WHAT New Jobs???

Well, it’s been nearly three weeks since the election – where are the new jobs that we were promised by both Tommy Thompson and Scott Walker in the run-up to the June 5^th vote?  You remember – the new jobs that would be announced right after the election.

The “main-stream media” won’t hold you accountable for your promises, but I will.

There was a time, not too long ago, that if Tommy Thompson got up on a stage (as he did in Oshkosh in May) and said he’d talked with a number of employers in the past few days, and they’d told him that they’re not hiring now, but if Scott Walker survived the recall, they would begin hiring immediately – that some reporter would follow up with Tommy’s people and say “what companies, which employers was Tommy talking to that said they’d hire if Walker survived the recall?”

Because certainly our former Governor-turned-Tea-Party-darling would not make up such a thing, just to make a little political hay.  Would he?

Governor Walker made similar, but more elliptical pronouncements on the campaign trail as well, implying that as soon as he survived the recall, and employers could be sure that he’d stay in control, they’d begin hiring for positions they were holding open until after the political picture was made more clear.

This kind of follow-up by reporters just doesn’t happen any more.  Now, they tweet a few phrases at the news event; file a paragraph or two for their station or paper’s website; maybe post a quick video bite; then they write the story for their station or paper, which is aired on the next newscast or printed the next day, and it’s off to the next story.  There’s apparently not a level of content management any more that keeps track of this stuff and makes a note to a calendar file saying “follow up on new jobs Thompson promised in Oshkosh”.

Such content management would require the kind of staffing and experienced news personnel that no longer exists in the news media.

So, since they aren’t going to follow up, I will:  Tommy – Scotty: name TWO companies or executives that you spoke to before the election, and said they’d start hiring if Governor Walker survived the recall.  Just two.  One’s too easy.  Name two.  And know that there will be follow-up questions with those companies or executives.

It’s called “reporting”, and there used to be a fair amount of it done here and in other places.