The Gazette‘s Laughable, Damage-Control Editorial

There’s an editorial at the Gazette today (http://gazettextra.com/article/20131122/ARTICLES/131129885/1034) predictably praising continued funding for Janesville’s transit bus to Whitewater.  That there’s a bit of crowing in the editorial is unsurprising, but it’s more telling that it’s an error-prone essay that makes basic mistakes about Whitewater’s politics, and omits – perhaps intentionally – a description of the actual discussion that took place in Whitewater.

(See, for an accurate account, The Bus Discussion @ Council Last Night: A Fiasco by Any Definition.)

Update, 11.23.13: Advertising & Video.

Advertising: When the Gazette ran this editorial in favor of their city’s transit bus, why didn’t their editorialist disclose that the paper has benefited from advertisements for the bus? (It would have been easy enough to do: ‘Disclosure: Our newspaper has published advertisements for the ‘Innovation Express.’)

They didn’t bother.  It’s another example of that paper’s decline from a proper standard.  Here’s a screenshot of their website from earlier this year:

 

Video:  The video of Tuesday’s session is now available, at https://vimeo.com/79914403, with the discussion of the bus taking place beginning @ 58:40. I am confident that those who watch the actual recording of the meeting will see that the Gazette’s editorial is an erroneous and misleading characterization of the discussion. 

Needless to say, Gazette readers in Janesville will never see the actual proceedings, and their editorialist knows as much.  This gives him the opportunity to spin and distort.  And yet, his is not an unlimited opportunity – the recording refutes his sugary characterization, as does my own thorough review of the session, and as does in large part the account from another newspaper, the Daily Union.

The Vote.   The Gazette‘s editorialist needs an editor —  the vote was 4-2, not 6-2 (Whitewater’s entire Council is only seven people).

The Background.  Greg Peck – or whoever wrote this editorial – knows utterly nothing about politics in Whitewater.

The Gazette suggests that a majority was enthusiastic for this idea.

In fact, Council member Jim Winship is a proud Whitewater supporter of the bus, but even Mr. Winship voiced occasional doubts about the situation. On the contrary, there was widespread Council concern about the last-minute fumbling from Janesville Transit’s Dave Mumma, ridership numbers, Generac’s declining contribution, and Mr. Mumma’s dodgy conflation of passenger ‘trips’ and actual riders.

Whitewater even decided to consider the bus project again in August 2014, rather than next November, precisely because of how little confidence anyone had about how the last two Janesville presentations in November have gone.

Council wanted more time as a consequence of less confidence.

Here’s how the editorialist describes Mr. Mumma after the vote: “Still, he sounded diplomatic Wednesday.”

Oh, brother – as though Mr. Mumma has reason to be anything other than feeling and appearing foolish.

Far from looking competent, Mr. Mumma embarrassed himself, his agency, Whitewater’s city manager, and just about anyone else nearby, after he unquestionably led everyone in Whitewater to believe just two weeks earlier that Generac would spend over $47,000 when they made no such promise.  (They’re really only funding $18,000 next year, and made clear funding will decline even more in subsequent years.)

Worse, Generac’s vice president of operations felt compelled to contradict openly the Janesville Neighborhood Services Director’s description of how the program even began. Funding documents from the State of Wisconsin’s Department of Transportation corroborate Generac’s account.

These so-called partners were at odds over expected funding and even a description of how the program began.

Battening on Unawareness.  Look, the Gazette‘s editorial craftily omits these vital facts from a Janesville readership that understandably doesn’t follow Whitewater’s politics.

It’s an all-is-well editorial. Janesville’s officials made a hash of this, but the Gazette would rather conceal some of the most important events of the meeting than tell its readers a hard truth: love or hate the bus, Janesville’s work on all this has been a stumbling mess.

Why the Gazette‘s in Decline.  I’d prefer papers that spoke truth to political power, but that way has slipped away – God, Himself, knows that Janesville now has little resembling that former, worthy model.

This is a paper that threw away its former willingness to question public officials for a politician-advertiser-press partnership when economic and journalistic decline left it with that unsavory option in a futile attempt to forestall yet further decline.

For it all, the Gazette‘s model only intensifies its problems.

Many of Janesville’s struggles come from a mediocre political class – and the Gazette‘s answer is to omit unfavorable truths rather than confront and overcome them.

That’s one reason that, sadly, Janesville’s near-future is unlikely to be better than her present, middling circumstances.