April 27th, 2009 
joel Last week, during the intense heat of the Erie cop YouTube controversy, we asked if there was any circumstance where you felt that the video should be taken down. 80% of respondents said, no, that it was a matter of free speech, while only 14 % said that there could be a circumstance that would precipitate its removal.
However, commenter max perhaps had the best point, that is sometimes missed by folks like elder law enforcement and old-media holdouts, that the viral nature of social media like YouTube made the whole question moot. One a post is out there, it is duplicated, modified, and distributed in such a way that it makes it impossible to track.
This week I’m throwing caution to the wind and asking a bodacious question: Who is the most influential person in Erie media. I’m including “the usual suspects,” but if you have other people you would like to nominate, just throw them in the comments or tweet @pressandtower and I’ll update the poll.
Because of that fact, I’m going to open up the voting so that you can answer more than once, in case a name appears later in the week that you wish to vote for. However, the polling software limits you to three votes total.
Who is the most influential person in Erie media?
- Mike Richwalsky (26%, 31 Votes)
- Sean Lafferty (18%, 22 Votes)
- Brian Lilly (12%, 14 Votes)
- Ed Palattella (11%, 13 Votes)
- Pat Howard (11%, 13 Votes)
- Lou Baxter (9%, 11 Votes)
- Scott Bremner (7%, 9 Votes)
- Julie Eisenman (5%, 6 Votes)
- Peter Panepento (3%, 4 Votes)
- Kevin Flowers (3%, 4 Votes)
- Kevin MacDowell (2%, 2 Votes)
- Rosanne Cheeseman (1%, 1 Votes)
- Nancy Dymond (1%, 1 Votes)
- Jim Riley (1%, 1 Votes)
- Rick Sayers (1%, 1 Votes)
- Tim Dunst (0%, 0 Votes)
Total Voters: 121
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Wow…no one from Erie radio? I guess it really IS a non-entity now.
yeah, “now”.
max, Jim Riley runs Citadel/Erie and Nancy Dymond, Connie. Care to nominate someone?
Mark Guy Findley?
Ron Winders?
Jim Brownyard?
How about “The long and the short of it”…the late Bill Knupp and ex-ND Jim Roberts. They’re as influential as anybody listed. No one in Erie media has any influence today. No one does investigative reporting to any serious level in Erie. Oh sure, they do a piece here and there, but they never push the issues. They just let the locals give their canned answers and the issue dies.
Joel, I guess that’s my point. Radio in Erie has become a non-entity. Neither Mr Riley or Ms Dymond have been here long enough to make any kind of impact or have any long lasting influence. We don’t have the local talk show hosts that are capable of getting this town talking…air personalities, the few that are left, are little more than liner card readers…interchangeable…and again, of no influence. Radio doesn’t do the kind of promotions that get people talking. Remember when K104 gave away a fully furnished house? Or more recently when Star 104 had people camping out in a car at Tinseltown. Yeah, it was kind of dumb, but it DID get people talking and it showed some amount of creativity. When was the last time ANY Erie radio station did a promotion that got people talking?
So you’ve proven my point…the days of the Don Kellys, Larry Garretts and Rick Rambaldo’s are long gone. Radio? Influential media? Hardly.
Joel…doesn’t having to explain who Riley and Dymond are kind speak to their level of influence? If a station’s studio is without a living breathing human operator/personality for the MAJORITY of the day…then it tells me RADIO IS DEAD! in Erie…and many other markets…the problem is bankers…not broadcasters run radio stations.
With all due respect to Mike, I don’t understand why people are voting for him as “most influential”. I am a fan and daily reader of Erie Blogs, but it is at best a news aggregator. Erie Blogs reaches a small fraction of the Erie market and I have never once heard it come up in conversation. Erie Blogs does not shape community opinion or discussion in Erie at any noticeable scale.
As much as I dislike The Times News and think that they really don’t “get it”, Ed Palattella in my opinion is the hardest hitting best investigative reporter. It’s his stories that people are discussing around the water cooler.
use to do…I’ve got to stick to current practioners.
Z…at least you knew who Mike was and where he’s from!
…thanks for playing!
Kevin Flowers does good work at the times …
[...] the post. The Press and Tower is a blog that covers media happenings in Erie. This week, they are running a poll asking people who the most influential media person in Erie is. I was included on the list, which [...]
The question is singularly mis-conceived. Poll after poll shows that news media folk have the lowest public approval rating of any trade (hardly a “profession”). The question should be: “Who has the highest (or lowest) negatives?
Guess we first need to define “influential.” Commands the most respect? Has the biggest audience? Most staunch defender of the moral high ground? Most relentless pursuer of the story?
All the old media stuff is passive for the most part, while the new media offerings are more interactive and cross-functional. The audience is more participative than TV or Paper.
Danny Lucas?