Day 9

I'm noting this on Day 10, but it refers to day 9. Just two brief notes from a glimpse and little more of the news:

(1) There was follow up to the rich bus driver story. To their credit, they ran some feedback, including from the bus drivers' union. They also admitted to an error: they overstated by a factor of ten the number of new buses that could be purchased with all the large salaries. Coming back to that, I think it was misleading because the long term cost of a bus is much higher than the purchase price. To put them into use you have to pay insurance, storage, fuel, cleaning and maintenance, drivers, supervisors, and so on, unless the plan is to just let them sit and depreciate. There was also a new statement that seemed misleading, a reference to the millions the bus drivers are making. They make millions collectively. The highest paid bus driver makes a million in gross bus driving income in ten years, or will if he happens to continue to be the highest paid every year for ten years.

(2) Saw just a little of the deadbeat story. Because it felt just too lazy to comment wothout looking at the full report, I checked it out online. Watching it again, I remember the mournful piano music accompanying the pictures of the children. Apart from this maudlin effort there is amazingly little there. Two deadbeats. Johnny Mercure shoves microhones in their faces as usual, and comes back with his typical information-packed report. It's virtual information overload when you get to dense portions like this:

We caught up with Brian one recent morning.

John Mercure: "Im John Mercure. I work for channel four."

"How you doin?" Cuthbert said.

John Mercure: "I'm doin all right."

John Mercure: "I wanted to know if I could talk to you about your child support."

"No," Cuthbert said.

John Mercure: "You owe 40 grand."

"I cant talk about it," Cuthbert said.

John Mercure: "Your son needs you."

"I cant talk about it," Cuthbert said.

Cuthbert slammed his car door and drove off.

Did you keep up with all that? Mercure is doing "all right" and Cuthbert has a son who need his 40 grand. And we can see it all for ourselves because Mercure says so himself. Without even asking a single question! How's that for a feat of journalism. (Though admittedly, "I wanted to know if I could talk to you" was pretty question-like.)

Johnny Mercure was exposing the fact that one of the deadbeats was "also a scofflaw" because he continues to drive after the revocation of his license. This is just habit for John, since OAR offenses are another story he has done repeatedly. What does that add to the story? John spins it as: bad person, violates laws. I looked the guy up. He was divorced in 1997. In 2002, his child support was converted from a percentage to a fixed $300 a month. In 2004, his arrearage from 1997 to 2002 was set by the court at almost $19,000. In the last 72 months, that has increased by about $24k, so he has paid roughly nothing since then. But the guy has 61 court cases listed against him, including five for tax warrants totalling $15k or so in unpaid taxes, and many thousands more owed in small claims actions, unemployment tax warrants, and then there's the criminal cases. I counted guilties for 10 misdemeanors and six felonies. Bail jumping, possession of THC, possession of drug paraphenalia, resisting/obstructing, damage to property. So that's probably some restitution payments, some lost bail money, and some money wasted on drugs. So maybe the guy has lots of money coming in, but I would guess he doesn't have a lot. Prison time does not do much for one's economic standing. John told us nothing about any of this. Nor what he does for a living. Whether he has a job. Whether he has assets. I wonder what this guy's story is.

If only Mercure had the curiosity that makes for a decent journalist, but to him, the deeper issues that account for why some people don't keep up (is it spite, laziness, drugs, or just giving up on a bad life?) and how they could be prodded to do so, just aren't interesting. How to solve the problem is not interesting. Whether the court's order is really just is not interesting. As he responds to the other "deadbeat":

We decided to ask Christina about the obligations she's not meeting. When we caught up with her she told us, "You don't know the story. So until you can understand the story, dont blame it on me."

OK. Here's the story: Christina was ordered to pay $515 a month. She paid $627 all last year. Ten months she paid nothing.

Simple, huh? If Mercure actually gave a damn about these poor kids, or about doing decent journalism, he'd have to give us a little more background. Show us that there's a problem, and look at possible solutions. First, was the order justified? I'll assume yes, but maybe not. How is each parent and the child doing? Is the brunt being taken by the child, the ex, the whole family, or some benefactor who is pitching in to make up the difference? Assuming that this is unjust, how can it be fixed? Will throwing Brian in jail again help his kid any? Is that what mom wants? Maybe the loser dad needs help, maybe he needs motivation. We just don't know anything useful at the end of the report, because John doesn't think there are any questions to ask.

At root, I think this is the big problem with everything Mrecure does in his "investigative" reports (what an irony that is!): It isn’t about informing the people so that an enlightened public can recognize and understand problems and find sound solutions; it’s about using the power of the press to expose, humiliate, and present object lessons along the lines of Greek drama to pressure people to comply with authority. The promotional segments for the newscast go about half way in honestly representing this obsession: it says that when you investigate, you expose the bad guys. It's not clear that it requires much investigation to do what Mercure does. He definitely makes it a point to "expose" people in the most vulgar manner. But then the promo says something about getting to the truth, which has always been odd, because one assumes that everything they cover is being presented as the truth, and nothing in Mercure's antics has seemingly ever led to that Perry Mason moment where the subject cracks and admits hedunnit. If the distinction is between covering and uncovering, Mercure looks more like covering.