How reporters do their jobs

The family and I were at our favorite local coffee shop, Mrs. Sippi's, last week [time out for bragging: it was after my daughter, 1st degree black belt in Tae Kwon Do, participated in a demo at the library] and we started talking about the switchover to Milwaukee water here in New Berlin.

After we'd talked awhile about how it seemed near impossible to learn if our house was one of the switched-over houses, and the husband mentioned that he was going to test the water for softness as a possible indicator, a man approached our table and introduced himself as the assistant editor of the New Berlin Citizen paper. He asked if a reporter could contact us as they were doing a story on the subject.

So that's how they do their work: eavesdropping in coffee shops! He admitted as much when I teased him about it; said that if you want to know what's going on in a town, you have to hang out where people hang out and talk.

In any event, we still haven't heard from the reporter, so who knows if that really will happen. I also asked if there would be a story on everything being built in New Berlin's new City Center (besides the nine million dollar library). He said something would come out this Thursday. The husband would like to know just how much taxpayer money is being spent for this project, and exactly how much benefit we'll get from it. Good question. We'll see if the Citizen article addresses those questions, or if it's just local boosterism.