Rush to Judgment: How to Handle a Collection Agency/School Lunch Story

Here’s a story that’s super easy to cast in the wrong light without even trying very hard:

Collection Agency Goes After Unpaid School Lunch Fees

Consumer sites and the media generally cast this as a “collection agency greed/school kids victimized” story because they’re good at their jobs and that’s what sells.

It’s a tougher sell, though, to talk about some of the nuances: that schools aren’t really cash-flush enough to provide free lunches for families who don’t want to pay; that it’s not fair to the families who make a point of paying for lunches to let other families slide by with nary a wink or nod.

Let’s see how a recent Collection Agency/School Lunch story is being handled from three different media outlets. Here are the bare bones of the story:

The Columbus, Ohio, school district has $900,000 worth of past-due bills on its ledger from unpaid school lunch fees. They’ve engaged a collection agency, Meade and Associates of Westerville, to handle the colletions. Meade and Associates will get to keep 26 percent of the monies it collects — which could be around $234,000 if they’re wildly successful. The push for the crackdown appears to be from the school board. The attention is being focused on those students with $50 or more in unpaid fees.

from NewsMax.com: School District to Hire Agency to Collect Lunch Money

The opening sentence is terrific: “Columbus, Ohio, schools plan to hire a collection agency to go after [emphasis added] parents of nearly 6,000 students in an attempt to recover $900,000 in unpaid lunch money.” Nothing at all sensational about using the verb-phrase “going after.”

from NorthwestOhio.com: Columbus schools seek $900K in unpaid lunch money

Pretty staid. Not much editorializing at all. It does add this bit of information that’s helpful: ” About 10 percent of the families that owe lunch money account for about 80 percent of the total owed, and that’s the group that’s being targeted.” It also adds, “The district’s food services director says among those accounts, the average debt is about $150 but can top $400.”

from Columbus, Indiana’s TheRepublic.com: Collection agency to help Columbus schools go after $900,000 in lunch costs unpaid by parents

I saved the actual best for last. I like that the headline writer used the word “help” rather than “go after.” The story itself isn’t substantially different from the two that preceded it.