WOWO News - Dazed & Confused

WANE TV did their best to inject themselves into the local income tax hike story using fuzzy math to confuse and confound their audience. 

Not to be out done, the kids in the WOWO news room have added their own two cents worth. 

First off, WOWO commits journalistic malpractice by writing:

In reality, no one, not City Council, not anyone at the "hearing" voted to increase local income taxes. It was a public hearing designed to give residents on either side of the issue a chance to speak. The Council will tentatively vote on the increase on July 11.

So, where did the 2-1 number come from? Perhaps, a quote from the sponsor of the increase, Godfather John Crawford is to blame for dazing and confusing the "journalist".....

It's unclear if the inexperienced WOWO staffer misunderstood Dr. Crawford's summary of the hearing, or if the writer is unclear how local government functions. Either way, WOWO, again, kicks their credibility to the curb. 

Now, all is not lost, however. WOWO did have a chance to give an advertiser some much-needed, valuable publicity, highlighting them as an expert on the issue.....

At least the kids in the WOWO news room got the advertiser's name correct. 

Win!

The WOWO story is here:  https://www.wowo.com/tax-expert-details-local-income-tax-proposal/

WANE TV's Fishy Math

Update: Apparently the unseen hand at WANE TV has added the word "percent" after the number 75 in the story. The Maven is unsure why this was done, other than to correct a fat-finger goof. So, townspeople, rest assured, WANE TV is not trying to influence public perception.....they just seem to be lousy typists with no concern for detail.

Original posting:

It's a contentious issue, raising income taxes to pay for riverfront development. 

The issue has it's supporters and opponents.

As a way to insert themselves into the story, WANE TV at some point conducted a poll of their viewers and, from reading this story, got confusing results. 

Please note the numbers in the story...

As written in their article, the kids at WANE TV say 75 of respondents do not support the tax increase out of more than 1,400 who voted. Nothing to dispute, it's there in black and white and washed-out yellow. 

Now, using public school math....divide the little number by the big number to get a decimal answer.....


75 divided by 1,400 yields roughly 5.36%. 

So, does WANE TV contend that only about 6% of taxpayers oppose the tax increase while 94% support it? 

Sounds fishy. 

Then, again, it could just be the media taking on the role of community cheerleaders with little or no journalism taking place. 

Captain Obvious and The News Whisperer

The Maven checked in on WPTA 21's 6pm newscast tonight. 

All the Maven can say is, it would make a hell of a drinking game.

For every mispronounced street name, take a sip. 
Pettit Avenue is now pronounced "petite".

For every relation to the obvious, take a swig. 
Weather guy telling us "lightning can be deadly". 

For every ad lib gone wrong, take a gulp. 
Female anchor, attempting to sound knowledgeable and credible, does neither, and calls Fort Wayne "a relatively small town".

For every ignorant "fact" announced, take a chug. 
Sports guy thinks college football teams play in "leagues" instead of conferences. 

And just for fun and extra credit, carefully watch the "B roll", that's video shown while the reporter or anchor reads a story. 

Tonight, WPTA did a story about an accident-prone stretch of I-69 near Indianapolis. What viewers saw was easily identifiable video of I-69 in Fort Wayne, with many local landmarks. 

Also, during the obligatory Monday "gas price" story, WPTA 21 talked about Fort Wayne gas prices dropping, but viewers saw video of people fueling cars....with California licenses plates at gas stations that don't exist in Indiana, or even the Midwest. 

Sure miss Melissa, Curtis and Tommy. 

Journal Gazette, Sex Cream, & Your Kids

Fort Wayne Newspapers, the business agent for the Journal Gazette and News Sentinel, has program called Newspapers In Education that makes newspapers available to schools for use in the class room teaching environment. It's a worthy program designed to spur reading and instill the habit of reading a daily newspaper in our next generation.  

As almost everyone knows, readership and advertising revenue for daily newspapers is falling year after year at a precipitous rate, leaving many papers to seek "alternative" products or services to fill their pages and prop up revenue. 

Given all that, the Maven is unsure how school teachers will explain to their students what Sex Cream is, and why it's in the reading assignments. 

It is rather sad, that this bastion of Journalism and high community standards that regularly lectures us from it's editorial pages, has lowered their own standards for simple economic gain, something they accuse others of on a weekly basis. As has been pointed out to the Maven on more that one occasion, "well, that new building and $26 million dollar printing press isn't just going to pay for itself".

WOWO Leaves Out The Details, Again

Gotta love the kids in the WOWO news room. Such a nice story, WOWO being the good civic cheerleader hawking the impending tax increase to pay for Riverfront development. 

Nice story, even shows how little Fort Wayne earners will be impacted by the increase. 

One little problem. 

The kids cite $5.77 for an average household making $49,000. 

What WOWO news leaves out: will the increase mean Fort Wayne residents will pay $5.77 a year? 
Will we pay $5.77 a month? 
Will we pay $5.77 a week, a day, an hour?

If one bothers to click the link, and suffer through the story, yes, WOWO gets it right there, but their click-bait Facebook tease is dishonest and wrong to omit a key fact in the story. Lazy, dishonest, it doesn't matter. You are being manipulated into clicking on a story by being given as few facts as possible. 

Once again, media does it's best to confuse, confound and bamboozle those they purport to serve. 

Oh, it's $5.77 a month......small bite size chunks.....out of your paycheck. 

Breaking Stale News

It was BREAKING NEWS! when it was posted on Friday around 6:00pm. It could have still been considered as BREAKING NEWS! when the story was updated a few hours later. 

But on Sunday evening, around 7:00pm, this item is not BREAKING NEWS!, but STALE NEWS. 

As one WPTA 21 anchor found out early on, TV in Fort Wayne operates 7 days a week. Why the station's website is so stale, especially on weekends, really has no good explanation. The other TV stations in town don't seem to have a problem when it comes to keeping things current. 

Here's the Maven's gripe: It's 48 hours later, and your website still shows this story in the prime position on the page as BREAKING NEWS!