When in traffic, inching along that newly "optimized" intersection over on Lamar. They spent a fortune, and months of construction chaos, supposedly fixing this exact spot. City press releases might have touted improved flow or cutting-edge signal timing. Still, your daily grind tells a different story. The backup feels longer, the light cycles seem baffling, and the noise from rerouted traffic is now rattling your windows at odd hours. Something is not right.
It's the kind of local friction that grinds you down and takes away from what otherwise be a good experience or, at least, better.
The inevitable truth about this story is that it requires public transit expertise. To back any claim or conclusion with any credibility, an engineer has to participate. A false accusation can jeopardize someone's reputation, create a hazard or tarnish the outlet's reputation.
It requires sifting and piecing large stacks of documentation: permits, plans, invoices, communications, legal procedures about that project. Also, many hours figuring out a web of documents and information trying to make sense of them. It requires seeking what is the public opinion, interviewing relevant participants, making calls and sending emails. It importantly requires to put a face to an investigation.
It requires the opportunity cost and assumption of risk on the part of the journalist to pursue writing this story.
It requires a platform to facilitate this exchange and a team to verify all claims, check the research made by the author when pitching the stories so they are true, meet quality standards, legal requirements, manage community effectively and maintain the operation running. It needs to manage better the rampant bias and illegitimate journalism plaguing the landscape.
These things are not free. They have a cost: X and take time T. There is no way around have this happen without the requirements being met without a market distortion. Expecting otherwise is just wishful thinking, daydreaming. Expenses need to be paid, work remunerated.
From a financial perspective, covering this cost alone, without overhead and by being a variable expense, is the most efficient way to perform the task by leaving no friction or 'fat' in the value chain. No overhead nor middle man (sort of, the irony doesn't escape us). Just the story and its earnings.
From a time perspective, time spent T becomes a feasible timeline.
The question becomes, is there interest and a qualified individual willing to do this? and does the funds raised surpass the critical financial threshold required to pursue it? Much simpler questions than before, "what can I do about it?"
The magic behind this platform is that it hides the complexity so that all the parts required for those two questions to be the only questions required to make that story, is because the system takes care of the rest. Like an orchestra performing in the background a score that pays to be listened to.
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