I haven’t had much to say here in a while for various reasons, but I kinda figured I’d be back as soon as someone hit a hot button of mine. Well, I just had the displeasure of watching Channel 2 put on two of the most misleading bullshit stories (consecutively, I might add) since their hit piece on Jordy Tollet a while back. I mean, it’s really hard to respect a station that is so obviously the mouthpiece of a certain political clique as to attempt sloppy character assassinations on people not in the mayor’s good graces. Not that he’s in mine either, but do we really want a major media outlet playing games with the news?

Well, tonight they managed to really get on my bad side with their alleged news story about a City of Houston Public Works inspector being arrested for accepting bribes to leave people’s water on, instead of cutting it off. I don’t have any problem with them doing a story on it; I expect and would want them to run stories on the rooting out of corruption in public officials (although I wish they’d go after the more questionable things we see in property transactions.)

I don’t have a problem with them bringing out that the employee had a criminal record involving drugs and credit card fraud. This points out two things. First, that the city is having to scrape the bottom of the barrel, and then reach under it for the fungus, in order to find people to work for it. Low pay means low quality. Just ask Angleton. (Thanks, Channel 2, for a headline that will leave folks thinking it’s a Houston city employee.) We can lament that all we want, but it’s not going to change until we elect people who are serious about restoring the city’s governance to a semblance of sanity instead of lining their pockets with consulting contracts and prepping for higher office. (Bell, White, Garcia, Fraga, etc.) Second, it points out that either someone was asleep either in HR or the Public Works & Engineering Department, or the laws concerning employee records are seriously screwy.

You see, COH does a cursory background check for criminal history when it initially hires employees. Initially is the key word — you see, inspectors are not hired off the street. It’s considered a promotional position, and you have to have spent time as a meter reader, learning the ins and outs before being given more responsibility. (Exception: PW&E has used contractors to fill in the gaps, but even then prefers to use them in mundane meter reading duties prior to giving them more complex tasks.) So for someone with this background to have an inspector’s job, either Human Resources fell down on the job by not reviewing his record again, or the interview board in Public Works failed to do so, or because of some obscure law or another (I have no idea on this), either or both were prevented from reviewing or knowing about his criminal record again. Apparently no one thought it was a bad idea to put someone guilty of a crime involving commerce (credit card fraud) in charge of an action that involved a commercial transaction (you pay or no more service). This would be analogous to hiring pickpockets for security at a concert.

I should point out that interview panels are nothing more than an ad hoc group of harried supervisors/managers torn away from their daily responsibilities and workload, given little time to prepare, and just enough training to say that they’ve had some. The finer points of reviewing criminal records is not something they’re trained for. Yet if you put the responsibility for culling such applicants on paper shufflers in HR, how do you not end up (eventually) unjustly punishing someone who actually has changed their ways, is a good employee, and deserves a promotion to a better job?

Sometimes, there are no good answers. In this case it was clear that Channel 2 didn’t even want to ask questions. I hardly expect them to engage in a discussion like the above (it’s my job, after all, as a blogger, to deal in analysis and commentary), but I do expect them to engage in factual reporting. They failed to do this when they twice questioned what the City of Houston and PW&E thought it was doing by hiring this ex-con to go into people’s homes.

You see, they’re meter inspectors – not plumbing or home inspectors. City of Houston Water Inspectors generally do not go into customer homes and have few reasons to do so. Inspectors are there for one of two purposes: Inspect, test, or repair the meter/transmitter/box or turn water off/on. (Employees no longer collect payment in the field, due to the number of robberies). Inspectors are not plumbers, and the major plumbing companies would take a pretty dim view of Public Works encroaching on their livelihood by “dealing with water problems.” In the interests of full disclosure, I do have to point out that they do enter commercial buildings from time to time, or those which are split residential/commercial (and disputing whichever status they are assigned). This is not common. The News2 story would have you believing that inspectors enter people’s homes every day. Sheer sensationalism.

In their very next story, they repeat that error, when they discuss the latest NASA flap; anonymous allegations (though you won’t find that out without reading deep into the article on their website) that astronauts have been drunk while flying the space shuttle. It’s titled “Report Finds Heavy Alcohol Use By Astronauts Before Launch.” Only that’s not what the allegations actually say. . . it is true for certain values of “astronaut” and “flying” but if you dig deep into the text on the website, you’ll see something that wasn’t mentioned in the article on TV:

The Aviation Week report doesn’t make clear when the alleged incidents occurred, nor does it say whether the intoxication involved crew members who have no role in flying the shuttle or whether it was the pilot and commander…..Aviation Week said the report citing drunkenness does not deal directly with Nowak or mention any other astronaut by name.

So what we have is a TV station reporting that a magazine is reporting that there are anonymous reports that anonymous crew members who may or may not have been actually flying the shuttle while drunk? Wait, let’s take a closer look at the beginning of the article:

At least twice, astronauts were allowed to fly after flight surgeons and other astronauts warned they were so drunk they posed a flight-safety risk, an aviation weekly reported Thursday, citing a special panel studying astronaut health.

The independent panel also found “heavy use of alcohol” before launch that was within the standard 12-hour “bottle-to-throttle” rule, according to Aviation Week & Space Technology, which reported the finding on its Web site.

So, unidentified crew members, who may or may not be the actual commander and co-pilot were twice allowed to go on a mission while drunk, and some unknown number (characterized as “heavy”) committed technical infractions by imbibing within 12 hours of launch? (Like maybe, I dunno, toasting the mission?)

Not to defend such stupid behavior and NASA asshattery, but does anyone else see a problem with this sort of sensationalism in news reporting? The ratings-hungry maniacs at News2 would have you believe that NASA is putting drunken revelers in charge of the Shuttle. Thank you, Channel 2, for reminding me why I don’t trust the media in this city.