So let's start with the story in the Chron, the main gist of which is "happy days are here again." Or, as they call it "Transit chief upbeat on Muni." The story is basically about how Ford says they've figured out all the problems and bugs involved with the launching of the T-Third and how he thinks they're getting more and more of a handle on it. The story then gives a laundry list of improvements he's been implementing to make Muni better, like paying out overtime to make sure there are drivers around or having supervisors at various stations overseeing things. The story, however, briefly glosses over Ford's detailed description of "institutional" problems with Muni and kind of glosses over interviews with riders complaining about the current crappiness of the system.

So let's go to the Examiner's story, which wasn't so rosy. Or, as they put it: "Muni issues are ‘institutional’". No, that doesn't sound that dreary, but whenever you hear somebody say "institutional" it's always kind of a shrug of the shoulders and acknowledgement that the problems are deep and wide (that's what she said). The story barely mentions improvements to the T-Third line but mainly deals with all the problems Muni faces, things like not enough staff or aging equipment and their being too much radio traffic to hear what's going on. We would go through the whole list of things, but you know them already.

Now the point of the post isn't to compare the two stories, although we find it hilarious, but more like to say it's hard for us to judge what Ford actually said as we got two accounts of it. So, in other words, we leave it up to you to figure out what's what.