Thursday, May 23, 2013

More media malpractice

Here we go again, with a typical liberal media "news story" about public schools.
This story is a tear-jerker about two of Brevard County's 82 schools closing.
It contains almost no useful information.
It claims the closings are because of $30 million in "budget cuts" but offers no facts to support that contention.
According to the state Department of Education, Brevard County schools had $531 million in revenue in 2009-2010 and the amount has gone up every year to $548 million this year.
Even if the mysterious budget cuts exist, some politicians had to decide to close schools as one way of staying within their budget. Who made the decision and why? There was nothing else that could be cut in the district budget of a half-billion dollars?
Then, why those two particular schools?
Are they old? The story doesn't say. There is one mysterious reference to one of the schools "reopening" in 1997.
Are the schools failing? The story quotes one parent as saying one of the schools is a "No. 1" school, but doesn't tell readers whether that is true or not.
Did politicians close a new school that is doing a good job?
If they did, telling readers why that decision was made would make interesting reading.
Instead, it is a bunch of mawkish baloney about kids being inconvenienced by having to attend a different school. Except that one of the kids is quoted as saying he is looking forward to making new friends.
Apparently, Florida Today has no editors, or this waste of precious news space never would have seen the light of day.
Or, more likely, this was another editor-generated story, where hapless reporters were told to "go out there and write a sob story about schools closing because of budget cuts."

2 comments:

Bob Phelps said...

Lloyd, I remember editors who tried to make me spin a story a certain way. The greatest example I can remember was being assigned to cover a Promise Keepers convention in New Orleans and being told to go down to Bourbon Street and try to find these Christian men in strip joints. I didn't follow the orders.

Al B. said...

I know you don't read your hometown paper, but if you did you would see this type of story with some frequency. Sad but true