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Ever wonder why the Herald does something? Or how? Or "what were they thinking?" Now you can find out. Executive Editor Ken Robertson and Managing Editor Rick Larson will do their best to explain what happens in the TCH newsroom - and why. |
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closeThursday, Jul. 16, 2009
Dear New York Times: Context counts
By Ken Robertson, Herald Executive Editor
Sometimes context is important.
A recent New York Times news story and graphic reminded me of that.
The story reported the nation’s big cities are feeling slighted because federal stimulus money is being put to work outside their boundaries.
The graphic that accompanied the edition distributed in Washington state — which appeared to target our state specifically — attempted to illustrate how stimulus money was benefiting rural areas while the metros went begging.
But it must have left most in Washington scratching their heads.
Examples selected were populous King County, which the Times graphic correctly noted was receiving $63 million, or $34 per capita.
Meanwhile, the graphic’s text box noted, next-door Kittitas County, with only 39,000 people, was getting $836 per capita, or $33 million.
What the New Yorkers didn’t realize is that virtually all that money will go for work on Interstate 90 leading to the summit of Snoqualmie Pass, the state’s most critical east-west highway link.
And who are the beneficiaries of those improvements? Everyone in King County who drives over the pass for commerce or pleasure. And all the King County employees and employers who depend on I-90 to deliver the goods and materials the metro area requires to feed its residents and keep factories like the Boeing aircraft plants open.
Sure, we folks who live east of the Cascades also get the same benefits, including the residents of Kittitas County.
But if there’s highway work that benefits virtually everyone in the state, it’s this work the Times cited as “vivid evidence that metropolitan areas are losing the struggle for stimulus money.”
Want to see where the money is going? Check out wsdot.wa.gov/projects/ and look at the Lake Easton and Snoqualmie Summit and Pass projects.
I easily found four of them are funded with stimulus dollars, total value $32.3 million.
w Ken Robertson: 582-1520; krobertson@tricityherald.com
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