Jan 22, 2015

a report that hides more than it reveals

Details of budgets are not interesting to me, along with often not being understood by me, and therefore not all that newsworthy or comment-worthy.

When I first saw a news item about the passing of the budget for 2015 of Iryat Bet Shemesh yesterday, I was not all that interested, and I was not going to even comment on it.

I just saw another article, on a different news media, about the same city council meeting passing the budget and now I have found something newsworthy about it.

The truth is that my comment is not about the budgetary items or any other details about it. My comment is about the reporting of it.

Here goes:

The first report I saw was from local Bet Shemesh news media Shopping Mekomi.

The main thrust of the article on Shopping Mekomi was regarding the debate over the budget. in 2013 there was a budget shortfall of 15.5million NIS. in the first three-quarters of 2014 the shortfall was 40million nis. blah blah blah.

Along comes the national Haredi news and also reports on the same City Council meeting.

Kikar gives largely the same report of what the mayor said, how they need to increase revenue, less government money so only what he gets will he spend, blah blah blah.

The one thing there is no mention of in the Kikar article is any of the increasing budget shortfalls of the last two years.

Once reporting on what must have been the most boring (by the very nature of it being about budgets) City Council meeting in the country, why not report the numbers? or just don't report anything at all.


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