So how've you been?
My family and I have just enjoyed a restful month of summer holiday, part of which we spent in Atlantic Canada. I'm afraid I did my bit to contribute to lobster overfishing … and I'm not one bit sorry (although probably a little bit heavier)
I'm getting ready to head back to work tomorrow and have been going through some e-mail that has piled up over the last little while. Here's some exchanges that were posted to a list I subscribe to for journalists who are into using data analysis to dig out new kinds of stories. Most of the journalists on that list are based in the United States and, apparently, there is some discussion that the “Media” somehow contributed to the collapse of the bridge in Minneapolis. Here's part of that discussion:
[Some of you] might be interested in today's online chat by Washington Post media columnist Howard Kurtz (), which pushed my blood pressure into quadruple digits with some discussion of coverage — or lack thereof — on the issue of bridge safety.
An email I just sent to Mr. Kurtz:From your chat today:
Louisville, Colo.: Hi Howard,
Amid the calls for increasing taxes after the Minnesota bridge collapse, the media has done almost no presentation of what is actually being spent on infrastructure maintenance and new construction.
Is this because it's difficult to research or because editors don't believe that readers are interested in actual numbers?
In general, there is a lot of reporting about new legislation, but very little reporting about how effectively governments actually spend money.
Howard Kurtz: I couldn't agree more with your last point. I do think in the wake of the Minneapolis collapse that there has been a lot of reporting on how many bridges are deemed structurally deficient and how much money is spent on maintenance, especially in local newspapers and on local stations. But where were these stories before? A few outlets did a good job, but journalists, like politicians, prefer to focus on things that are new: A new project, a new program, a new plan. Maintenance of infrastructure is considered boring — until a bridge collapses and people die. You see the same pattern with other federal agencies: How many pieces were written about the dysfunction at FEMA before Katrina?
Dallas: Why so few stories on bridge repair before the accident? Reporters would rather write, and ask questions, about haircuts. …
Howard Kurtz: Apparently the big news in Minnesota was a major appropriation for a new Twins stadium. Now we learn there are about 150,000 bridges across the country that are rated as “structurally deficient.” Would have been a good story for someone. Actually, I'm sure we'll learn that a handful of journalists did point this out, but it hardly received widespread media attention.This drives me absolutely insane. The problem with bridges is decidedly NOT that the media have failed to pay attention. It's another frustrating example of how pointing out a problem is not the same as solving the problem.
It took me about 30 seconds on the IRE website to find major investigative projects on bridge safety, all from 2001 or later, by The Oregonian, the Oakland Tribune, the Cleveland Plain Dealer, the Cincy Enquirer, the KC Star, the Boston Globe and a network affiliate in Tampa, Fla., as well as investigations by smaller media outlets in places like Paducah, Ky., and Columbia, Mo. In almost every case, the reports used the National Bridge Inventory, the same federal database that produced all those “how many bridges are structurally deficient?” stories in the wake of the Minnesota collapse.
Those stories all turned up so quickly because every computer-assisted reporter on the planet knows about the bridge inventory. Many have used it or at least have it at their fingertips. The bad-bridge story is, at this point, a staple of computer-assisted and investigative reporting. We all knew immediately where to go for the data.
Of course, few if any of those stories have solved the problem of inadequate spending or maintenance on bridges. When government or the voters fail to pay attention to the warnings reporters sound, that is NOT the same thing as the media ignoring a problem. Any public servant displaying actual brain waves had plenty of information to go on, the vast majority of it provided by the media that your chatters, and you, bashed today.
Gordon Trowbridge
Washington Bureau
The Detroit News
A reporter from USA Today jumps in:
Interesting.
A quick Nexis search turns up hundreds of relevant, mainstream print stories on structurally deficient bridges. Rather than writing them all down, I started looking for states where there HASN'T been a story on bridges. East of the Mississippi I come up with only Maine and Mississippi where there hasn't been coverage, though perhaps someone knows of coverage in those states? Nearly all are lengthy reports in the past two to three years (before August 2007).
West of the Mississippi, there's Hawaii, California, Colorado, Oregon, Oklahoma, Kansas, though I'm sure there are more. Not to mention national stories.
And here's a TV reporter from Baltimore, MD:
These stories aren't “boring” — people really care about their bridges. Baltimore City got cracking right away on three of the top 5 bridges we profiled in a story four years ago. For a city that doesn't get much done, it was remarkable.
Tisha Thompson
Investigative Reporter
WMAR-TV Baltimore