BlogWood: MT Archives

Reporter buys calculator; Tribune plays catch up

(note: this entry is color coded for your reading convenience!)

As reported here on BlogWood, The Tampa Tribune published an article on Nov. 19 that is remarkable for it’s bias. In a nutshell, a Sheriffs Deputy went before a government board to represent MADD, but testified in full uniform and misled those to whom he was speaking. The Trib story reads like a propaganda piece from MADD and reports the officer’s misleading statistics as fact.

There seems to be a new reporter assigned to this story, which leads me to the following questions:

Why are the original reporters off this story?
Were they ever at the Commission meeting they were reporting on? They either missed many many little details, or they or their editor intentionally spun the story.
Do any of the original reporters or their editor have ties to MADD?

Anyway, today’s article is obviously a correction, but it is done without admitting the original mistake. Most readers will remain blissfully unaware that their paper printed an article that was designed to fit MADD’s political agenda. Casual readers of the original article are not going to pick up the fact that Officer Wallace was actually representing MADD (despite the fact that he was in full uniform!) because this is not disclosed until the second to last paragraph.

I emphasized this buried information in BlogWood, and apparently the Trib has now had time to read their own reporters’ notes, because the new article features this disclosure prominently.

The very end of the original is also the only place in the whole article where you will find anyone with anything good to say about the relaxed Blue Laws. Readers who slog all the way through the misleading piece can see 17 words from a restaurant owner who benefits from the earlier sales.

Another glaring error, or intentional distortion, was the Trib’s original reporting of the statistics that Wallace spewed.

The facility processed 6,785 DUI cases in 2002 and already has processed more than 5,300 this year, Wallace said.

"The statistics are scary. Hillsborough County has a problem," he said after the meeting. "Two more hours to drink - what good can that have?"

Word has it that the Trib reporter who wrote today’s article owns a calculator, but he is MAD (no pun intended) because The Tribune refuses to reimburse him for this expense. Their argument is that fingers and toes are more than sufficient for most Tribune reporters’ math needs. Nevertheless, today’s article fleshes these numbers out a little, while still giving the Sheriffs office a fighting chance to close the gap toward the end of the season:

Wallace told the board the blood-alcohol center processed 6,785 DUI cases in 2002 and already this year has processed more than 5,300 cases.

But this is November, just six weeks from the end of the year. If the pace continues, the projected number of DUI cases will total about 700 fewer than last year. That doesn't take into account the holidays, however, when the number of DUIs tend to rise a bit.

On BlogWood, I was not so kind:

Oh, good! Now we have some numbers to back up Wallace’s testimony that DUIs are increasing. Let’s see, it’s November, so we can knock 2 months off of our 365 day year, do a little math, and see that Wallace’s division is processing about 17 DUI cases each day. Wow. They’re pretty busy, all right. Why, last year they only processed a little over 18.5 cases each day. That’s an increase of... uh, wait... let’s see... Well, I’m sure Officer Wallace can shed some light on this apparent discrepancy:

"The statistics are scary. Hillsborough County has a problem," he said after the meeting. "Two more hours to drink - what good can that have?"

Hmmm... that’s a pretty scientific observation. I don’t think I can fault his methodology at all.

Which brings us to the whole “scary” thing. Today’s article has Wallace "before the board" talking of a "scary" situation. The original article, quoted above, has him saying this to a reporter after the meeting. His choice of words obviously had an impact:

Platt was persuaded and cast the deciding vote in a 4-3 ballot to rescind the 1-month-old law. ......

"He was there in uniform," Platt said. "He said, 'I'm saying we have a problem in Hillsborough County. The statistics show we do. The stats are scary.' "

Regardless of when he actually uttered the word, statistics seem to show that the only thing scary about a mere 2 extra hours to drink on Sunday is the probability of Deputy Wallace’s pants catching on fire. From today’s article we learn that Wallace is either a liar or a coward. (I’m leaning toward the former, though I suppose it could be both...):

Before the board stood a Hillsborough County sheriff's deputy - in full uniform - saying the county was in a "scary"' situation; that thousands of suspected drunken drivers parade through the jail each year and this year is no different. Even though it's two fewer hours a week that alcohol can be purchased, it would make a difference, the commission was told.

Which would seem to run counter to what his boss said later:

(Sheriff Cal) Henderson said he wouldn't have done it (spoke to the commission) without a more complete picture. He said the DUI statistics do not appear to be affected by "two hours on a Sunday morning."

And it looks like the Trib took that money they saved on calculators and sprung for a phone call so that their reporter could hear some real numbers:

Hillsborough sheriff's Sgt. Steve Hawkins, who heads up the department's DUI task force, said his squad follows trends that say most drunken drivers navigate highways between midnight and 5 a.m. on Sundays, not after 11 a.m.

"During the morning hours, from 8 a.m. on until early afternoon, it's sporadic,"he said. "Fewer people are engaged in drinking at that time. Our enforcement effort is geared to the database that says [between midnight and 5 a.m.] is where we need to put the majority of our eggs."

Since August, the department has averaged 3.5 DUI arrests on Sundays, after 11 a.m., he said, and he hasn't noticed a spike in arrests after county businesses started selling alcohol at 11 a.m. on Sundays. He doesn't plan to alter his enforcement efforts.

Finally, in today’s article, the Trib lets on that even the commission itself might be aware of at least two sides to this story:

The commission now will schedule a public hearing to flesh out the numbers and hear all sides of the argument. Platt has asked Sheriff Cal Henderson to bring official DUI statistics. She hasn't made up her mind one way or the other, she said.