Writer's Block

Safety in Numbers

I wasn't the greatest math student. In eighth grade I had to be bumped from the honors Geometry class down to regular Geometry, and, like a bad breakup, I guess the experience left me a little gun-shy. I retreated into my books and went on telling myself I didn't like math and wasn't good at math for the next 10 years, until I became a reporter.

That's when I fell in love with numbers.

Ahhh, numbers. The sturdiest hook on which to hang a story. Story feel a little insubstantial? Numbers! Not sure what to lead with? Numbers! Need to sound more authoritative? Numbers! Numbers! Numbers!

Over the years, I've had some great stories about numbers. Of course, each year the county budget makes my life easier for about six weeks, when any time I need something to write about I can just reach for my spreadsheet and pick a number: $1 million for a proposed emergency operating center; $4 million for a county morgue or, my favorite, up to $500 million in unfunded retiree benefits (supporting my theory that the bigger the number the more mileage you can get out of it). Bam. Story. Done. Where should we go for lunch?

One of my all-time favorite stories was when I reported that, according to Planning Department records, exactly 17,138 new residential units could be built on the island in projects that already had full land-use entitlements. After years of covering the rhetoric over development, with stories built on the same arguments going around and around and around, getting that story in print felt like a hammering a steel nail into soft wood.

Maybe that's what I like most about numbers stories: there's no arguing with them. Anyone who accuses me of trying to push an agenda in my stories just doesn't know me very well. I'm not that passionate, and conflict makes me uncomfortable. I just want to put out information. Development -- you can love it or hate it, but for what it's worth, there are 17,138 projects on the books. Bam. Story. Done. Facts are safe, and numbers are safer.

Of course, lately the numbers don't make you feel so safe -- they make you want to go back to bed and pull the covers over your head. From my story last Sunday -- visitor arrivals down 22 percent in June from a year ago. And this week I'm also working on stories about the economy -- plenty of numbers, none of them good.

As always, the right number tells the story; this just happens to be a scary one.