DUMBING DOWN THE MEDIA: Hard to believe journalistic incompetence can be even more spectacular in other cities with supposedly real newspapers, but the lowering of standards and quality we see here with the TNI twins occurs elsewhere, including lush, cool Seattle. The once-respected Seattle Times covered the story about a GOP congressman in Arizona who declared he was gay, and they even ran an editorial cartoon on the subject. Only problem: They got the wrong guy. They identified Sen. Jon Kyl, not Rep. Jim Kolbe, as the guy coming out of the closet. How do you do this? If all the paper did was rip and reprint a wire story, how do the editors substitute a senator for a representative? And when they ripped the wire story, didn't they read it first? How can anyone be this sloppy? Seen one Republican who's name begins with K, seen 'em all? Just more evidence for our thesis: The media do all those dumb things not because they're catering to the dumbest part of the population, but because they're so damn dumb themselves. DUMB & DUMBER: Meanwhile, The Arizona Daily Star, which seems congenitally incapable of giving us any news about the local candidates running in the September 10 primaries (now less than a month away!), has finally broken its long silence by telling us how they're going to cover this election: They've teamed up with a TV station and retained a pollster to tell us what we think about the issues. Two Sundays ago, the Star told us we were all worried about crime and invited us to comment. Last week, we learned that, yes, we're all still worried about crime. Oh, and growth, too. With all deference to the Star's pollster, Margaret Kenski (one of the best in the state), the concept is totally flawed; and furthermore, it's an abdication of responsibility. Voters really don't need--or particularly want to know--what they and their neighbors already think about the issues. They--at least the ones who care enough to vote--need information about the folks they'll be voting for. So far, the Star hasn't mentioned who's running for most offices, what they claim to stand for, or who's funding their campaigns. Although, hey, they've promised to put entire campaign finance reports on their sizzling electronic version, StarNet. Now if they'd only print 'em in the paper for us luddites who don't have high-speed modems and 15 zillion megabytes of RAM. There appear to be several reasons the Star has chosen this pointless methodology: • They've paid the same consultants who are putting newspapers in the crapper all over America and feel like they can't throw away expensive recommendations; • They think it will expand StarNet usage; • As evidenced in Seattle, they can't find anybody competent to write about politics; • And what we suspect is the biggest contributing factor--if you don't write about candidates, none of them will ever call up to bitch, nor will you offend any advertisers. Voters need to know who's running as well as the records of incumbents. Voters need to know what the candidates think are the most important issues. They might also want to know how many of our would-be leaders are buffoons and frauds. FINALLY, A NEWSPAPER THAT DID SOMETHING RIGHT: The Phoenix Gazette, the chronically withering afternoon half of the Arizona Republic, recently broke the establishment media's long love affair with Arizona GOP Attorney General Grant Woods with a lead editorial supporting the citizen's lawsuit brought against Woods by former congressman and Phoenix radio talk-show host Sam Steiger. Steiger's suit alleges Woods broke the law when he paid more than $100,00 in taxpayer funds to the law firm defending Woods during the recent criminal investigation of Woods' office by Maricopa County Attorney Rick Romley. The law clearly states a public official can't do this, but Woods' response was that, as the state's top lawyer, he determines what the law is. Fascinating jurisprudence. The big news here isn't that Woods is a sleazy fraud or that Steiger is on the Attorney General's ass. The real news is that an establishment daily managed to agree. Now if the Democratic Party and the rest of the establishment media would recognize Woods is just a petty version of Gov. J. Fife Deadbeat III, maybe Woods' sorry political career could be terminated. IMPACT UPDATE: After a long battle of attrition between county staff and the development community, the Board of Supervisors is finally set to approve $1,550 impact fees for the various "benefit zones" within Pima County. But guess what the Board decided to do? Although state law allows the county to use a percentage of the impact fees to cover the costs of collecting the payments, the supes voted against letting them do that. "With the ordinance we passed, we eliminated that," says District 5 Supervisor Raul Grijalva. "That's why I voted against it. Not only did they emasculate the ordinance, but they made it impossible for us to effectuate it." That means the money to handle impact fees has to be found somewhere in the general fund. In other words, taxpayers are going to have to cover administrative costs, rather than the builders. Just another example of how the GOP majority has worked to sabotage the impact fee process. DIAMOND TOUCH: Speaking of impact fees, do you imagine that Don Diamond's Rocking K megadevelopment will bring in some significant impact fees now that it's finally underway? Well, it might, but here's the catch: Since Diamond agreed to pay major infrastructure costs in return for the rezoning that will allow him to build his Rincon Valley resortropolis, any impact fees collected from the development go right into a fund from which Don can reimburse himself for any money he's laid out for improvements. Remember, the Rocking K agreement was finalized way back in 1991, when few folks in this burg were even considering impact fees. Now that's what we call foresight. PREMATURE ERECTIONS: You'd think somebody running for the job of Pima County's chief law enforcement kahuna would obey the law. But that's not the case with county attorney candidate Richard Gonzales, who began putting up his political signs around town before last Sunday. That was clearly a violation of the county's requirement that signs are to be erected no more than 30 days before the primary election. Good start, Rick. Other dirty early birds included Congressman Ed Pastor, Supervisor Raul Grijalva, state senators Victor Soltero and George Cunningham, and justice of the peace candidate Paul Simon. We fervently hope you'll take 'em down early, too.

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