Baltimore Banner’s Baffling Basic Blunders
This morning when I opened Banner Montgomery's morning briefing email, I was stunned once again by the gross inaccuracies in reporting by Ginny Bixby. Her March 19, 2026 article, “County Council considers a fast track for affordable housing and biotech projects," presents the legislation as still under consideration, stating that a vote and hearing have not yet been scheduled. In fact, the Council voted on, and approved, both measures on March 17, two days ago.
The article contains material errors in its description of the legislation itself. It states that the housing bill (ZTA 26-04) applies to projects of “150,000 square feet or more” with 50 or more units that are at least 50% affordable. In fact, as adopted by the Council, the legislation eliminates the 150,000-square-foot threshold and instead applies to projects with 50 or more units meeting specified affordability criteria.
The description of the biohealth bill (ZTA 26-03) is incomplete. The article frames the measure as applying to projects of “100,000 square feet or more,” without explaining that the legislation primarily lowers prior thresholds and expands eligibility, including for additions and adaptive reuse. That distinction is central to understanding the policy.
These are sophomoric failures in both reporting and editing. Reporters are responsible for getting the facts right, particularly on straightforward matters such as whether legislation has already passed and what the text of a bill actually says. Editors, in turn, are responsible for catching clear errors before publication. In this case, neither did their job.
Individually, any one of these issues would warrant correction. Taken together, they point to a broader problem: readers are being given inaccurate or incomplete information about consequential legislation. And this isn't the first time. Banner Montgomery is gaining a reputation for publishing first and fact checking later, typically after a call from a frustrated reader or legislator.
Accurate, timely reporting on housing is critical. It is one of the most important election year issues facing Montgomery County residents.
The Banner needs to review this article, issue appropriate corrections, and then perform a deep dive into its own internal processes so it stops inadvertently publishing inaccurate and incomplete information.
# # #
UPDATE: A few hours after this report, Banner Montgomery rewrote the article to correct for the mistakes and added “This story has been updated” at the conclusion, along with a notation that “Jack Hogan contributed to this story.” The Banner’s own Newsroom Policies and Code of Ethics states, “When we make a mistake, we are humble, admit our error and correct it.” The notation on the corrected article makes no admission, which is far from humble. The policies also say after making changes, “A correction notice must then be posted on the article stating how it was corrected. Corrections must be worded to make clear what the error was.” Banner Montgomery provided none of that. The original article before edits can be read here. The rewritten version can be read here.
SECOND UPDATE: A few hours after the first Update, Banner Montgomery made further edits to the article, removed Jack Hogan as a contributor, and added a proper correction notice.
