Voice For Liberty

Category: Wichita news media

  • A Letter to the Editor is Edited

    I wrote a letter to the editor of The Wichita Eagle for publication. It was published today, March 7, 2005.

    I have learned a lesson: my letter was much too long. I don’t fault the Eagle for editing for space reasons. I do think, though, that my letter has a much different meaning in its edited form. You can be the judge. I have created a document that shows, side-by-side, my original letter and the published letter. The link is here: http://wichitaliberty.org/files/Letter_of_2005-03-07_Edited.pdf

  • Wichita News Media Coverage of Downtown Arena Issue

    On the November 2, 2004 ballot the voters of Sedgwick County approved an additional one percent sales tax to fund an arena in downtown Wichita.

    I opposed the taxpayers funding an arena for this reason: Proponents claimed that the arena would pay for itself (and be a good ting for Wichita) through various forms of economic benefit, both direct and spillover. But I found no research that supported this claim, except for one report prepared by the Center for Economic Development and Business Research at Wichita State University. I was able to find, however, much research that showed that these facilities rarely provide the promised benefit. Therefore, to ask all the taxpayers to pay for something that benefits just a few is not right.

    The Wichita news media, in my opinion, did a woeful job covering the issues relating to the arena. In particular, it seemed as through the Wichita Eagle had as its corporate mission the passage of the arena tax. The Eagle did print many letters and “Opinion Line” comments that oppose the arena, and they still do even today. But the clear editorial stance was to press for passage of the arena tax.

    As an illustration of the bias on the Eagle’s editorial page, consider this example: Mr. Phillip Brownlee, opinion editor for the Eagle, wrote an editorial that said the true cost of the Kansas Coliseum renovations would be $122 million instead of $55 million because of interest costs. I wrote a letter that said that since some of this money wouldn’t have to be paid until the distant future, we should consider the effects of the time value of money and inflation. Mr. Brownlee wrote to me and said that I was correct, and my letter was published.

    At the time I assumed that Mr. Brownlee, probably having majored in journalism in college, wasn’t aware of the time value of money and things like that. After the election, though, someone told me, and I confirmed by reading his biography on the Eagle’s website, that Mr. Brownlee was a certified public accountant in a previous career. A person with that type of education and experience certainly does know about the time value of money. We have to ask, then, why Mr. Brownlee would disregard such an important factor when editorializing.

    Eagle reporter Mr. Fred Mann, in an article titled “Arena’s financial impact cloudy” published on September 5, 2004, provided good information about the doubts surrounding facilities such as these. This article, however, appeared nearly two months before the election, and I saw little coverage of these issues again. I uncovered much other research (most of it is posted in my blog) and supplied it to reporters at the Eagle, but they didn’t act on it.

    Other people in Wichita’s news business appeared to lack basic factual information about the arena vote. As part of its election night coverage, one prominent Wichita television news anchor interviewed Mr. Karl Peterjohn of the Kansas Taxpayers Network. Mr. Peterjohn mentioned something about how now the story moves to the Kansas Legislature. The news anchor expressed surprise to learn that the ballot issue was merely an advisory referendum instead of a binding resolution, and that the legislature would have to pass a law allowing Sedgwick County to raise its sales tax. A Wichita television news personality being so poorly informed about such a basic factual matter tells us that we shouldn’t expect important news reporting from our television stations.

    KSN Television had a panel show a week before the election. The members of the panel were Wichita Mayor Carlos Mayans, Sedgwick County Commissioner Ben Sciortino, and Wichita Downtown Development Corporation President Ed Wolverton. Each has been quite clear and outspoken in their support of the proposed downtown arena. I do not remember the media panel members asking very many tough questions. I wrote to several people at KSN pleading for some balance either on the guest panel or the media panel.

    I supplied most local television stations and radio stations with some of the research that I found. This was information that could be verified independently if the reporters chose to do so. It made a compelling case against taxpayer-funded facilities like the proposed downtown Wichita arena. Nearly everyone I showed it to wondered why this information wasn’t being reported. But I had difficulty gaining the attention of anyone in the Wichita new business.

    One exception is Mr. Erik Runge of KWCH Television. He interviewed me, independently verified some of my research, interviewed someone else with an opposing view, and prepared three different segments that were broadcast about a week before the election. I thought he did a good job.

    I also appeared as an arena opponent on the radio show “Sports Daily” on KFH Radio. I had heard the hosts advertise for someone to appear on their show as an arena opponent. I applied and appeared for 30 minutes.

    Why did the Wichita news media do such a poor job covering the arena tax issues? I do not know. But it is easy to be swept up in the excitement of a new facility. The arguments that arena supporters used seem to make sense until you investigate their truthfulness. It took a lot of effort to uncover contradictory evidence. I suspect that many didn’t look very hard and therefore never found what I did, or if they did find it, since it said what they didn’t want to hear, they ignored it.

  • Stretching figures strains credibility

    I recently read that the Wichita Airport’s economic impact was estimated at $1.6 billion per year. I thought this seemed high, so I investigated further.

    I became aware of this study prepared by the Center for Economic Development and Business Research at Wichita State University, available here: Wichita Mid-Continent Airport Economic Impact.

    By reading this study I learned that the employees of Cessna and Bombardier — 12,134 in total — are counted in determining the economic impact of the airport. Why? To quote the study: “While it might appear that manufacturing businesses could be based anywhere in the area, both Cessna and Bombardier require a location with runways and instrumentation structures that allow for flights and flight testing of business jet airplanes.” This is true, but it is quite a stretch to attribute the economic impact of these employees to the airport.

    For one thing, if we count the economic impact of the income of these employees as belonging to the airport, what then do we say about the economic impact of Cessna and Bombardier? We would have to count it as very little, because the impact of their employees’ earnings has been assigned to the airport. This is, of course, assuming that we count the impact of these employees only once.

    Or suppose that Cessna tires of being on the west side of town, so it moves east and starts using Jabara Airport. Would Cessna’s economic impact on Sedgwick County be any different? I think it wouldn’t. But its impact on the Wichita airport would now be zero. Similar reasoning would apply if Cessna built its own runway.

    Or it may be that someday Cessna or Bombardier will ask Sedgwick County for some type of economic subsidy, and they will use these same economic impact dollars in their justification. But these dollars will have already been used, as they were attributed to the airport.

    To its credit, the WSU study does provide some figures with the manufacturing employees excluded. The impact without the manufacturing employees included is estimated at $183 million, or about 11 percent of the $1.6 billion claimed earlier.

    It is a convenient circumstance that these two manufacturers happen to be located near the airport. To credit the airport with the economic impact of these companies — as though the airport was involved in the actual manufacture of airplanes instead of providing an incidental (but important) service — is to grossly overstate the airport’s role and its economic importance.

    Of course the airport is important to Wichita. We should seek to measure its impact sensibly instead of stretching to attribute every dollar possible to it. When advocates of any cause manufacture figures like the $1.6 billion economic impact, it casts doubt on other arguments they advance.

    Links referred to: Wichita Mid-Continent Airport Economic Impact

  • Columnist Confuses Government and Individual, Again

    In the November 7, 2004 Wichita Eagle, columnist Mark McCormick again confuses the proper role of government and individual.

    He starts by talking about the spirit of the people in Wichita, how they will help you push your car, how they will hold open the door for you, etc. He refers to this as “neighborliness.” He labels Karl Peterjohn, Executive Director of the Kansas Taxpayers Network, as not belonging to this group, because of his opposition to tax increases.

    Because Peterjohn opposed the arena and a school bond issue a few years ago, McCormick thinks he also opposed the wheel and fire. This type of ridicule does not advance Mr. McCormick’s argument.

    I would ask Mr. McCormick if it is neighborly to vote for something that if passed, would require that your neighbor pay to subsidize your pleasure. That’s what the downtown arena tax does. It requires everyone to pay for something that benefits only a few.

    The things that Mr. McCormick labels as being neighborly are things we do because we want to. Many people want to give of themselves to make things better for others. When we do that, either by holding open a door for someone or by giving substantially of our time and money, we are directly engaged in the noble act of charity. The givers of charity directly receive the benefits of having donated, and because it is our own resources we are giving, we make sure that our effort is not wasted.

    When the government, however, taxes us and gives the money to those it does not belong to, it is not an act of charity. It is not neighborly, as we don’t even know those who received the benefit. The givers do not receive the benefit of having donated, because the taxes were taken from them by force.

    The arguments Mr. McCormick makes, much like in his column from earlier in the week, refer to someone being “creative” and “taking a risk” and how Wichita might become “place where dreams and ideas usually die.”

    How is it being “creative” for Sedgwick County to tax its citizens and build the same type of arena that all the other cities — the cities we are supposed to compete with — have already built?

    How is it “taking a risk” for government officials to tax citizens to build an arena? If the arena fails to generate revenue sufficient to cover its costs, will the politicians be responsible? Of course they won’t. They will simply ask the citizens for more taxes, as is happening right now with Wichita’s Old Town special tax district.

    Furthermore, I contend that the more government there is, the less “dreams and ideas” there will be, whether they live or die. For example, downtown arena supporters claim that the arena will attract bars and restaurants to its vicinity. What, then, should entrepreneurs do right now, if they are interested in opening bars or restaurants? Should they wait several years to see if the arena is built, and if it does in fact attract customers? Or should they build elsewhere, and then hope that the arena doesn’t detract too much from its business? This is not the type of climate that encourages individual risk-taking.

    The same week that this column appeared Walter E. Williams wrote in a column titled “Why We’re a Divided Nation” these words: “The prime feature of political decision-making is that it’s a zero-sum game. One person or group’s gain is of necessity another person or group’s loss. As such, political allocation of resources is conflict enhancing while market allocation is conflict reducing. The greater the number of decisions made in the political arena, the greater is the potential for conflict.”

    When we say “yes” to the things Mr. McCormick advocates, we rely on politicians and government to make our decisions, thereby increasing conflict. We should say “no” more often to government and let individuals and free markets make more decisions. We will have less conflict.

  • Columnist Confuses Government and Individual

    Writing in the November 3, 2004 Wichita Eagle, columnist Mark McCormick labels the vote in favor of a taxpayer-funded, government-owned arena a “rebirth of city’s pioneering spirit.” In this column, Mr. McCormick mentions our famous entrepreneurs and aerospace industry pioneers. Although he explicitly denies comparing the building of a downtown arena to the genius of Beech and Cessna, this article claims that the downtown arena will somehow lead to a rebirth of Wichita.

    What I think Mr. McCormick has overlooked is that the people who in the past made Wichita great were people working as individuals, not as governments. Now, when we look to get something done, we look first to the government, and we seem to think that’s a good thing. The entrepreneurs and risk-takers of the past were investing their own money, their own sweat and toil. Our government leaders invest none of this.

    The effect of the downtown arena vote is that instead of trusting the individual, or on organizations that individuals freely enter in to, we invest our hope and future in politicians and government bureaucrats. Instead of letting free competitive markets work, we rely on increasing government interference in the market. Is this the pioneering spirit that made Wichita great that Mr. McCormick refers to?