Every day now, I shall be released
An alert reader with too much time on his hands has noted with amusement our press release meter, plotting the number of media missives emanating this year from the state offices of Attorney General John Kroger and Treasurer Ben Westlund. And to put the Kroger number in perspective, the reader has charted the volume of releases issued by the attorney general last year, and by his predecessor, Hardy Myers, during his term of office. Why not?
The tale of the tape for Kroger in '09:
| Days | Work Days | Press Releases | PR/D | PR/WD | |
| January | 31 | 20 | 21 | 0.68 | 1.05 |
| February | 28 | 19 | 12 | 0.43 | 0.63 |
| March | 31 | 22 | 17 | 0.55 | 0.77 |
| April | 30 | 22 | 18 | 0.60 | 0.82 |
| May | 31 | 20 | 8 | 0.26 | 0.40 |
| June | 30 | 22 | 10 | 0.33 | 0.45 |
| July | 31 | 22 | 7 | 0.23 | 0.32 |
| August | 31 | 21 | 7 | 0.23 | 0.33 |
| September | 30 | 21 | 15 | 0.50 | 0.71 |
| October | 31 | 22 | 10 | 0.32 | 0.45 |
| November | 30 | 19 | 11 | 0.37 | 0.58 |
| December | 31 | 22 | 10 | 0.32 | 0.45 |
| TOTAL | 365 | 252 | 146 | 0.40 | 0.58 |
And here are Myers's numbers for 10 years in office:
2000 - 45
2001 - 74
2002 - 62
2003 - 50
2004 - 54
2005 - 68
2006 - 67
2007 - 68
2008 - 69
Career total - 594
It appears that Kroger may pass Myers's career total in but a single term. And announce the fact, no doubt.
| Posted at 3:30 PM | Permalink |
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Comments (5)
Although he's no stranger to self-promotion, please keep in mind Ben Westlund is having some health setbacks. Perhaps content of press releases should be weighed.
Posted by Tom Parker | January 12, 2010 4:18 PM
He did say he was going to raise the profile of the office. I am not sure flooding the news world with press releases gets the job done, but he sure is keeping his word. We can't fault him for that can we?
Posted by leinad | January 12, 2010 4:21 PM
Is there a problem with transparency?
Posted by Bean | January 12, 2010 7:50 PM
Kroger will probably do more in less than one term than Myers did in his 10, so the press releases don't bother me.
Posted by Gil Johnson | January 12, 2010 9:12 PM
Is there a problem with transparency?
Sometimes the opacity of verbosity masquerades as transparency.
See?
Posted by cc | January 13, 2010 3:10 PM