Most Jefferson County voters like the idea of a light-rail system, and many are willing to pay more taxes to improve public transportation. But, they aren’t as supportive as a recent Courier-Journal story suggested when it reported on a poll commissioned by the Transit Authority of River City.
The story on TARC’s poll reported that half of Jefferson County voters surveyed say they would support a tax increase to help build a light-rail system in Louisville. It also said that 82 percent of those surveyed think Louisville should have a light rail system.
That’s not correct.
The pollsters did not pose some of their questions to voters who said they hadn’t heard of light rail. (It didn’t make sense to ask the opinions of people who hadn’t heard of the proposal.) So the 82 percent figure overstates support by a good deal. In fact, only 56 percent of the 501 voters polled said they think light rail is a good idea. (That’s 82 percent of the 345 voters who said they had heard of light rail.)
We discovered the errors because alert readers did what Courier-Journal editors and reporters should have done: They questioned numbers that seemed unlikely and asked for more information on the poll.
Here’s what the story should have said:
The poll, conducted for TARC in February, found that 69 percent of those polled have heard about TARC’s proposal for a light rail transit system. That’s up from 34 percent in 1998. Of those who have heard of light rail, 82 percent think it’s a “very” or “somewhat” good idea.
Thirty-nine percent of those polled said they have used “a local mass transit rail system in another city” — excluding Amtrak — at least once in the last five years.
The poll explored a number of ideas for improving public transportation in the Greater Louisville Metro area, including building a light rail system. The response showed strong support — more than 90 percent — for maintaining and improving bus service, especially improving bus service for seniors and people with disabilities.
If they had a chance to vote on raising the occupational tax from 2.2 percent of earned income to 2.3 percent to improve public transportation — including providing light rail through central Jefferson County — 28 percent of those polled said they would definitely vote for it, and 23 percent said they would probably vote “yes.”
The poll asked more questions to explore voters’ feelings and asked the question about a tax increase in other ways. The results were roughly the same. Improving bus service for seniors and people with disabilities and building a light rail system consistently got substantial support, although The Courier-Journal did not reflect the interest in improvements other than light rail.
The margin of error for questions involving 501 voters would be plus or minus 4.4 percent.
The margin of error for questions addressed only to those who have heard about light rail is higher, plus or minus 5.2 percent, according to John Nienstedt, president of Competitive Edge Research Inc., the California company that conducted the poll
TARC provided information on the survey to a Courier-Journal reporter in a 90-minute briefing by TARC executive director Barry Barker and Liz Welsh, president of Executive Communications, Inc., a TARC consultant. They used computer-generated graphics, including one showing that the percentage of those who think light rail is a “good idea” rose from 65 percent in 1998 to 82 percent in 2001. The percentage of those who believe it’s not a good idea dropped from 35 percent to 18 percent in the same period.
The presenters did not indicate that those percentages excluded voters who didn’t know about the light rail proposal.
The reporter returned to the newsroom with a packet that included the PowerPoint slides and the specific polling information on which they were based. He used the briefing and slides to develop a small graphic designed to show the poll results and to write his story. He referred to the detailed information to double check figures, but not to challenge his understanding of the poll questions or results. He says he never read the full poll carefully. His editors asked a few questions but none that revealed the story’s problems.
A subsequent editorial reflected and repeated the story’s mistakes.
When the story ran in the middle of the Metro front on Tuesday morning, a handful of readers called or sent e-mails with questions, but TARC officials did not challenge it.
Barker says he thought the story was “pretty much on target.”
He said he hadn’t focused on the problem with asserting that 82 percent of Jefferson County voters think light rail is a good thing.
Just who interpreted that figure for TARC’s presentation isn’t clear; some of those involved say they’ll change it for future presentations.
In any case, Barker says the more important issue is the number of people who are open to raising the occupational tax for transportation. The TARC board needed to know whether to continue developing plans for light rail or whether to drop them, he said. The poll sent a clear message to go ahead with planning — but not to assume that a referendum would pass.
“The bottom line is that there is support out there for public transportation,” he said. “We’ve got a horse race. We’re in the hunt.”
The story clearly did no damage to TARC and its efforts. But, it did nothing to build public trust in The Courier-Journal’s coverage.
The best that can be said for the story is that it was imprecise on some important points and flat-out wrong on one of them.
The newspaper failed to do its job. It published information it had been spoon fed by officials with an agenda. Editors failed to demand even the basic reporting necessary to report an important public issue thoroughly and skeptically.
Readers were right to raise questions. They shouldn’t have had to do it.
