Lazy-sucker journalism

One of the laziest forms of reportage is often under the headline “Transportation Funding Gap.” It consists of a recital of a wishlist of projects for new roads and rail lines and a summing of their estimated cost, counterposed against the yield of known taxes and contributions from higher levels of government.

‘Needs’ minus ‘funds’ equals the awesome transport funds ‘gap.’ Then there is the pitch from local transport operators and planners. It’s thinly veiled lobbying for higher taxes, the reporter being played for a sucker by the projects’ promoters. The WASHINGTON POST ran such a piece (7/13/00 pMD1) saying the next 25 years’ needs for the greater DC region were $77b split between transit $40b and roads $37b of which $26b was operations and maintenance and $11b is new road construction. There was a bit of fanciful number-play behind the wishlists on how metro-rail ridership will “only grow” under the spending plan by 32% rather than a previously projected 46%. Any growth at all is problematic given the stagnancy of recent ridership and the growth of dispersed trips unsuited to transit. Have we got ‘sprawl’! Predictably transit’s $40b was portrayed as “sorely inadequate” by none other than the chief-exec of the local Metro, Richard A. White.

No effort to get an opinion from less self-interested sources. Not a hint that some of the projects offer less than brilliant benefits (to the public, as opposed to the constructors and sponsors) relative to their cost, that some of them will involve $20 of tax funds matching every $1 fare. Worst, there’s no questioning of how far such huge tax subsidies are really needed – whether transport services couldn’t be made to pay their way more via the farebox on transit and tolls on the roads and bridges. This DC area is one of the most affluent areas in the US. In the world! Yet somehow the assumption behind such journalism is that we need help from outside to pay what it costs just to get us around town.

The article paints a picture of a region stymied by hardnosed, pennypinching budgeteers and of elected officials lacking the courage to impose the necessary taxes.

The WASHINGTON POST, as a commercial enterprise should at least charge the beneficiaries by the square inch for such ‘reports’ and put an ‘ADVERTISING/LOBBYING’ sub-head atop them.