Tuesday, September 4, 2012

And Now For The Rest Of The Furlough Story

The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel is reporting that the illegal furloughs Scott Walker unilaterally imposed on Milwaukee County employees has a tab of $4.5 million. But there are some serious omissions and inaccuracies in their report.

You can find the full story, including the much higher price tag as well as the name of the culprits, at Milwaukee County First.

The fact that the newspaper chose to write the story as they have, as well as the story itself, raises a number of immediate questions in my mind:

  1. Why did the newspaper omit the fact that Walker's original claim of a budget crisis in 2009 was found to be a lie?
  2. Why did the newspaper omit the fact that the second budget crisis in 2010 was self-imposed?
  3. Why did the newspaper omit the fact that the ruling by WERC was based on bad faith bargaining?
  4. What if Abele hadn't stalled on the payout until after the recall election? 
  5. Would that have affected the outcome of the election?
  6. Why did the newspaper omit the name of Supervisor Joe Sanfelippo, who cost the taxpayers nearly $20 million in lost savings when the unions offered to forgive more than half of the payout as well as give concessions on health care and pension costs?  Related: Does the omission of Sanfelippo's name have to do with the fact that Sanfelippo, a teahadist, is running for the state assembly?
Inquiring minds want to know!

3 comments:

  1. Milwaukee Journal/Sentinel is a WTMJ republican run news outlet. Of course they are not going to tell the whole story. After all, they endorsed Walker all the way.

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  2. They used to talk of political machines in the past: Boss Tweed, the Boston brahmin's "vault," Chicago, Kansas City 30s-40s, etc.
    The media played a big part of all those experiences. Journal Communications is the flagship media outlet in Wisconsin.
    Scott Walker becomes a political star--even though evidently he did all these unethical, immoral, and illegal deeds.
    If only Dan Bice had been there to bring out the truth about all these happenings: that's called reporting the news.
    Are Journal Communications crusaders for public virtue? Umm....

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  3. Reporting the news objectively, fully and fairly and letting the readers judge for themselves -- what a concept! Perhaps the Pulitzer Prize in journalism should be awarded based on the accuracy of reporting the news WHILE IT IS HAPPENING rather than after the fact.

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