrupting city government

By THE CAPITAL EDITORIAL BOARD
Published October 26, 2007

Once again, the Annapolis City Council has an unexpected vacancy. Ward 2 Alderman Mike Christman has ended speculation by announcing his formal resignation because of job constraints involving himself and his wife.

The mayor will soon be scheduling special primary and general elections.

By Wednesday, she must do this. Take a look at the early favorites for the dates she will announce.

We credit Mr. Christman, a promising alderman, with recognizing that a resignation was better than giving his constituents and the city short shrift - he has been unable to return phone calls and has missed the last three council meetings. In the circumstances, he made the responsible decision.

I wonder what comprises The Capital's criteria for a 'promising' alderman. Here is my guess:

Criterion #1: won an election for the first time.
Criterion #2: see above.

But his departure adds to the turnover that already has disrupted city government.

Ward 4 Alderman Wayne Taylor left the City Council after serving only a year to take a well paid job with the new county executive - a position he kept for only a few months. Alderman Josh Cohen and Alderwoman Classie Hoyle were willing to give up their city positions to run for County Council - Mr. Cohen won and left his aldermanic seat.

Here is the problem. Aldermen get paid $12,600 per year. Most, if not all of them, want to move up the political ladder so they can be richer or more powerful, or if you prefer, so they can do more good. I think most people are fine with this. BUT, the city has elections in odd years (2005, 2009, etc.), so for these people to move up, they have to leave their aldermanic seat mid-term.

Solution #1: change the election cycle to be the same as the county, or at least in even years so we share election times with somebody.

Solution #2: pay the aldermen more money so they wouldn't be so concerned with moving on to something else.

Today, two aldermen - Ross Arnett and Sheila Finlayson - are on the council as a result of elections with very low voter turnouts.

Yeah, like 25% low. That's really low.

No wonder turnout for special elections is minimal - city voters are tired of trekking to the polls to replace fickle aldermen.

This is too important of a question to answer with such a declarative quip. Voter turnout is generally low in this country, even in Presidential years. Why this is the case is a fairly major political science issue.

I don't doubt that frustration with fickle aldermen plays a part, but there is certainly more to it. I think a lot of people don't realize how much they are affected by city codes. There are also people who are willing to break laws if they don't like them, so for those people it wouldn't make much sense to waste their time with elections.

At the risk of sounding arrogant, I am willing to say that people who don't vote are a--holes. People certainly have the right to do what they want, but by not voting and to a lesser extent not educating themselves on the issues, non-voters allow things like Martin O'Malley to happen.

And each of these special elections costs taxpayers $50,000.

It would cost us a lot less if we did the elections in the same year that the county did them, because we rent the voting machines from the county. For the upcoming special election, I believe the council is fast-tracking a bill to use paper ballots, which would be cheaper.

On a related note, how excited are you that $50,000 of your tax money is going to be used for a special election where less than 1000 people are going to vote?

Beyond the financial burden, there is a loss of knowledge and experience. A new alderman, no matter how gifted, is on a learning curve. It takes him or her a while to be able to deal intelligently with critical issues. When the positions keep turning over, the city staff has to spend much more time familiarizing aldermen with the ins and outs of government. And constituents need a scorecard to find the person who can help them with a complaint.

True enough. Turnover cost is very high, no matter what business you are in.

The city cannot prevent aldermen from leaving office before their terms expire. It's up to the candidates themselves to end this disruptive trend.

Wrong. The city can prevent this from happening. The city can give aldermen more money, more power, an assigned legislative assitant, and for goodness' sake, maybe some letterhead so the aldermen can keep in contact with their constituents without having to spend out of pocket cash.

Special elections have been relatively scarce in the city's history because most candidates honored their commitment. Today candidates seem to be ready to serve - until a better opportunity comes along.

Can we blame them? (Answer: No). $12,600, even with the prestige of public office and the obligation so serve the public, is not enough of an incentive to pursuade people to disrupt their family lives or turn down professional opportunities.

There appears to be no shortage of candidates to fill these vacancies - several are already lining up to run for the Ward 2 opening. But who among them is prepared to promise voters he or she will fill out the term? Are the candidates ready to make sacrifices - including turning down better jobs and spending less time with their families?

This is just not true. Unless The Capital knows something that this blog does not know--which is possible but not likely--there are only 2 candidates "lining up" for the Ward 2 opening. The Democrat is Debbie Rosen McKerrow, who lost to Christman; Karen Jennings is running as a Green Party member; and we Republicans haven't even found a candidate.

I would guess that some candidates run because someone asks them to run, and because there is nobody else to do it! This would lead candidates to feel like they are doing their neighbors (or their political party) a favor, and would be a weak motivator to put up with the shenanigans of aldermanic duty, especially when better options arise.

At the end of the day, the candidates are still to blame--but they are not as guilty as The Capital would have us think.

Ward 2 residents need to ask these questions of would-be aldermen. And the same commitment should be sought in all future city elections.

Why would candidates for alderman give any more commitment than the city gives them? Again: $12,600 for a lot of work, no letterhead, no office, no assistant, no parking space (I think), and no way to serve out your term if you want to run for another office. Hey, sign me up!

It's sad that voters have to ask something so obvious, but it is important to the wards and to the city as a whole that elected officials take their commitment seriously.

Rain: Different Than Sun

Happily employing this blog's first Wizard of Oz reference, allow me to pull back the curtain. The way this blog gets written is as follows:

-First priority for posting goes to time-sensitive and/or breaking information, or ideas that I want to talk about and/or have recently thought about.

-Second priority goes to posts that are inspired by issues that surface while I am reading newspapers or other blogs. When I am really busy, I read through sever days' papers at the same time.

-Third priority goes to posts that have nothing to do with anything, like this one and this one, which are written if and when I cannot come up with any material using priorities #1 and #2.

The point that I am getting to is that my time is somewhat valuable. Consequently, when I am perusing the newspaper for the 'hot' issues, I needn't be burdened with articles that do not serve a purpose.

And here we finally are, arriving at the focus of this particular post--a remarkably useless bit of reporting about the weather.

Here is the headline:

RAIN CAUSES NUMEROUS ACCIDENTS; CAUTION URGED.

This just in: WATER CAUSES WETNESS; TOWELS SUGGESTED.

Terrible.

It would be one thing if the headline was, perhaps, at the top or bottom of the front page, and left to be. But the whole article is basically common sense dribble. If I were being interviewed for this article, I would probably try to verbalize my responses while moving only my upper lip, just to make it interesting.

All of the following excerpts were deemed newsworthy enough to be printed in the article. Enjoy:

With rain forecasted through Saturday morning, drivers can
expect to be faced with challenges during their commutes and trips during much
of the week.

Weather has a 'significant impact' on the number of crashes.

Several factors contribute to the increase (in crashes), with
visibility, traction and speed being the most prevalent.

A driver's rate of speed has a direct impact on visibility and
traction.

Cpl. Shawkey
advises that drivers give themselves additional travel time when it
rains.

It is never advantageous to be in a hurry speeding while it is
raining.