March 10th, 2010 
joel 
Bryan Oberle
It is quite remarkable how two entrepreneurial new-media networks have scored major figures from media and politics for regular contributions. Last year, former Congressman Phil English began a blog on the GlobalErie.com network. Then early this year, former Editorial Page Editor of the Erie Times-News Bryan Oberle began a weekly post on ErieBlogs.com.
Oberle’s participation on ErieBlogs is particularly interesting considering he is married to an Erie media royal, Marnie Mead Oberle and continues to be a stockholder in the privately-owned Times Publishing Company.
Mr. Oberle was kind enough to share his thoughts on the state of the newspaper industry and his transition from ink to pixels in a Press and Tower exclusive interview:
P&T: Having been a newspaper guy so long, what is your gut reaction to the state of the newspaper industry as we are looking at it today?
BO: It will be easier to answer that question once we get out of this recession. Newspapers suffer in every recession. Advertising revenues plunge, newspaper publishers panic and always make shortsighted decisions to nurse the immediate bottom line. So it’s really not clear how much of what is going on is based on current economic issues or long-term, greater newspaper issues. I think more are hard times right now. I’m one newspaper person who believe newspapers are a lot stronger and more resilient than some critics think. Newspapers survived radio, movies, television. Newspapers will survive the Internet and blogs.
P&T: Many of the readers of P&T hear the “doom and gloom” of the demise of major market dailies and think that the Times-News is in the same boat. Although I’m sure the marketplace isn’t what it used to be, can you explain to our readers the different realities of a family-owned small-medium market daily versus the publicly-owned big market dailies like the Minneapolis Star-Tribune, the Philly or Detroit papers, or the Tribune Co.?
BO: My wife’s family, the descendants of her great-grandfather John Mead, have owned the Erie Times-News for 122 years. Before this recession kicked in and started ripping away at advertising revenues, the Times-News publisher was telling employees that the basic business health and structure of the Erie Times-News remained strong with opportunities for growth. She believed – and I’m inclined to believe she was right at the time – that the Internet and New Media options weren’t doing the paper any real damage. I think that’s still true. Now, I’m one of the few non-Mead family members who is a shareholder in the Times Publishing Company. As a shareholder, I’m reasonably confident the Times-News is well positioned to continue as the primary news source in the Erie region.
P&T: When the ETN conducted the buyouts of employees the end of 2008, decades of major reporting and editing experience went out the door with many of them. Can you talk about how all that affected you personally and do you know how some of the folks are doing now over a year later?
BO: It affected me personally because several friends and many colleagues went out the door. The editors that left weren’t replaced. That was painful. And our readers noticed. As for as I know, everyone who took the buyouts are doing OK. But they aren’t working at newspapers. I guarantee you that is something that can’t be replaced.
P&T: What are the biggest differences to you as writer in the “ink and paper” space vs. writing for ErieBlogs?
BO: I’m writing the blog primarily because I just needed to write again. That is sort of what I do and what I have always done. I worked at two newspapers, the Erie Times-News and the Peoria Journal Star, for 25 years. A newspaper is a daily process and commitment that gets into your blood. Writing a blog is nothing like that. A newspaper is a living daily document.
P&T: Considering the sheer number of experienced professionals unemployed in the newspaper job pool, would you still recommend to a young person a career in journalism, and why or why not?
BO: Absolutely, but with these caveats: Anyone thinking about a career in newspaper journalism better love the process of putting together a newspaper because you aren’t going to get rich, and you often have to accept working for people who don’t have a clue. Can you get used to aggravation, and lots of it? And you simply have to love newspapers and the processes involved in reporting and writing and getting a paper out every single day. If this sounds like fun, go for it.
P&T: What are your goals for your new blog?
BO: I just want to write some interesting stuff so people will enjoy reading it. And it manages to reach a wider audience, great. I have no illusions about becoming the next Bill Simmons, although I’m certainly not opposed to it. The blog is primarily a writing exercise for me.
P&T: As an editorial page editor for the ETN, what the paper said got the attention of people in politics and the community. Do you think that some local bloggers are beginning to be heard by community leaders and are having influence on Erie public opinion?
BO: I don’t know of any blog or blogger in town that has created or earned that kind of platform. I’m sure it will happen eventually at some level. A lot of people who don’t read newspapers read blogs. They just don’t happen to be mayors, state senators or city council types. Obviously blogs have certainly achieved a big-time policy and political role in Washington. That pop hasn’t drifted out to places like Erie yet. Will that day come. Maybe, maybe not. Like I said before, nobody should underestimate the basic power and I believe, staying power of newspapers.
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I’m baffled by your on-going infatuation with all things Times-News, up to and including this interview – which I haven’t and won’t read – with a journalistic nihilist whose only relevance to newspapering is his matrimonial bans.
Joe LaRocca
Gee Joe LaRocca, we can not let your bafflement continue any longer. But first, anyone in Erie knows you are a stickler for punctuation, grammar, word choice, paragraph structure, Venn Diagram of sentences, and other vitals of life as we know it.
So I thought I would tell you, matrimonial bans has to do with states that forbid marriage…they ban it.
However, a matrimonial BANN is the word you seek.
I know you will not mind being judged for that, as you judge these all important issues everywhere.
Now to the heart of the Oberle matter. He is appearing here on Press and Tower….a blog dedicated to news media in a variety of quadrants. Oberle switched from being Marnie’s old outlet for stories at ETN, and now Blogs on Erie Blogs.
Joel believes Blogs are “New Media and has covered TWO this whole year.
[Note to Joel...if you have time to read Julio on Outside Erie, AND make a comment there, how about you mosey over to your blog and put up a Deep Background that reflects the month we happen to be in. Your audience is feeling neglected,.... so speak up....preferably at P&T]
But Joe, you are familiar with blogs and run your own titled Erie Counter News Media. Your agenda there is spelled out and quoted here from your mouth:
“Purpose of this weblog is to countercheck the Erie news media for inaccuracy, errors of commission or omission, bias, incompetence, arrogance, chuzpah, excessive hubris, and other sins against ethical and professional journalism.
Most of the posts will pertain to the Erie Times-News, as it is by far the dominant mainstream news medium in its market area, covering Erie and parts of Crawford, Warren, Chautauqua, NY and Ashtabula, OH counties, and the only one in Erie which has the capability to address serious issues affecting the community-at-large in-depth.”
—Joe LaRocca
“MOST of your posts will pertain to the ETN”. Hmmmmmm.
Do you think you have a lock on that?
Is no one, except a rejected journalist Alaska guy, who quit Alaska as surely as a former governor up there in the ice quit, permitted to write on the ETN as an exclusive, sole, proprietary commentor? HaHaHa Joe.
God knows I write on the ETN and, unlike you, I write what they do well, as I write what they get wrong.
Kevin Cuneo would say: “I think Danny Lucas got that story exactly right!”.
Oberle is an old story at the P&T.
He was recently taken to task at Erie Blogs for “laziness” in what he writes (cuts and paste other adopted thought as his own genius)……not to be confused with plagiarism, any more than a ban is a bann, eh?
[Note to Oberle: USE links more than cut/paste.
Saves space and gives credit where due properly....blogland style.
Newspaper guy would not get it. Your welcome! Hyperlink would be even better, but I do not expect you to master that until your daughter is in college and trains you].
Oberle fired back at the dreaded commentor, Jerry, who keenly observed the flaws of allowing newspaper folks into the Internet, bringing their horrible habits.
One example (from me) is “word count”, an Oberle obsession in his rebuttal….as if the internet reader gives a hoot.
Another Jerry forgot is the obsession with “pages”.
You are reading a good story and find it has 5 “pages”.
At that point (bottom of page 1), you are given the option to “View as a Single Page” or click “Next” for Page 2 of ,say, 5 pages.
If you click Single Page, your story starts all over again. “Next” is repititious. This trend came from a newspaper trained dink. The internet needs no pages at all. Type what you want and Bill Gates will get it on a page of your choice of length. It is unlimited.
Oberle can be taken to task for his “Jerry” rebuttal at Erie Blogs. He was deplorable with his points. Jerry smashed him good.
I once typed “Bryan Oberle”into the ETN search engine and came up with “Do you mean Bryan Arboyle?”
If I meant Bryan Arboyle, I would type it in.
Their search engine and Dig Erie suck.
The correct answer to my query was “Bryan is in the men’s room and not available right now. We have more than one men’s room at ETN and do not know where to locate him”. That would be fine, and probably true then.
I find it sexist for you to equate Bryan’s success to having married Marnie and obtaining the fruit of one of ther richest families in town. It is pure coincidence that his career at ETN was influenced by marriage.
Proof?
Marnie is still at ETN.
Bryan is NOT at ETN.
So much for luck with the bride theory.
I searched Bryan for he wrote a scathing piece on the catholic Church, in a town that is basically catholic…thus offending the entire readership of the mother flag station.
He called it “The Catholic Church Just Doesn’t Get It”.
After making his scathing remarks, he disappeared to all inquiry, any letters to the editor — bunches and bunches of complaints, and …hid in the toilet.
In blog land, as opposed to hiding behind a desk and censoring news and opinion, Bryan is now learning people respond to what he writes, and he can not BAN it.
I presume his marital BANNS are in order, despite the displacement of a spouse, family member to ETN.
Last, anyone who fails to read a blogpost, and insists they will not, should probably refrain from a comment. It has the appearance of Alaska Journalism to it, and clarifies that you know not of what you speak since you did not read the subject.
Next time, don’t read Bryan, write a comment omitting that you failed to read, and your comment should rise to Bryan’s writing level at EB.
Happy Easter Joe! Maybe you can resurrect your blog.