Eclectic commentary from a progressive voice in the red state

Sunday, July 3, 2016

ABC7 Amarillo kicks off a five-day series investigating the AEDC

If you caught ABC7 Amarillo’s news at 6 p.m. and Nightside at 10 p.m., you heard the “tease” for an extraordinary five-day series investigating the free-wheeling spending by staffers at the Amarillo Economic Development Corp. Why use the word “extraordinary?” When was the last time a local commercial Amarillo TV station ran this kind of story over an entire work week?

The ABC7 Amarillo team went through almost 1,000 pages on which were copied thousands of receipts from taxis, hotels, airfare and meals. The team also looked at the receipts and spending reports from two country club memberships. Those findings will be bolstered with posts to abc7amarillo.com

By now, anyone who has surfed the Web knows that words like “jaw dropping,” “you won’t believe …,” “bombshell,” “shocking” and so on are click bait. But, in this case, those words apply to the ABC7 Amarillo team’s finding about AEDC spending.

Tune in to ABC7 Amarillo for the 10 p.m. Nightside news cast starting Monday to learn how our tax dollars are used.