Hey,
I wanted to reach out anonymously just to give you a quick heads-up on the way the recent redistricting hearing was covered. Don’t throw me under the bus on this one. I don’t want the speaker getting mad at me. I know you’ve been saying the public testimony largely supported redistricting, but when I looked at Brian Sears’ piece in Maryland Matters, he characterized the sentiment at the hearing as basically 2-to-1 against making changes.
The reason I’m saying something is that the numbers I have from the actual hearing suggest the opposite—my count had 17 supporting, 5 wavering support, 9 opposed, and 3 wavering opposition. That’s a pretty clear pro-redistricting margin, not 2-to-1 against.
Sears’ writeup really underplayed the support side, at least for this hearing. Just wanted to flag it in case you hadn’t seen the discrepancy. Wouldn’t want anyone to be able to say you didn’t do your homework—or let you get blindsided by someone claiming your coverage was sloppy, when in fact it looks like Maryland Matters (or at least Sears) is the one shading the numbers.
Always appreciate the work you do on this stuff!
— Anonymous Reader X