AP gets its slant on

Take a look at this AP report on the fate of HCR-59...and note just how slanted the reporter's take was:

Legislative hurdle for new teaching hospital killed


BATON ROUGE — An attempt to add legislative roadblocks to construction of a new public medical center in New Orleans failed to gain passage in the House, killing the proposal for the session.

Why exactly was the measure a "hurdle" - ?  That connotes an impediment.  The reporter could have just as easily chosen to characterize the measure as "Legislative safeguard"...but very clearly chose not to for some reason.

Proceeding into the opening paragraph, the measure's provision requiring full legislative approval is characterized pejoratively as "legislative roadblocks"...when they could just as easily have been called "accountability measures" or "greater fiscal oversight."  Again, the slanted preference of the reporter comes through as clear as day.

While the piece does briefly reference the way in which supporters presented the measure, the damage is already done - readers see the measure as a hostile attempt to kill the UMC hospital because of the improper way the issue is framed with the language employed.

Absolutely Not - WWLTV gets multiple facts wrong in UMC reporting

"The land is cleared for the new University Medical Center in Mid-City"

WWLTV Channel 4 gets a fundamental fact seriously wrong.  It's dangerously misleading because it has the potential to influence the debate on the UMC alternate proposal significantly.  And it's just sloppy, sloppy reporting.

The UMC footprint has not been cleared. The VA Footprint has been cleared.

Over 25 historic structures remain in the UMC Footprint, along with over a dozen other buildings.  Many parcels have been razed and cleared, but to say that the entire area has been cleared is factually incorrect.

WWLTV, like the Times-Picayune, then fails to mention the fact that the Vitter-Kennedy-Tucker plan calls for building in the Charity Shell...and only building in the current UMC footprint if building in Charity is not feasible for some reason.  Instead, WWL drops this mischaracterization of the plan:

The plan calls for the state to purchase Tulane Hospital downtown and Tulane's Lakeside Hospital in Metairie.

The state would also build a new 250-bed hospital on the land cleared in Mid-City.

I don't get it.  Is there no media outlet in town that will actually read the alternate proposal and report on it factually?

Misleading

The latest Times-Picayune article on the Vitter/Kennedy/Tucker UMC proposal mischaracterizes the proposal.

While the article says: ""Instead, they advocated that the state build a smaller new facility on the Mid-City footprint, while purchasing Tulane Medical Center, which consists of downtown and Metairie campuses owned by Tulane University and the for-profit Hospital Corporation of America."

...the proposal from the three GOP figures actually says:

In other words, the T-P article is wrong to suggest that the trio wants the state to build a smaller new facility in the Mid-City footprint.  They only want that IF a 250-bed facility cannot be recreated within the shell of the existing Charity Hospital.  And based on the study conducted by FHL and authorized by the Louisiana Legislature, it could likely be done within the Charity shell.

Why did the Times-Picayune fail to mention that the alternate UMC plan includes a call for re-use of Charity Hospital?

A good point

As readers of this blog likely know, the LSU/VA footprint is located in a much larger footprint, the footprint of "The BioDistrict." 

Here's a good point about a lack of public awareness about the BioDistrict project from a letter in the Times-Picayune today:

'Readers have been privy to stories about chickens in the Seventh Ward, nutria couture and Nicholas Cage's French Quarter exploits, but we have not seen a single piece on a neighborhood organization's effort to escape "BioDistrict New Orleans."'

The local media really should do a better job of ensuring that the public knows more about things like the BioDistrict.  The same goes for many aspects of the LSU/VA undertaking that haven't been covered over the past year.