August 16th, 2009 
joel Erie media events of the week included Star 104 strengthening their hold on the Erie market, more jobs lost at WQLN, the remote trucks out at Celebrate Erie, and Rep. Dahlkemper NOT getting shouted down at her town halls.
Lets talk about it all and whatever else is on your mind in this open forum.
If you would rather make a private contact, e-mail joel@nataliemedia.com or tweet @pressandtower.
Embrace the chaos!
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Joel – Unless you’re going to address notable events involving the monopoly newspaper in Erie, I suggest you remove “Press” from your logo.
You and other Erie bloggers putatively engaged in a discussion of significant local public affairs (you, Global Erie, What If, Scott Bremner, Erie Blogs, et al) have joined the Erie Times-Snooze in studiously ignoring one of the most important First Amendment court cases and verdicts emanating from the federal judicial system in Pennsylvania: namely Dan Galena’s remarkable victory in federal court recently in which he and his gifted out-of-town attorney, an icon in free speech litigation, walloped arrogant County Council Chair Fiore Leone, -whose contempt for the public which relentlessly votes him back into office is bottomless – and his submissive colleagues.
The ETN’s studied indifference to this key jury verdict is understandable, if unethical, steming from the persistent animus towards Galena displayed by Managing Editor Pat Howard, other top editors and Reporters Kevin Flowers and Panattella (sp) because of his frequent and wholly justified criticizm of their shoddy reporting and editorial practices.
But bloggers, who have achieved the new role of supplanting the traditional news media, have no such excuse, other than serendipity and cluelessness. For more details, see my blog.
Joe,
Aren’t you making a giant leap to indict the ETN over Galena’s winning over Fiore Leone in federal court?
Call me naive (but not serendipitous; that doesn’t fit) but I thought that the Galena story was competently reported on in the “press”. Is there some kind of minimum column inch quota or page position rating that would have allowed the report to enter your good graces?
Oh I forgot: Natalie, Bremner, Richwalsky, Panepento, Hannah…we’re all clueless.
Thanks for your input!
Hi Joe:
I’d like to read your blog post so I can better understand your conclusions on this, but you didn’t give a link.
And if you blogged about it, I guess the decision didn’t get ignored by Erie bloggers, after all.
Congratulations to Perry Sook (CEO of Nexstar Broadcasting, parent company of WJET-TV) on being named Broadcasting & Cable Magazine’s 2009 Broadcaster of the Year.
In reference to Mr. Panepento’s query as to the blogsite of Mr. LaRocca:
Go Here: http://erienewsmediawatchdog.blogspot.com/
Weindorf is gone due to bookkeeping errors. Leone is found liable for violating a citizens civil rights and remains in power.
To think that a person like Leone and his ilk can sit in judgment of Weindorf or any person destroys the credibility of the entire system.
The “Press” that hides behind the First Amendment is obligated by that Amendment to protect it for the rest of us.
Is it too much to expect the “Press” to ask Leone why he will not resign?
Maybe the “Press” can’t be an effective watchdog over the government when the two share the same agenda?
There hasn’t been much investigative or independent reporting in Erie (newspaper and tv) since Carol Pella retired. Too many people concerned with keeping their channels of information open, and not enough concerned with speaking truth to power. Carol didn’t care if she pissed “important” people off. She was concerned about finding the truth, and reporting it to the citizens. She knew that her job was not to keep the people at the Courthouse or City Hall from calling her boss and bitching about her, but, rather, the exact opposite. The more the inhabitants of those two buildings called her GM and complained, then she knew she was doing her job correctly. Is there anyone in Erie media today who has the cojones to do the job of a true journalist?? I haven’t seen one recently…
Bob:
You are correct sir! (-Ed McMahon) What gets me is there are enough capable folks in the market to dig deeper…Scott Bremmner, Paul Wagner. My feeling is these “veterans” of Erie news are trying to hold onto their own livlihoods while it has become apparent that media management will easily hire a 20-something news neophyte to replace them quicker than you can say…FCC!!
Joe LaRocca~If you re-read my post (DiVecchio fires Weindorf, sad day for Erie County), you will see that I did indeed refer to the Leone fiasco:
“You fired a truly selfless leader for costing the county a mere 50,000 dollars max. How much will be wasted to try to get Leone’s verdict overturned, unlikely as that would be?
Why not move to get rid of him, too? Or at least not waste any more County funds defending his asinine actions?”
You must understand that some of us try to inject some variety into our blogs without the express purpose of denigrating the Erie Times News. We leave that up to you.
Local TV news will never do investigative pieces again…Three reasons. #1, it costs overtime…most of them need to be done in off hours, and most NDs wouldn’t OK the OT. #2, it might upset a bigwig, or heaven forbid, an advertiser. “The Governor might not talk to us again (BS, by the way), or more importantly, they might cancel the buy or not buy again. #3, consultants say the viewer doesn’t have the patience for that…they want the Action News model. As per usual, I disagree, but then, I don’t have much time for anything consultants say.
I always enjoyed watching Carol Pella’s investigative reports. I remember one time when Carol was doing a piece on Towing Companies and the problems people who had their cars towed in Erie were having with missing items, damaged vehicles, etc.
I think this was the story that caused a couple WSEE News units to be vandalized? Carol didn’t blink and kept on doing her reports. One of the best lines came from the late Mario Bagnoni who said that “a Nun had been threatened by a tow truck driver with a monkey wrench!” Priceless! Absolutely priceless!
I agree with Legend, investigative reporting in Local TV News is pretty much dead and buried. Although November sweeps will soon be upon us (yet again!) and one can only hope that Channel 12’s John Rupolo will do another “hard-hitting” and “stimulating” look at the Massage industry in Erie.
John Rupolo in the motion picture role he was born to play….Fred Flintstone!
YABBA DABBA DOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
LOL
WSEE is getting a new set. Maybe Mr. Lilly does care after all!
R U sure it’s just not the new weather set for Joey ‘the Caribbean weather guru’?
I really don’t know, you could be right PR. I just know that Stephanie and Ray were showing video of the construction. It looks like a wall separating the WSEE set from WICU’s. Maybe WSEE will be live after the work is done. Scott Bremner also commented of “the new set in the works” on the 6pm Newswatch the other night. Maybe its for the Caribbean deal.
Any set is better than what they have been using lately
A new wall doesn’t create 2 control rooms – the only way that 2 seperate shows could be done simultaneously from a single facility. If they build a seperate control room, then there’s some progress.
Bob, wouldn’t that mean having to hire more people ? A serious question, since I don’t know the specifics of who is still there on the technical side. I would be surprised if more people were in the plans. More likely, a couple of automation systems so you could do two shows with less people. TV in the 21st century.
I should have been more specific in my language, legend. You are correct that it doesn’t necessarily have to be two seperate control rooms, two automation systems would work. And you wouldn’t need to hire more people, since an automated system can work with just the operator (I did it for 7 years), you would simply need two people behind the scenes to have two shows going symultaneously. I believe at present that there are at least three people behind the scenes doing any shows that come out of the studios at 35th & State. Or, they could just have an automated system for one side and still use the present control room for the other.
Very true as well…I hadn’t thought of doing that. I wonder if that would bring up any union issues ? They put Ignite in one place in Pittsburgh with the allowance for one non-union operator…hmmm, I wonder what management’s plan could be there ?
Unions don’t have the same respect or influence that they did fifteen years ago and as a result, management can do whatever the hell they want…period. IU’d like to hear from one AFTRA or NABET member in the Erie market that feels that their monthly dues deduction is worth every penny.
Well I at least got a severance from WSEE, due in major part, to NABET. But, I probably also got terminated due to the union-negotiated contract raises that I recieved. I guess it’s a wash.
As I remember the current contract with Lilly Broadcasting, they can’t have a non-union person operate any control room equipment, automated or not. That’s not to say that they won’t try to change that the next time the contract comes up…