WIS: tops at leaving viewers confused
11/05/2010
Richland County leaders say they don’t know how they will finish a list of road projects in the works after a tax that was to have funded the improvements was turned down by voters, according to WIS-TV.
However, in typical WIS fashion, it’s difficult to determine what this means for Richland County residents. In fact, it’s difficult to make heads of tails of much of the piece.
The story is about the one-cent tax proposal that was voted down Tuesday. The only information about road projects that may or may not be completed is found in the opening paragraph.
The rest of the story is about potential cuts to local transportation.
It includes this sentence: “Another area of uncertainty is the bus system. Even if you’ve never ridden a city bus, the proposal’s failure may still hit you hard.” However, it doesn’t explain why those who don’t ride city transportation could be “hit hard.”
More intriguing is the idea, as WIS alludes to in its opening paragraph, why Richland County would have begun road projects if the necessary funding wasn’t already in place to complete them?
One would think that a government entity would have funding ready before starting major infrastructure projects.
Of course, given the quality of the Columbia television station’s reporting, it’s really not clear what WIS is reporting.
More likely than not, an ill-informed producer told a harried reporter to go find an election followup story and this was what was churned out.
