Lies, Damned Lies, and . . .

College enrollment figures. Saturday's article featured four colleges all trying their best to spin their numbers. Very apples-to-oranges in some of those numbers.

One thing to remember is that it is natural for enrollments to drop from fall to spring, so a drop in enrollment is nothing special. And of course QU's spring enrollment this year will be down from last year's....they had a bad recruiting year this year, so no surprise there. The article could have said that QU had a 92 percent fall-spring retention rate....now wouldn't that have sounded like cause to celebrate?

Culver's claim of a rise in enrollment from fall to spring is very surprising, and I have to say a bit suspicious. H-LG's figures are, at least as reported, incomprehensible. Students who enroll for the entire year are only counted in the fall? Doesn't make any sense. The spring enrollment increase is actually 6 percent (OK, 5.96), not 5.6.

John Wood's enrollment dropped 4 percent, but as is customary with the Herald-Whig, any potential negative news about John Wood is deeply buried. One teeny paragraph at the end of the story, and you have to calculate the percentage yourself.

The "New" Blogger

Google has finally forced me to switch over to the "new" blogger. First impression: It's a pain in the ass and a violation of what made Google popular in the first place.

What's missing

My apologies to the Gods of Blog for the hiatus. Fact is, not much has been happening in the local media to comment on...the usual preacher stories, an occasional alarmist tale about how we need more money from the government for highways, barges, etc.

It occurs to me that there's an interesting silence in the news at the moment. Look back a few years and you'll see that the Whig and others were filled with stories of the acrimony and bonehead decisions of the Quincy School Board. There hasn't been a good expose story or ranting letter to the editor about the QSB for a long, long time.

With board elections approaching, I'm sure that will change....at least the ranting letter to the editor part. But it does raise an interesting question. Is it possible that there is a government body and set of officials who are simply going about their job, doing a decent job of taking care of the public's business, and thus not raising a controversy? It's heresy in the Blogiverse to suggest that some local public officials are competent, but the thought does occur.

Balance

We all have our opinions and preferences. It's good that we do--that's part of what makes us human.

Journalists don't have to shed their biases either. That would be too much to ask of them. Places are set aside where reporters can feel free to let their opinions out--opinion columns, the editorial page, insight stories.

That's why a one-sided piece that compares abortion to the Holocaust is so out of place on the front page of the City/County section, masquerading as news.

I suppose a person might look at the bland headline and say, "Oh, it's not really about abortion. It's about an educational trip some students took to Washington, D.C."

Like hell it is.