Emory Bundy Letter Re: "He Said She Said" Reporting:
Alternatives to Light Rail in Seattle: Index
By Emory Bundy (2001.08.29)
Erica, as one who long lamented the inattention of the press to one
of the largest public works project in our history, Link light rail,
putatively addressing our leading urban challenge, I am grateful for
the attention you have given the downtown tunnel. It exceeds that of
your peers, and, for that, deserves commendation.
I respectfully object, however, to the following sentence and
premise: "As usual, it's all in how you massage the numbers." You
imply that Sound Transit and its critics each simply have a point of
view, and that both sides work to manipulate data to prove their
point. How even-handed of you.
As a manager and producer at KING, I formed a negative opinion of "he
says/she says" reporting, in which both sides are considered equally
reliable, or equally unreliable, get their counterpoint say, and
that's the story. The reporter takes no responsibility to actually
pursue and report on what the truth is, or at least some serious
effort to approximate it. It's a lot easier to do that kind of a
superficial job. It serves, not the public interest, but the
comfortable interests of established power--particularly power that
has immense resources to create, propagate, and spin its own
messages, while plain citizens must rely on the diligence of the
press.
Those of us who are alarmed about Sound Transit are desperate for
journals and individual reporters who are diligent, and willing to
pursue and report the facts. We welcome your scrutiny. But don't
make facile assumptions that, because we've formed a point of view,
it must be self-serving. Or that, because it has immense power and
lots of money, Sound Transit is reliable.
Sure, last September 88 of us, from all walks of life and corners of
the community, pleaded for an independent audit of Sound Transit, and
said we feared the light rail project was at least a half-billion
dollars over it's already-admitted quarter-billion dollar cost
overrun. (The Sound Transit claim at that time was $1.9 billion
[$1995]; the original projection was $1.67 billion.) We had and
specified a credible basis for our suspicions, including work
recently concluded by the Washington Research Council that seemed,
and proved to be, very conservative.
Well, we got the back of the hand, with Ron Sims and Dave Earling
leading the assault, which was generously reported by the daily
newspapers. Earling pronounced Sound Transit had already been
"audited to death," and that there were no cost overruns. He invoked
an audit performed by Deloitte Touche to prove his point. (The
firm's work is so satisfactory to the preferences of Sound Transit
that recently it was awarded another, large contract.) He accused us
of twisting the truth.
I supposed you can just take that as Sound Transit's massaging of the
data, vs. ours, in the matter of cost overruns--as you have in this
instance of the latest Sound Transit tunnel study vs. that of
Integrated Transport Research. Everybody's got their own numbers,
and some kind of self-interest to pursue, you aver. But I urge you
to consider probing your assumptions, and suggest there are
underlying facts that merit surfacing, without fear or favor.
Reporting with the premise that Roger Pence, and an estimable figure
like Jim MacIsaac, of ITR, are equals, in professional experience,
expertise, or integrity, and should be considered equally reliable
sources, is tragically misguided.
But don't take my word for it. Check it out.
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