media

The CongestionPric List recently carried discussions of the rocky startup of the Georgia I-85 HOT lanes northeast of Atlanta several weeks back, and comment on how the news media is inclined to pass judgment on just a few days operation. And if the tolling startup doesn't work perfectly on those early days when the cameras are out on the overpasses then the reporters are inclined to report the whole project as a "failure" and a "fiasco."

The Wall Street Journal's reporters are amazing. Last time we wrote about their use of 'steamer trunk' as a measure of volume - written apparently by a female reporter aged about 93 with memories of packing luggage for steamship voyages?

This morning a Neil Sands under the dateline Melbourne Australia in a report on drug wars in Melbourne refers to it as a city with "an appealing climate." (WSJ 2010-08-14 pA7)

Just who it might appeal to he doesn't say.  

Haitians perhaps? Or Siberians? Saudis maybe. Patagonians?

The Wall Street Journal reports today (2010-04-16 pA10) an amazing mystery surrounding a British Airways Boeing 747 flying through an ash cloud.

They say:

Christopher Conkey transportation reporter for the Wall Street Journal has broken from the pack. He reports today that a Obama stimulus program is "designed to kickstart" highspeed rail. Most of his colleagues - New York Timers, Washington Posties, AP, ABC - have settled on "jumpstart".

Conkey risks being ostracized for this odd, what is it, motorcycle metaphor.

Boston Herald recently (8/11) led off a frontpager: "Tens of thousands of Turnpike motorists have been socked with falsely inflated Fast Lane bills because the company that provided their transponders violated its multimillion-dollar contract by failing to inspect the system, a state audit has found. (Fast Lane is the Massachusetts Turnpike's brandname for E-ZPass IAG compatible electronic tolling - editor)

When a Democrat goes over to the Republican Party New York Times reporters erupt with scorn. The defection in the New York state senate this week by two Democrats to the GOP is called a "coup" and "clownish."

The two Democrats-turned-Republicans are treated with contempt. They are mobbed by reporters shouting questions.

Washington Post, New York Times, almost all the mainstream media are wimps when it comes to writing about a crook, at least one who moved in elite circles. Consider their treatment of the biggest scamster and most despicable thief of the past several decades - Bernard Madoff of the tony upper westside of New York City.

If we didn't have enough crises to moan about intrepid reporters at the Wall Street Journal have discovered a new one - a chicken housing crisis.

"Chicken Housing Crisis Hits U.S."  says the headline.

This is not on Onion style send-up.

see http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123440092979675383.html

TOLLROADSnews 2009-02-18

A columnist Jeff Pidot at the Kennebec Journal in Maine rolls out a lame cliche often hurled at tolls that they are "highway robbery." He doesn't actually compare Maine Turnpike toll rates with those elsewhere or with the costs of building and operating roads. That would be work. And the real data might undermine his case.

He just draws attention to the increase and not to the length of time tolls have been frozen while costs rise.

The Associated Press reports from Australia: "Officials said panic and the freight-train speed of the walls of flames probably accounted for the unusually high death toll."

Since when were freight trains a metaphor for speed? What's this AAR propaganda?

Freight trains are loud certainly, but fast?