Who's The Pretend Journalist, Now?

Every journalist grew up with fuzzy memories of old movies in his or her head, of chain-smoking beat reporters with arm-garters and press passes stuck in the bands of their fedoras, always going on and on about how they've got "the big scoop, chief!" Alas, real life is rarely so exciting, but it's cute (and pathetic) when they grow up and try to realize those misty, water-colored memories of the way it never was. Witness KIRO 7's attempt at muckraking yesterday by digging into the mayor's "no more bottled water!" plan.

"It's been more than a year since Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels made national headlines declaring a crackdown on city purchases of bottled water," breathlessly writes the nameless web copy guy. "Not only did bottled water keep coming to city offices, but KIRO Team 7 Investigative Reporter Chris Halsne discovered taxpayers are footing additional costs to implement the mayor's pet project."

Now, we're no fans of Nickels, either, but if ever there was a bottom-feeding story, this is it. What's the total waste associated with Nickels' plan, according to investigators? $100,000 in plumbing upgrades, water dispensers, and quality testing. But KIRO's thorough--all that info is online at their website, with incontrovertible proof that none of it is justifiable or might otherwise have occurred...or, wait. Scratch that. We're supposed the believe them because of their outraged tone.

Look, the city's facing a budget shortfall of up to $90 million next year--it's not like attacking wasteful spending isn't important. But with a mayor who bullied through a $4 billion tunnel project that's not exactly popular, and who's under fire for giving a bonus to the City Light director that's almost half of the total "wasted" amount KIRO reports, we think there's bigger fish to fry. Mocking Nickels for half-assed green policies is fine, but it's hard to prove that all that money was purely wasted, and compared to the other 800-pound gorillas in the room, this is all chump-change.