Please spare me the usual assertion that a piece of paper makes any difference at all. Remember the Space Shuttle Challenger? Everything was inspected, signed off on - and BOOM!
To be fair, the media seems to have lost the ability to actually report on anything. Few stories have any meat behind the headline.
Now ... perhaps ... had the report contained a statement like "Inspector Smith stated that the heater was found to lack proper venting, and was obviously installed by someone who had no knowledge of the trade," the article might actually have done some good.
Better yet would be a more specific statement, such as "The heater exhaust was placed right next to a fresh air intake for the room above." That sort of statement would have educated folks as to the correct way, and why it matters.
Instead, we hear a commissar fretting that some serf failed to first kneel to the bureaucracy.
As reported, for all we know there is absolutely nothing wrong with the heater. We don't even know what was 'new' about the heater- had there been any sort of heater there before?
If City Hall doesn't want to poison the trial by discussing specifics ... I bet the paper would be willing to co-operate in writing an abstract sidebar on the topic.
Spare me chat about 'the lawyers.' All lawyers care about are their cases - and there are no cases without bodies. Small wonder folks assume some 'lawyer' would advise against an informative statement.
I'd also like to see such reporting identify all the involved parties. Like, say: who did the actual work? Contractor? Pool Guy? Hotel clerk's second cousin working for cash?
