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Straight Talk

By James Hettinger
Senior Advisor, Battle Creek Unlimited
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No good deed goes unpunished. Just ask Jeffrey Finkle, the very competent president of the International Economic Development Council, an association of hundreds of economic development developers from across the world.

Finkle was approached by National Public Radio in January of 2010, and asked to assist in a business story about economic development. Seeing the opportunity to highlight his profession and his membership, he bent over backwards to help the smiling crew access the most up-to-date information and to many developers across the country, including the very professional and passionate president of Saginaw Future, Joanne Crary.

What Finkle did not know was that NPR would take all that news content and convert it to something far different, a format that takes a sarcastic and biting view of American life. On May 13, the story ran on NPR, not on the news as Finkle had been told, but on a far different program. Suffice it to say, it was not a good media day for the economic development profession.

An early aspect to the story was a focus on Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker and his campaign promise that he would create 250,000 jobs. NPR then said if Walker did nothing all four years, Wisconsin would develop 180,000 jobs anyway, making the governor look pretty good in his pledge.

What the pointy heads at NPR bowdlerized was an uncomfortable fact: While Gov. Walker or whomever was creating 180,000 jobs, an uncomfortable fact of American economic life asserts itself: jobs disappear. They disappear because of technology displacement. They disappear overseas. They disappear because their markets are too mature. They disappear for a million reasons.

Economic erosion processes are omnipresent. When you have economic downturns, such as we experience now, job evaporation accelerates. The trick to good economic development is to create strategies and processes where you gain more jobs than you will lose. Despite hours of research, some of which had to have been conducted at Good Jobs Now, or at least, Patrice Lumumba University, NPR either did not grasp that fact or chose to ignore it.

NPR also took on the incentives issue which, of course, eliminated any drama about the conclusions. Incentives are not important. They fail to induce job production. It is all the off-the-planet stuff one could expect from academia and a couple of think tanks, none of whom have sat across the table from a business discussing incentives.

Finkle observed that if NPR really wanted to mock people, they might try mocking the companies and people who have moved money overseas, not the people working hard every day to prevent such scenarios from occurring. On the other hand, it is an axiom in the economic development profession that little good can happen when a developer takes time out of the busy schedule to talk with a reporter.

Perhaps, this should have been expected, even anticipated. NPR, a network that once assured quality programming in under-served media areas, is increasingly irrelevant in a world of cable channels, not to mention the inevitable onslaught of internet radio and television.

And, of course, some of the recent executive boo-boos at NPR have invited the critical scrutiny of one of its funders, the U.S. Congress. Having to survive in such perilous times, NPR might want to think of shortening their enemies list. As I noted this recently to Jeff Finkle, many economic development professionals are asked to fundraise for their local NPR affiliates. I know I was asked and I did help.

Without local affiliates, NPR has another survival issue. But a network that mocks hardworking people, demonstrates an unbelievable arrogance and adheres slavishly to an ideological straitjacket in interpretation of events is one American icon that deserves to be put out of our misery.

Editor’s Note: The radio feature referenced by the columnist was not a direct production by National Public Radio, as one could infer from reading this opinion piece. Just to clarify, it appeared in a segment of This American Life, a program produced by WBEZ Chicago Public Radio. The particular segment was written by the Planet Money team – a joint venture of NPR and This American Life – and produced by Chicago Public Radio and distributed by Public Radio International, not NPR. NPR’s editors were not involved in the story. However, NPR’s Ombudsman critiqued the work performed by his company’s staffer involved with the story, saying the piece sacrificed good journalism for the sake of style. Read that report at this link: http://n.pr/qxpfXA.

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