A couple of weekend media notes...
[1] The New Math. A Tennessean Sunday story on fundraising declines at some area colleges and universities saddled Belmont University with some inexplicable arithmetic. The story (with accompanying chart) reported that donations to Belmont fell from $18.9 million in 2008 to $6.7 million in 2009. This is certainly a newsworthy drop of more then 64 percent, but somehow the geniuses at our metropolitan daily saw fit to summarize it as "a staggering 182 percent fundraising decline." It is, of course, mathematically impossible for fundraising to decline more than 100 percent (to zero) unless a university starts writing checks out of its treasury to prospective donors. That would be an intriguing development strategy for any nonprofit.
[2] Help Wanted: Copy Editors. An otherwise worthwhile gubernatorial race Q&A package in Sunday's Tennessean, produced in collaboration with papers in Knoxville, Chattanooga and Memphis, must have left at least one candidate banging his head against the wall. In the Tennessean's print version, which ran on page 14A of the Sunday paper, Shelby County D.A. Bill Gibbons' name appears before each of his answers as "Gibson." For a dark-horse candidate struggling to build name recognition, nothing says "uphill battle" quite like one of the state's major papers botching your name—three times in one day.
