New Carpet

Our newsroom could use a new carpet.

If you've ever been around reporters for any time at all, you know that we can be a messy bunch. After years of wear and tear, the carpet in the six newsroom has lots of stains from spilled coffee, soft drinks and food.

I doubt though that our managers are too worried right now about the carpet. They're more concerned about putting a good news product on the air. And they're worried about the economy, about ad revenues and about not laying off people.

That's the difference between private business and government. When times get tough you don't buy carpet, not for the newsroom, or the sales department or especially the general manager's office.

You hunker down, work hard and wait for better times.

It's different in government. Or so it seems.

How else can you explain UT administrators' decision to move forward with a half million dollar renovation that would provide some of the highest paid employees at UT with new carpet and new furniture?

How else can you explain the project - once approved - allowed to go nearly hundred-thousand dollars over budget?

Lloyd Daugherty of the Tennessee Conservative Union says the reason these things happen is because its not their money.

"It's an insult to the parents, an insult to the kids at school and it's a slap in the face of taxpayers and much of the faculty who're underpaid," he said. "This is a classic example of people taking money that's not their own and wasting it."

Alot of the folks who've called our newsroom, e-mailed us, or posted comments on our website about this story, agree with Daugherty.

But not everyone.

One poster said WATE should be ashamed of itself for pandering to our viewers over such a "negligible" story.

Surely, the poster is right, half a million dollars compared to what the University is facing in cuts is negligible, but I don't think the story is.

We reported that - among other things - the University spent $35,000 on a table and chairs for its conference room. In the big picture, 35-grand is a drop in the bucket, but it does speak to a bigger issue.

"Does it solve the problems at the University if we don't have that table? Absolutely not" Lloyd Daugherty says. "Does it save the nursing school? No. But it's a symbol of what's going on and it's a symbol of the attitude the administration has."

And that - a majority of our viewers say - is the story.

But we could still use some new carpet.