Quota

This is just another case of the news getting it wrong. "Inaccurate" reporting is common and it rears its ugly head again. This type of reporting happens more often than anyone would ever imaginge. Inaccuracies are due to many factors, a lot of inacuracies are made from "spiceing" the story, some from general incompetance, laziness or in fewer cases intentional malice is to blame. Do a search on the actual headline and you will find other news stories that reveal more facts. The fact that the police agency is requesting more funding from the legislature and wants to prove that their officers are "ACTIVE" and have set a baseline. But what caught my attention to this small story is the unbelievable "no reason" allegation made in this news report. I don't understand how a reporter can confuse "whether a ticket is written or not" with "for no reason" but none-the-less it's printed. Retraction will be on page 7b but the original story is on page 1a. The huge underlying fact that we can NEVER forget is that the news agencies are in business to genereate profits. They way they make there money is selling advertising space. The more readers/viewers they have the more profitable the advertising space becomes. That is why there are sweeps week, neislon ratings circulation totals, website hits etc. THEY ARE IN BUSINESS TO SELL ADVERTISING, THEY ARE NOT IN BUSINESS TO TELL THE TRUTH. It is not very profitable to tell only the mundane truth without "live-ing it up" somehow. In reality, this misrepresentation in this story worked. You bought the paper or you read the story online and so did I and do you think the added readership will be relayed to their advertisers..YOU BET. Then just maybe they can charge more money for advertising space. These type of "misreporting" is a systemic problem that affects most all news agencies. A word from the wise.. look for other sources of "the truth" when you encounter news stories that don't make sense. Most cases they are incomplete, inaccurate, misleading or just downright untruthfull. One of Mark Twain's famous quotes explains it all: "If you don't read the newspaper you are uninformed. If you do read the newspaper you are misinformed." How true this is....