Blue Streak - Conneaut Lake Park

To get $250,000 for the Kanzius Cancer Research Foundation, it took a huge community-wide effort fueled by enthusiastic support by Erie’s traditional and new media.

After a two-month break from voting, it looks like the area is ready to get behind another “idea” for the Pepsi Refresh project: the relaunching of the classic Blue Streak roller coaster at Conneaut Lake Park in Crawford County. The trustees of the park have entered the coaster, built in 1938,  in the competition for a $50,000 award this month, with the goals of:

•Raise funds to proceed with restoration
•Replace timbers, realign track, restore trains
•Reopen coaster
•Support local economy by attracting more visitors to the area.

As of this writing on Tuesday evening, their efforts have placed the drive in 19th place, with the top 10 get $50k each. Stories aired again tonight on WICU & WSEE, and reports on the voting have appeared on WJET/WFXP, in the Erie Times-News, and on All Things Erie on WQLN-FM, in addition to the jock chatter on the radio waves, and the blog mentions. If the Kanzius case study is any indication, a flurry of media activity in support of the social media engagement could help the Conneaut Lake Park cause quickly move up in the rankers.

Couple additional thoughts: I wouldn’t expect the kind of trash talk and controversy that was encountered in April by the Kanzius supporters, as the stakes were much higher with $250,000 going to only two victors. If CLP can make it into the top 10, there’s still nine others that will see cash.

If successful, CLP will need to prove itself worthy of public support by moving quickly to put the other gears in motion for getting the Blue Streak rehabilitated and online.

Finally, this is a good opportunity to express appreciation for the other local amusement park; one that hasn’t been in financial turmoil for decades, with its owners operating a community treasure with diligence and respect for the patrons it serves: Waldameer Park. It’s a testimony to the Nelson family who have made the investments needed to keep the dream alive, even to the point of delivering on the decades-old promise of a world-class coaster in Erie, The Ravine Flyer II. The community’s efforts to encourage our friends to the south do not negate the gratitude we feel for what Waldameer means to Erie, our economy, and our families.

To vote for the Blue Streak in the July Pepsi Refresh Project, go to refresheverything.com/conneautlakeparkbluestreak

What do you think? Is $10 a month for TV worth the same as $9 a month for DVD and streaming movies?

This media stuff for the consumer is getting expensive!

Before you jump to the conclusion that this release is only important to pocket-protector wearing code geeks living in their parent’s basement, think again. Nearly very major blog listed on ErieBlogs.com and not hosted by Blogger/Google has the WordPress engine behind it, including GlobalErie.com, ErieBlogs themselves, and Press and Tower.

What the upgrade to WordPress 3.0 means to you the reader is more reliability, greater security, along with cool apps will be available to you.

What it means to bloggers and web developers, is mind blowing:

In Erie, the Times-News chats cheerily about the power of social media and how the Kanzius Cancer Research Fund has very effectively leveraged Facebook and Twitter to get the word out about voting for the fund globally. The Blackberry-wielding concertgoers in Manhattan, the FDNY firefighters, the blogs, the tweets all contributing to the vote totals.

In St. Louis, about an hour south of the Benld, IL school that is in the middle of a slow-implode due to abandoned coal mines beneath its foundation, the Post Dispatch’s coverage is full of words like “cheaters,” “hurtful,”  and “desperate.”

In the stltoday.com post, Ben-Gil Boosters supporter Mark Cunningham accuses some Kanzius supporters and those of some other causes of playing the system:

“We have worked our tails off all month long by voting and promoting, and many of us are really ticked off about getting rolled over by a couple of cheaters,” said Benld parent Mark Cunningham. He said those gathering votes for Kanzius and other causes are asking supporters to set up 100 or so e-mail addresses and to vote from each daily. The rules of the contest say that “you may vote up to 10 times per account per day, but each vote must be for different projects.” Cunningham also said the comments left on the site bashing Benld and other proposals are inappropriate.

Other supporters of Ben-Gil are more reserved in their accusations in the article, but all quoted, including Kanzius Foundation director Mark Neidig, voiced dismay at where the level of discourse went in the comments on the Pepsi website. Efforts to reach Mr. Cunningham on Facebook were unsuccessful. UPDATE: Read Mr. Cunningham’s response here.

I’m thinking that the Ben-Gil parents ran into the total Erie media onslaught behind the Kanzius effort and didn’t know what hit them; and the Post-Dispatch reporter somewhat bears it out. In fact, I did about an hour-long search last night for news related to individual causes in the Pepsi contest and there has been nowhere near the local coverage that the Kanzius effort received here in Erie.

For that Erie media should be proud. Meanwhile, whether it is to support cancer research, or get kids back into a healthy school environment, let’s remember that hope and encouragement trumps negativity and cynicism every time.

WJET Good Guys, August 1973

The old medium of radio is having a reunion on the new social medium of Facebook.

A couple weeks ago I was going through some old pictures and reminiscing about some of the great times and great people I met in my many years in Erie radio. With quite a few already Facebook friends, on a lark I created a Facebook group for the fun of it called “We rocked Erie in the 20th Century!”

I thought it would be cool to bring some folks together and throw up some old pictures of long hair, 80’s mullets and fun memories. I’m just amazed at the response over the past two weeks!

We have reconnected true pioneers in Erie radio; folks that worked at stations with call letters changed before my birth! Guys that remember the format battles of WJET and WWGO in the 1960’s, and members of the great jock teams of the 70’s, along with my contemporaries in the 80’s and 90’s.

The idea is to bring together everybody involved in making Erie radio the amazing soundtrack to the life of our community. It takes everyone in programming, sales, management, and the advertisers and listeners themselves to make it happen. The Facebook group is just a fun way to celebrate that. Join us!

Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen, appeared weekly on radio and television from the 1930's through the 1960's

Of course, religious messages have utilized media since the dawn of communication. The newspaper usually publishes the Easter and Christmas letters of the local bishops to their faithful. Fiery preachers and novenas were heard daily on local radio, and the word “televangelist” was created for TV messengers.

We’ve written before about the sheer volume of full-time religious radio signals in the Erie market, however religion still plays a small yet important part of the broadcast day on secular stations.

Easily the most viewed local church program on TV is Fully Alive, Sunday mornings at 8:00 on WICU, produced by Erie First Assembly of God. For over two decades, the church has presented the message of their lead pastor, Rev. Jack Risner, and his predecessors with a high-quality, multi-camera production, including music, and sometimes drama and dance. Fully Alive usually wins its time-slot in the Nielsen’s.

Msgr. Tom Snyderwine

One of the enduring voices on the radio is of Msgr. Tom Snyderwine, with his Magnify broadcast on Sunday evenings at 7:00 on WJET-AM. Msgr. Tom is the pastor of St. Luke Catholic Church and has presented news, commentary, and Masses on his show since 1991. A quick jaunt over to the St. Luke website shows a well designed online presence, with links to past Magnify shows, online giving, and a bulletin download.

Even though the World Wide Web has been popular for at least 15 years now, it is shocking how many churches have yet to embrace its promise. One church that is not in that category is Grace Church in McKean. The church was made famous with its unique outdoor and online campaign “Who Is Grace” a few years back that tied in with the building of their new facility. On the whoisgrace.com website you’ll find excellent graphics, video announcements, and links to all of their social media sites. Churches like Grace, and my church, McLane Church in Edinboro, have found that sites like Facebook and Twitter are excellent and easy ways to engage your congregation and potential visitors.

On iTunes, you can find and subscribe to sermon podcasts of several Erie churches, including Erie Christian Fellowship, Grace Fellowship, Calvary Christian Center, and the Episcopal Cathedral of St. Paul. In fact, of all the podcasts tagged as coming from Erie, it’s the church offerings that are most popular.

Finally, one new social media site that allows churches to utilize smart phone technology right in their service is YouVersion.com. When parishioners sign up and login to YouVersion live, they can follow along with the sermon as its preached, write notes, and even answer a live question or e-mail a prayer request to the church, all using an iPhone or Blackberry app. McLane, Grace, and Erie First now offer this service for their smartphone carrying members.

Whether you celebrate in a high-tech way or low…Happy Easter!

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.