City reporter Amanda Lehmert, the city editor and chief editor Jeff "Grits" Gauger, all let the following gross errors of fact make it to the front page of their print edition in the story 'Increased fees, closing Greensboro Sportsplex proposed' about the City of Greensboro budget.
Error one: "[O]fficials try to balance a $260 million budget, based on recommendations Roth presented to City Council members Tuesday."
Fact: The city's total budget last year was over $450 million. It was projected to be around $470 million in the coming fiscal year. There is a portion of the city's budget called the general fund that is about $260 million, but that does not include things like water resources that the N&R article discusses as if it were part of the $260 million. The City's budget is about $450 million, not $260 million.
Error two: "Roth suggested keeping the local property tax rate the same — 63.25 cents for every $1,000 in property value."This is what the N&R puts on their front page. This is what the N&R offers Greensboro as their best.
Fact: The city's tax rate is currently 63.25 cents for every $100 in property value, not $1,000. This wasn't a typo, fingers don't slip and add a comma and an extra zero, then get the stamp of approval of editors. It is the result of people slumbering through their work so inattentive, so unconcerned, so uncritical and so detached from the subjects they cover, that it didn't occur to them—any of them—that such a rate would put their own taxes at a tenth of what they know them to be. Neither the reporter, the city editor or the editor in chief did the quick math that would lead them to say, "Wait a minute, my property taxes are about $1,200 a year, not $120." Not to mention that it should just be automatic for the city beat reporter to just know that tax rates are reported as per $100 in value.
Several weeks ago, the N&R published another Lehmert article in which she announced the new "release" of a city transcript that was actually released by the City of Greensboro in 2007. Although flat wrong in announcing that the transcript was "now" available "seven years" later, the story remains uncorrected, a punchline to the depressing joke "Did you hear about the News & Record's awesome grasp of the facts?"
Chances are that this article too will remain uncorrected—the people responsible too small, too unprofessional, too disrespectful of their audience to set the record straight.
It is no wonder Mayor Robbie Perkins cheered the demise of the watchdog weekly the Rhino Times. He'll walk all over the News & Record and they won't even be aware — or care.
No comments:
Post a Comment