In a report to the BOS last Tuesday—much to the dismay of Rollie Katz, Mr Big of Local One and head puppetmaster of the Contra Costa County Board of Supervisors (BOS)—Dr Walker concluded that:

a) Reducing the County Health Care services by $10 million is improbable given the mandatory staffing requirements and County employee sweet heart deals including pay and benefits.

b) Reducing the number of indigent may not be feasible or result in keeping significant resources from getting poured down the drain (see item “a” above).

c) To maintain existing services and meet budgetary “constraints,” an alternative approach ought to be considered.

Ergo: Close the CCRMC inpatient unit and issue RFPs to contract out some non-critical County services. Walker suggested the County hire a Community Based Organization to oversee fulfillment of contracts for non-critical service areas including: detention health, inpatient psychiatric, security, medical records, housekeeping, landscaping, facility maintenance, lab work, and collections.

Oh My. From what we saw from the peanut gallery, Mr Big looked like he had eaten a bad oyster, and several Supes were apoplectic, shaking their heads in disbelief before the presentation was even over!

AP “reporter,” Dan Thompson, gushes—in his lead sentence, no less—that: “California’s elected officials can’t agree on a state budget, now nearly two months overdue, but they do agree that such a prolonged stalemate is no way for the world’s eighth-largest economy to govern itself.” Note the ease with which Thompson mistakenly equates the state budget as the eighth-largest economy in the world, as if it’s old news that California is some Stalinist ant farm on a five-year plan.

Like so many other so-called “professional journalists,” Thompson tacitly accepts and uncritically promulgates the seriously flawed premise that the State is the same thing as Civil Society; as if government is everything and subsumes all other societal structures. Lucky for everyone, this is simply not true; on two important counts.

First, the eighth-largest economy in the world is not the State government budget, but the overall GDP of California’s entire economy including a huge private sector that actually produces real goods and services. Secondly, and for the most part—despite the California Legislature’s best efforts—the eighth-largest economy in the world is governed more by real-world market forces here and abroad, than by politicians playing musical chairs in Sacramento.

So why is it that neither the AP or the Times editors bothered to ask if Thompson’s reportage was factual? Is it because they too wish such speculation to be true? Or is it because it’s not about “news coverage,” anymore; when fluff-with-attitude is good enough because there’s hardly any local staff left to turn out the lights, let alone check the facts?

I’m betting on lazy. Either way, bargain basement “mc-journalism” is what the public gets when Bay Area newspapers, in a near-monopoly market, lose sight of their fiduciary duty and in the name of the bottom-line in Denver, out-source their editorial mission to delusional AP stringers, in a headlong-rush to become nothing more than a classified wrap for ads from Fry’s Electronics.